Blessings - Big & Small

If yesterday was a hurry up and wait day, today was not! At least not once we boarded our airplane. After learning that our flight was cancelled, we began to call to get arrangements switched. Our first call to Copenhagen (because we were flying SAS Airlines, which is Scandinavian), gave us a new flight out which would have left Monday evening at 10 p.m. Two days past our initial date. Another passenger suggested calling their Paris number since that was our flight destination. A good choice, because a very helpful man asked, “How soon do you want to leave?” (Bless him!) I said, “Well, we are at Chicago O’Hare already, so we are ready now!” That got us a 6 p.m flight non-stop to Paris. :)

After having spent roughly 28 hours in the Chicago airport, we were very excited when the plane arrived at the gate, the crew showed up, and we were finally asked to board.

Of course, we cleared TSA as early as we were allowed (12 hrs prior to take off) and zipped right through security. But we didn’t have seat assignments. Once we realized this, we went to the United desk to ask and they explained that the attendants at the gate for our flight were the only ones who could give us seats.

And of course, we arrived at our gate quite early, too. So early, in fact, that they were boarding the last of the passengers on a flight to Frankfurt. The lady working the gate for that flight struck up a conversation with us. She asked if we were waiting for that flight, and we said no and explained a bit about our situation and had a fun conversation. Then I asked if she could get our seat assignments or if we would have to wait for our crew to arrive. First, she said only they could make the assignments. Then she said, “Let me see something.” Then she stealthily threw us new boarding passes! :) Not only did she give us seats…together…but also the roomiest seats in the Economy section because they were the first row, right behind the bathrooms (a small blessing for me!) with plenty of leg room for Eric (a big blessing for him!).

And then our day of waiting ended! We had reservations on a train to St Jean Pied de Port that boarded at 12:25 p.m. And we were due to land in Paris at 9:30 a.m. And, we didn’t realize at the time…but the train station was on the other side of town. (See, if didn’t matter before because we were supposed to land on Sunday morning and catch the train on Monday. Plenty of time…) So, we grabbed our luggage, grabbed a taxi (with a driver who spoke NO English) and began our trek (with only a small question mark in our minds about whether we were indeed going where we needed to go). 

Eric and Rachel on the train from Paris to Bayonne

We arrived at the train station at 11:50 a.m., with just enough time to find the information desk and ask how to know what platform to depart from and grab a quick sandwich to take with us (but no water). We board the train and take a deep breath. We sat next to a lovely lady who gave me a small bottle of water! Needless to say, we ate and slept! But, as we near our stop, we hear people talking and realize our train is behind schedule. And we have a connection to make between Bayonne and St Jean Pied de Port. Suddenly, we begin to wonder if we will make our connection! What was scheduled to be 30 minutes to make our connection turned into getting off the train, finding the platform and watching the training we need pull up. By the time we put our heads to pillows on Monday night, we are back on schedule for our journey! Not without challenges, but full of blessings.

Train from Bayonne to St Jean Pied de Port

Here are a few that come to mind:

A lovely taxi driver who doesn’t speak English, but transfers us smoothly and calmly through heavy Paris traffic and refuses to take a tip.

A kind lady who shares her water on the train and refuses to accept my attempt to replace it.

A lovely little French woman who carried on a conversation with a group of people on the train. She wasn’t talking to our family, and none of us understood anything she said, but it was a joy to watch her talk. She smiled freely and her face lit up with her words. She got off the train just before our stop and stood on the platform and smiled and waved as our train pulled away. Not because she knew a single person on that train. She had been talking to Peregrinos (pilgrims on the Camino), but she had made a connection.

And then there was the blessing of arriving in St Jean Pied de Port. It’s hard to put into words. We sat on the train from Paris and noticed that a man across the aisle from us carried a backpack and there was a shell attached to it (the sign of the pilgrim). We had spotted our first Pilgrim! We were so excited!! But then, we got to our platform for the last leg of our journey from Bayonne to St Jean, and suddenly they were EVERYWHERE! A full train and the vast majority were hauling backpacks, dressed to walk, carrying pilgrim gear. We wonder where they all came from, how they converged on Bayonne. What an amazing site. That’s when it got real! We weren’t dressed like them (yet) and we weren’t hauling our backpacks like them (yet). But we WERE them!

I think there must be an analogy in there somewhere… I guess as Christians, we may think we are a dying breed. We see ones and twos. We see the obvious ones because they wear it like a Pilgrim shell (or a cross) on their backpacks (or around their necks). We might not see the ones traveling incognito. But, every so often, we see a group converge…and it is wonderful.