Day 3 in Peru should have been one of our most challenging days, but once again we felt the hand of God abundantly in our lives, and came away with a deep appreciation for how the Lord can bless and strengthen us when we ask for his help. I also taught my kids about “but if not” prayers and how important it is to trust in the Lords will, no matter what happens. That God knows best and sometimes won’t grant what we ask for, but will always help and strengthen us to endure whatever it is he thinks we need to go through. He is so good like that. 🙂
It started the night before when Adam and I attempted to check in online for our flight to Cusco, but couldn’t find any link or information at all on our confirmation showing us where to do so. 😬 We tried googling the airline, but their website was down. We tried calling the company we bought the tickets through, but they only gave us more phone numbers to try, and no one seemed to be able to help us. So after hours of trying Adam just suggested we wait to check in at the airport since it was becoming such a hassle. So our plan was to get to the airport 2.5 hours early (even though it was a domestic flight) to give us extra time, but it all still felt a little fishy and I worried we’d been scammed). $15 flights to Cusco did seem to good to be true!
I woke up early the next morning and got laundry going, but was a little concerned because when I put the laundry in, the machine told me it would take over 5 hours to complete, WHAT? But we needed to leave for our flight way before then, so I contacted our host to see if we could stop the cycle mid way and get our laundry out (even if it was still a little wet). They assured me it should be fine as long as we held the unlock button down, but then we realized there was no unlock button! Adam tried googling the make and model to find out what else we could do, and it suggested cleaning out the lint filter, (the dryer was flashing HOT when we tried to stop the cycle, so we assumed it wasn’t letting us open for safety reasons), but when Adam went to clean out the filter, the washer/dryer combo started leaking huge amounts of water all over! Doh! But Adam tried everything under the moon the get it to open!
I also should mention that I’d spent quite a bit of time that morning trying to book a taxi, but Peru was having a mandatory lockdown that day and most services weren’t running, so I was running into issues there. We had the information of the taxi driver who had taken us from the airport when we first arrived, and I’d emailed, and texted him on two numbers with no luck, so even that didn’t seem to be panning out.
It was at this point that I enlisted the help of the kids to pray and ask God for help. It was also when I taught them about “but if not” prayers. We prayed that if it was God’s will, that we would be able to find a way to the airport AND get our laundry, and be able to check in okay, and make it to Cusco safely, BUT IF NOT, that we would be granted a portion of God’s patience to make it through whatever trial came our way that day. That we would respond with love and kindness, and keep upbeat and positive, and be granted additional strength. And you know what that is exactly what God helped us to do! ❤️
In the end, we ended up leaving our laundry in the dryer. This was after waiting over 50 minutes for our laundry to “cool down.”
The good news though? We eventually heard back from our original taxi driver and he luckily had time to take us to the airport! Yay for that!
When he arrived the dryer still hadn’t unlocked, so we had both him and and the apartment manager come up to see if they could figure it out, but nothing could be done. We ended up waiting until the last possible moment to leave for the airport to give the dryer as much time as possible to cool down, but in the end, we had to leave all the clothes in the dryer (which consisted mostly of our underwear and socks).
On the way to the airport though when I felt my stress levels rising since we were now leaving an hour later than expected WITHOUT our clothes, I felt a tender mercy from the Lord when one of our families favorites songs came on the radio… “Lets groove tonight” by Earth Wind and Fire. God knows dancing gets me out of a foul mood better than just about anything, and this particular song is one our whole family can’t help but sing and dance to!
And you know what? Within seconds of it coming on the radio, our whole family was boogie’ing on down in the car, and our mood completely shifted from one of stress, to one of happiness and joy. Even the words of the song brought me comfort. “Let this groove, get you to move, its’ alright, alright. Let this grove light up your fuse. It’s alright. Alright. Find your peace of mind on the floor. Take a little time, come and see, it’s you and me.”
Reminding me that two people can do anything as long as one is the Lord!
I wish I could say the crazy ended there, but it only got worse. When we got to the airport we couldn’t find our airline. Like anywhere. I eventually flagged down an airline worker and asked where we could find “Aerosvit Airlines.” His answer? “I’ve never heard of that airline, they definitely don’t fly out of here.” We showed him our confirmation and that it showed the Lima airport, but he again told us they didn’t operate there, but guided us to go check with some of the airlines that do fly to Cusco. He started to walk away, but then paused, and said, “let me just check to see if any airline is operating at your same time, and thankfully when he looked on his phone he saw that a company called Viva Air had the same flight time and aircraft number! YES! Still our flights showed Aerosvit airline, so we weren’t sure how that all would work.
But we went to the Viva Air counter, and thankfully they did have a reservation for us! The bad news? Because we hadn’t checked in online, they were going to charge us $20 PER PERSON to do it for us. Adding another $120 to our trip cost. Who does that?
Not only that, but Viva had different baggage allowances than Aerosvit which had allowed a personal item and 1 carry on for free, but Viva charged for carry ons, so we also had to pay $150 for our cary ons as well or $270 total.
Adam was pretty upset by all the added expenses, but because the kids and I had prayed and asked for a portion of God’s patience, I was feeling unusually calm. I also mentioned to Adam that even with the added fees we were still flying to Cusco for only $60 per person which was still a really good price. And If I’m being honest, I was just thrilled Vive had our reservation and were going to let us fly with them! When Adam checked other flights prices too, he found most were over $130, so that made him feel better too!
For some reason it took a ridiculous amount of time to check all 6 of us and our bags in, and by the time we were done we only had 20 minutes to get through security before our flight started boarding.
We speed walked to security as fast as we could, but once we got there the security people found that our tickets wouldn’t scan. 😩They had been printed too lightly or incorrectly and they wouldn’t let us through.
We explained that the counter had printed the tickets for us, but they said it didn’t matter, unless the ticket scanned, they couldn’t let us through. So I left Adam with the kids and luggage, and RAN down 2 halls and a flight of stairs back to the ticket counter to have them re-print the tickets (thankfully security had called down and alerted them I was on my way – so they had them ready) but then I had to RUN all the way back down 2 halls and up a flight of stairs back to security. By this time our flights were boarding and I was a sweaty mess! 🤪
I once again flagged down a worker, showed them our tickets and that we were boarding and they let us cut through the long line to x-ray bags, so we could get through as quickly as possible. Then we all ran to our gate to hopefully make our flight. We got there JUST as they called our section, and luckily walked right onto the plane. Yes! We made it! It felt Euphoric and So awesome! I was doing a happy dance! 💃🏻
However, now we had a new challenge. All our seats were in different places! INCLUDING Jamis and I. They hadn’t even sat us by our kids! Yikes. Thankfully some very nice passengers came to our rescue and were willing to switch so I could sit by Jamis and Adam could sit by Ady, but what a crazy crazy adventure!
As I finally sat down and could catch my breath, I uttered a silent prayer of gratitude. 🙏 Not only because we had indeed made our flights (by the skin of our teeth) but because there was no doubt in my mind that God had indeed strengthened us, and helped us all to respond with patience the trial set before us. I had felt so calm during the entire process. At peace that all would work out. And confident that whatever happened it was what was best for our family.
I told Adam that maybe if we learned to endure traveling trials better, we wouldn’t have to keep going through them! 😂 But we sure are grateful for the way God can strenthen us, help us, and grant us a portion of his patience when we ask for it, especially when things feel really heavy and hard. I’m so grateful for “but if not” prayers when God’s will is different from my own! We don’t always get what we want but God is always willing to grant us the strength to endure! ❤️
Oh and another tender mercy… when we did inventory later we all still luckily had enough underwear to get us through the next leg of our trip! 😂 Yay! Some pics flying in and driving to our next Airbnb in Ollytaytambo (1.5 hours away from the airport).
