Tuesday November 16 I ran into some travel challenges. I was flying to St. Louis for the day, on a 6 a.m. flight from Milwaukee. I had it all scheduled: after getting the rental car, I would drive to the LWML office and spend several hours there, do my KFUO radio interview with Paul Clayton at 9:22 a.m. then go to Concordia Seminary to address the Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology Reunion (my main reason for going to St. Louis).

I arrived at the airport, checked the monitors to find the gate, and proceeded through security to the gate. Since I was only going for the day, I was able to travel light with just my briefcase. I was going to grab some breakfast, but decided to go to the gate first. Upon arriving there I saw the message that the flight was cancelled! Yuck. The airline I was on is not partners with any other airlines, so all of us on the flight were on our own to try to get to St. Louis.

All of the morning direct flights on another airline were full, so I ended up flying to Chicago then to St. Louis. Arriving at 10:20 a.m. I hustled to get to the rental car place and then drove to the seminary. I got there right around the time I was to speak.

After a quick day, I hurried back to return the car, then got dropped off at the airport for my 3 p.m. flight…that was delayed over two hours. Same airline as in the morning, do tell! I used the time to make some phone calls and catch up on a few things. which leads to another woe from that day; since I had used my cell phone a lot, I wanted to check the minutes left on my plan for the month, which I did once the plane landed in Milwaukee. My phone jammed at the end of the call; I could not turn it off, or get away from that screen. Very frustrating, especially since I was leaving on a 7:20 a.m. flight the next morning, and needed my cell phone.

Now, those of you who know me know that I have had relatively few travel problems in the 3 1/2 years that I have been LWML President, something I have never taken for granted, thanks be to God. There are even great things to share in the midst of this experience: I have wonderful support from my husband. He was the one I called when my plans changed (it’s ok, he was up; I tried to be really quiet, but he was awake when I left the house at 4 a.m.) and he made calls to my scheduled appointments for that morning, letting them know about the change in plans. When I got home at 8 p.m. he was going to take my cell phone back to Radio Shack where I had purchased it last spring.  Before leaving, he tried calling my cell phone, and that was all it needed to jog it back to working correctly. Even though my plans changed, I was still able to fulfill my commitment to speak with the pastors who serve in ethnic ministries within the LCMS.

It wasn’t exactly the way I had planned it, but my day was no surprise to my loving Heavenly Father; the One who establishes my steps (Psalm 37:23)