My son’s senior year in high school, he and I headed to Honduras on a ‘mission trip’. The church wanted to put on a Vacation Bible School for about 600 kids. We packed our bags, bugs-pray, sunscreen, and our passports. We had gone to London to visit family seven years before, so we had our passports and we were ready to go. After boarding the second leg in our flight, the high school students giggled as they looked at each other’s passport, checking out the photos. It was only at this point that one of the kids saw that our son’s passport had expired a couple years prior. We had checked my passport but didn’t realize that adult’s passports expire every ten years, but all passports for anyone under 18 expire in five years. We were about to land in a third world country and my son had an expired passport. Huge parent fail! I spoke with the organizer of the trip, he had been to this area four to five times a year, and he assured me that my son would have no problems getting in or out of Honduras, our issue would be getting back into the United States. Just like he promised, they stamped both our passports and sent us on our way, as we entered Honduras. During the week, I must admit that although I was leading the VBS, I was very distracted and found myself laying in bed at night stressed about how I would get my son back into the US. The week was a success. Many children learned about Jesus on their level, in their language, for the first time.
When it was time to go home, I pulled the organizer aside, he assured me that I just needed to do what I did entering Honduras, give the clerk both passports at the same time, be very pleasant, try to get in line behind someone that was causing a scene, and pray. When we left Honduras we got in line behind a mom with a crying child. The mom and screaming child finally left the customs agent’s window and it was our turn. I handed him my 2 passports and began to try and make small talk with the clerk. All he said was ‘at least your kid is well behaved,’ as he stamped the expired passport and handed it back to me. One down, one to go.
The Lord and I had a very long conversation as we flew from Honduras to Dallas, Texas. The urgency in my prayers ramped up as we landed and headed to the customs area. As the rest of our group worked their way though the paperwork, lines, and eventually the customs agent, we found another traveling mom, a baby on her hip, a stroller, and two toddlers running around out of control. We tucked ourselves in line behind them. They stood at the customs window for what seemed to be forever as the mom tried to comfort the tiny baby, the toddlers kept climbing in and out of the stroller, and she frantically looked through her belongings to locate all the paperwork required of her. When she left, I questioned my choice of the line as the customs agent yelled at us to hurry up to his window. He grabbed the passports from my hand and ran them through his machine. His computer made a funny noise as he ran my son’s passport through the machine over and over and over again. I asked him how his day was going, and he scowled. Frustrated, he ran the passport though fast then slow, turning it, and even straightening the pages. He set it aside and ran my passport though the machine without a glitch. He tried my son’s passport a few more times. The line behind us was backing up more and more. He looked super close at my passport, seeing where we had been, what countries had stamped my passport. Finally the agent said, ‘there must be something wrong with the machine.’ He stamped both passports, handed them to me and yelled ‘Next!’ My son and I walked out of there a fast as we could, without bringing attention to ourselves.
I lost a lot of sleep that week stressing out about my son’s expired passport. After we got home, we were able to laugh and joke about how I messed up so bad by not looking close enough to the details. Once we were on the plane to Honduras, everything was in God’s hands. I trusted that God would take care of us, and make sure we would get home safe. I turned the situation over to Him and made sure that these little Honduras souls were being fed. But, like all of us do so often, at night when we went to bed, I pulled that back out of God’s hands, and worried about things. In the morning I would turn things back over to the Lord, and again at night, I took the problem back on myself. God had a plan to get my son home. I just needed to have faith, and trust Him to show me the right path… in this case the right custom’s line to stand in.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6
