The Hand of God in London (Part 1)

As usual, while traveling on British Airways between the continents of Africa and North America, I was forced to stay the night in London due to a layover of nearly 24 hours. Usually we just sleep on the seats in Heathrow's Terminal 1, but since I was traveling alone on this particular occasion, I took advantage of an invitation to stay with a brother I had previously met at the Calvary Chapel Bible College in California who lives in the London area. This brother's name is Ayo (he's originally from Nigeria, that's why he has such a cool name), and he serves the Lord at Calvary Chapel Docklands in East London. When I was a couple of weeks away from coming through I sent Ayo an email to cash in on his offer. He informed me that since returning to London from school in California, he was still looking for steady work and a place to live. But that wasn't a problem, because he hooked me up with another brother in Christ named Patrick, a pastor at Calvary Chapel South London (both CCSL and CC Docklands sprang from the church plant of CC Westminster that Brian Brodersen started several years ago).

Upon landing at London Heathrow airport and hearing the beautiful 'ding' of the seatbelt sign - the signal for the human herd aboard to all stand up at once and begin grabbing for luggage and shoving various body parts into each other - I stood with the other animals and awaited the opening of the pen door. As I did so, the gentleman sitting one row up and over with his wife and baby apologized for his fussy son's screaming sonnets throughout the flight. I replied that it was no problem and commented that I have four of my own. Then I realized from his speech that he was British. I casually asked him about the best public transportation route to 'East Dulwich' - the London neighborhood I was headed to in order to stay with complete strangers at the request of a brother I had met and talked to in the States for only a few hours (I love being part of such a big family). My fellow passenger quickly and calmly replied, "We live in East Dulwich. You can ride with us if you don't mind the baby." I had to ask him to repeat himself. I probably sounded like a typical American, deaf to most words of English as spoken by the English. But the truth is that his answer was so shocking that I thought I actually must have been mishearing his English English! He repeated it again and I was so surprised and humbled that I nearly didn't accept the offer. Finally I repeated what he said as a way of thrice clarifying the situation. He nodded that I had heard him correctly and then I accepted. It was definitely a divine appointment. When I told him that I had to stop and ask British Airways a question, he didn't even flinch. He told me it would be no problem and that they would wait for me. So we left the airplane together and headed for baggage claim.

As I had no luggage to claim, I headed straight for the British Airways counter to talk to them while my benefactors stood at the waiting wheel for their bags. I took the elevator up to the airline counters and looked for the right place to ask my question. Oh, my question was a doozy by the way. When an agent was available I walked up and told her plainly, "I just landed and have an overnight layover. I'm scheduled to leave tomorrow afternoon. I'm a missionary who has made this trip many times and have never left the airport. When people ask me what London is like, I always reply, 'which terminal'. So, I'd like to actually leave the airport and visit a church here in London on Sunday. Is there any way you could change the remaining leg of my ticket from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning? Oh, and I don't have any money to pay for it." That's almost word for word what I said. I kid you not. She looked at my ticket and saw that I was indeed on a missionary fare. She asked her co-worker if she could change it without charging me and he thought it sounded fine. She did the stereotypical fast-finger typing made famous by many-a-movie and printed out a new ticket for me. Done. Once again, I was shocked. I had to ask her, "Did you already do it?" She had. And she was really nice about it too! Clearly God was interested in allowing me to visit the church family in London.

So I headed downstairs and hooked up with my ride - Rob, Liz, and their 16-month old little one, Henry. We caught a bus out to long-term parking and piled into their brand new BMW X5 (that's an SUV) with leather interior and seats that were much more comfortable than the airplane's. Not only did God allow me to change my ticket and hook me up with a free ride, He hooked me up with a NICE ride! If I had taken public transport as planned, it would have cost about $10 and taken about an hour and a half on two different subways, an overground train, and a bus! Riding with the Cassidys was approximately 40 minutes of luxurious comfort and pleasant conversation. They even offered to share there little miniature hot dog snacks with me, which a politely declined (the British eat some strange things).

So that's how God got me to London. More about my hosts and the rest of the brothers and sisters I had the awesome pleasure of spending time with later.