Miracle

Tonight after dinner they announced that all 52 of us have flights to Jerusalem that leave between now and Saturday.  There are ELEVEN different groups leaving at different times and taking different paths. Miracle. I am in the first group to leave. Blessing. At 6:45AM, I go from Phoenix to Charlotte NC to Washington DC to Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. Insane. 

Just to prove to you how hard BYU has been working.......there was a group of 24 Israelis and their families working here this summer for Intel.  There visas have expired because of this canceled flight and Intel must pay10,000 dollars a day for each of them. They aren't leaving until Monday. US Airways is being sued. And our travel agents are super heroes, at least to us.  (There are some from this Intel group staying at our hotel. That's how we know this.)

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. It will be a miracle if we all make it to Jerusalem.

The Valley of the Sun

Aside from the confines my parents vegetable garden held for me as a child, an airport is the most jail-like, freedom-less place I've experienced.  If you've ever felt trapped in an airport after a flight cancellation when traveling by yourself, imagine the immobility I felt yesterday in the Phoenix airport, knowing that because of our canceled flight, I was trapped until US Airways found a flight to Israel for 52 people.

For the most part the we stayed hopeful.....as least for the first 4 hours, sitting, talking and sleeping at Gate A22. Then we caught wind of the next available flight to Tel Aviv--Tuesday.  "Wait, what? Today is Tuesday. So that is in, like, a week.  A week? No way. There's no way. That's an entire week of our trip. What are we going to do for a week?" Those are the kinds of things we said to each other. 

Four hours after that (that makes eight hours. same airport.) we were being herded to the front doors where we were to be shuttled to a hotel 15 minutes away. Fifteen minutes doesn't seem like it is too far until you find out there is only one shuttle and the shuttle can only take 10 people at a time.

While waiting for a shuttle I decided to borrow someone's phone to call my parents and tell them what was up. (The reason I was borrowing a phone is they told us adamantly not to bring phones, even for travel purposes. Luckily 12 people brought their phones anyway.) You know how sometimes you think you're okay until someone you really love asks you if you're okay? All it took was hearing my Dad's surprised voice, "Hi Lizzy, where are you? Are you okay," to get all chocked up and weepy. "Yeah Dad, I really am fine. I'm in Phoenix. Yeah, I know we didn't make it very far. Yeah.......yeah, it is sad. Yeah, I guess I'm pretty disappointed. Yeah, I'm fine." 

An hour and a half later we arrived at the hotel. The hotel I'm in right now, hiding from the sun. Because like the flight attendant said when we landed here, in a 'bobby don't cha know' sort of voice, "it's just about a million degrees outside."

I'm here. In Phoenix. And I don't know when I'm going to leave. But I do know it will be before the weekend because Todd, BYU's travel agent is a super hero and he's saving the world one booking at a time. Actually it's at least three bookings, because we have to travel in groups of three and the 52 of us will all be split up and sent to different airports across the world, Pairs, Vienna, and Africa. But we'll all end up at the same place.  And really it's not so bad. Nothing bonds people more than crisis. And so we're all bonding and being positive and enjoying the free meals we're getting from the airport meal vouchers. 

A few pictures of this ordeal.

Mom and I before I left. She did mountains of work to help me get ready for this trip. Thanks mom. I love you.

Gate A22

After being in the airport for nine hours....still waiting for the shuttle to come.

Still waiting for the shuttle.

 Phoenix.

The best way to pack

is to not own anything.

Here's to throwing things away and moving. And here's to anticipating two weeks of English, family and backpacking with my Dad!

Happy thoughts.

Richer than kings

Once my parents were living in their basement because their upstairs was being remodeled. While this was happening I was with my mom in said basement looking through a box full of old note cards, as in cards that you send to people. These were old cards, people, that belonged, originally, to one of my mom's deceased uncles. I think?

While sifting through these forgotten would-be-messages, I fell in love with this card. I asked my mom to give it to me, and so she did. Mom's do that sometimes. I asked her to write something inside of it, and she did that too.

Dear Elizabeth,
You are blessed. You's not poor! You've gotta Mama and a Papa, some Brudas and some Sistas. You got the moon and the sun and the stars. You's not poor, baby, no, you's not poor..... Miss Elizabeth you's richer than kings.

She right., right? Yeah. she is. About me. And probably about you too. You's not poor baby, you's richer than kings.