This Is A Trip!

Wow! We had another great night of revival last night and we appreciate all of you joining us. We are thankful, so thankful for the positive comments and encouragement. Please join us tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern. You can see last night's service Here.



Normally Wednesday is Vintage View time, but we have honestly been a little busy with our online revival. I have not taken time to sort through the dusty archives. Times, they are a changing, so we will roll with it day by day and see what happens.

The 17 hour difference from New Zealand and the 15 hour difference from Australia are kicking us in the knees pretty bad. We had almost zero trouble traveling west on our way down under, but coming back east has been a beast.

KJo and I have been comparing it to the 6-9 hour change to Africa. We have very little trouble adjusting when we make the westward trip home, but there have been times the eastward trip to Nigeria whips us the whole time we are there. Somebody tell me, can the direction of travel make a difference? I know it is not all in our head, it is in bed too. We are wacked out every night.

Even if we can not sleep at night or in the day, we are glad to be back in the BoggsMobile. It is home! 

Edit Wednesday morning: Another night of struggling to sleep ended with some clarity in my mind. Early this morning I was reminded that nothing, No Thing, takes the place of gathering with the saints of God, in one place, to worship the Lord, hear His Word and fellowship with one another. Nothing takes the place of that. 

In these trying times, we are doing the best we can to have church without the blessed privilege of gathering together. We are socially distant, but it is God's will for us to be spiritually in sync. God, bring us together in your house and in your will and in your Spirit. Until then, keep our hearts and minds stayed on you and not ourselves!
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I need to tell you about our trip back to the USA.

Our ship docked in Sydney very early in the morning on Thursday, March 19. We were up and getting ready to leave shortly after 6:00. Kelly Jo had completed most of the work the day before so we had a fairly leisurely morning preparing for our scheduled 8:20 departure from the ship.

They called our designation on time and we walked off the ship with all of our luggage on schedule. They were releasing us in small groups so we were able to keep our distance from everyone.

We rolled our luggage less than 1/2 mile to the train station and boarded the train easily. There were only two others on our train car and they were from the ship as well.

Less than 30 minutes later, we were at the airport making our way through the process. We parked ourselves at a near empty gate, one space from our departing gate and settled in for our three hour wait.

The boarding process began late and the plane took off late, but with 15.5 hours ahead of us, what difference does 30-40 minutes make among friends? The plane finally catapulted down the runway at 2:35 PM Thursday afternoon.

The pilot said they caught a good breeze and 14 hours and 25 minutes of time traveling later we landed in Dallas at 1:00 PM on Thursday afternoon. So we landed one hour and 25 minutes Before we took off. Not bad!

The lap times in the picture below were the intervals that I walked around and exercised my legs. That is vital to avoiding blood clots on long flights.

This is where our sprint began. When we landed in Texas, we had one hour and 52 minutes until our next plane was scheduled to leave and the plane door was scheduled to close 10 minutes before that. That time period is no problem when all you have to do is catch the train and move from terminal D to Terminal B.

But we had to go through international customs, collect our checked baggage, wait in line to drop off our luggage in a different place, go completely through security again, walk to the train, ride the train from terminal D to terminal B and walk to the very last gate at the end of the terminal B. We walked onto the plane with 5 minutes to spare. (15 minutes before the scheduled departure)

We were the last people to board the plane that was 3/4 empty and we had big smiles of relief on our faces. Although we could not sleep on the long overseas flight, both of us dozed a little on the way to Knoxville.

Here we are near the end of our flight.

An hour or so after we landed, we had collected two of our three bags and we were on our way to the Green Machine and ultimately the BoggsMobile. One of our bags missed the flight and was flying into Knoxville later in the evening. They delivered it to us Friday morning.

As I mentioned, we arrived at the bus at 6:30 PM Thursday evening. We both wanted to go straight to bed, but we wanted to wait until "regular" bedtime. That usually helps with adjusting time zones. We both stayed busy and by the time we ate and cleaned up, it was 10:00. Wow! Lights Out!

I managed to hang in until 4:00 AM and considered it a success! Unfortunately, that is the best night's sleep either of us has had since. Hang on, it is bound to get better.

That is the trip that brought us back to the United States. We were able to avoid crowds for the most part. The only exception was the crowded plain from Sydney, but even then, we had an empty seat beside us. We have not been near anyone since then.

Thank you for joining us today. See you tonight at revival.

Davy