The Paris airport is not the easiest place to get around, especially when you don't speak French! Everything was going smoothly. Flights were all smooth, take offs and landings were great, and our seats were fine. We were tired from our long flight over "The Pond", for neither of us slept well, but when we arrived in Paris, we knew we had only 3 more hours until our destination.
We gathered our carry on baggage and headed for the next gate. Like I said, Paris is not an easy place to manuever around, but we asked employees and they helped us as much as they could. It is amazing how many people in the foreign countries know English!
We had met an amazing young lady in the customs line who was traveling on her own at the age of 21. She had been staying in the United States for the past 3 months selling books to help with her education. When she arrived in California 3 months earlier, she didn't know a single bit of English, but now could speak fluently.
She was heading home to Warsaw, Poland, and her flight would take off from the same gate area as ours. We struck up a conversation with her, for Keith and I are softies for these young kids who travel abroad....especially all by themselves.
All 3 of us were walking to find our gate. We were a little confused about the way to the next concourse, so again we stopped for help. The lady sitting at the desk pointed us in the right direction, and off we went again.
When we got ready to turn for the gate, Keith looked down and did not see our passports in his hands. He looked at me and said, "where are the passports?" We both began to panic for we knew he had had them in his hands when we went through customs. We stopped, took everything out of our bags, looked in every crook and cranny, and every pocket. Still no passports.
We had already passed through a security gate, so there was no going back to retrace our steps without a security officer. We remembered stopping at the lady's desk. That had to be where they were. Keith must have laid them down when we stopped for directions. If we could just get back to her, we were sure they were on her desk.
We immediately went to the information desk. A security officer saw the looks on our faces. She called the lady at the information desk that we had stopped and talked to, she didn't have any passports. The security officer came from behind a thick glassed desk. She knew the heaviness of our situation. She would escort only one of us to retrace our steps through security. There wasn't much time to debate, only Keith could go with her.
My mind was going 90 miles an hour. I was calculating the time it would take us to get to the gate, and load on board.....what if we missed our flight? Would another flight be soon? BUT, most importantly....where could our passports be? What if they were gone forever? What would we do then? We have 5 more countries to enter.....OH MY.....it was too much to fathom.
I found a bench, pulled our carry on bags to my side and began to pray. The song "Take it to the Lord in prayer...." began to play over and over in my head. A calm, and peace came over me.....I knew the Lord was right there beside me. He was giving me the peace that I needed.
The security officer had taken Keith to AirFrance Guest relations and asked if there was any sign of our passports. The man barely looked up from his work, and answered "NO". She rushed Keith back through security, to the desk of the lady we had asked information of earlier. The woman confirmed she did not have the passports. The security officer tried to knock on the door of the customs officer, and was stopped by a police officer. He was carrying a UZZI gun. She hastily explained the situation and the police officer opened the door, but still no passports.
She told Keith at this point that our only hope was to go to Air France ticketing, and hopefully someone had turned them in. Then she walked away, and left him alone.
Keith started back down through security and headed towards the AirFrance ticket area just as he was instructed to do. He began to sense that he needed to go back and check with guest relations just one more time. ( I am so thankful that my husband listens to the Holy Spirit!) The security officer was coming out of the area with a frantic look on her face, but when she saw Keith she started smiling. Behind her was a woman carrying two American passports, with the name "Wooden" on both of them. She said, "You are one lucky man".
Luck? I don't think so.
Keith hugged both the French women, and as he put it, "the French are not fond of being hugged by big, frantic, American men".
It seemed like for ever until I saw Keith and the security officer round the corner, but I could tell the minute I saw Keith's face that the passports had been found. I also tried to hug the French lady, not knowing Keith had already tried. They are not huggers! However, she did have a big smile on her face.
There wasn't much time to celebrate, we had a plane to catch. We literally ran from the place we discovered the missing passports to our gate that was 5 minutes away. So much had happened in the past 20 minutes.
Thankfully, when we arrived at the gate. Our plane had been delayed for take off. They were just beginning to board.
Again....coincidence? I don't think so.
There is something to be said for believers that are praying in unison. We are so thankful for all of you back home that are in the cadence of prayer with us.
Love you....
Delaine
This was so exciting to read!!!
ReplyDelete