A Colonial Wedding and Lessons in my Lack of Invincibility

Life has been up and down and all around lately, and now that I'm back to some semblance of normalcy, it's time to reflect and share. In the past few weeks I've learned a lot of lessons, all of which point back to how blessed I am.

At the end of July Danny left for a 10-day youth mission trip to Alaska. They had an amazing time and he has some great stories to share, but he'll have to blog about that himself. (A little encouragement from a handful of our readers might help.) While he was gone I realized how glad I am to be married to him! It was no fun being a bachelorette for ten days. Without my sister to come keep me company and listen to my stories I may have gone nuts. Luckily, five of the ten days he was gone I was also traveling. I flew to Williamsburg Virginia to attend the wedding of one of my Japan teammates. Four of the five of us were at the wedding, and we called the fifth on speakerphone to have some team time again (we missed you Timbo). I can't explain how lucky I am to have these friends! Getting together with them is so much fun, and there are parts of me that no one else understands like they do (such as my Japanese vocabulary).

Leah, the bride, was raised in Williamsburg and is very proud of her colonial heritage, so the wedding took place in the Historic Jamestown church. The church is the oldest in the US, and legend says that Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married there (although facts say otherwise, but oh well). It was beautiful! The reception was at the Williamsburg Inn, another colonial historic building, and also where the queen stayed recently for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. Leah and her new husband Frazer were glowing all day and I'm so happy for them! Leah picked a fantastic guy to marry, and you can tell he's crazy about her. He's from New Zealand so I really enjoyed spending time with him and his Kiwi family and friends. Did you know New Zealanders call swim trunks "togs"? Our Virginian hosts were also very gracious (and generous to loan us their van multiple times) and it was great to get to know Leah's family and new husband. We even talked Frazer into getting pedicures with us (no polish of course) and we reassured him he wasn't the first poor guy to be dragged into a nail salon with the three of us. I think Tim is really glad to finally have some more guys around with Frazer and Cass's fiance Alex!




The wedding and time in Virginia was awesome, but getting there was another story. I won't go into the whole saga, but the short story is that my connecting flight from Dallas to Richmond was cancelled so I was almost stranded in Dallas (and the Blocks almost had a surprise houseguest, which would have been fun!) but I really needed to get to Virginia that night to help with the wedding rehearsal the next day. I ended up flying into Norfolk around 2 am, in a different city than both my rental car and my luggage. About 24 hours and a million phone calls later I met up with both the car and my luggage, and I learned a lot of travel lessons in the meantime. Here's a rundown for you future travelers:
1) Don't prepay for a rental car. You might as well have signed the contract in blood and no changes can be made, even if your flight was cancelled and you are stranded due to no fault of your own - unless of course you want an upgrade, then they are glad to change your reservation and take your money!
2) It doesn't matter what flight you're on, what city you land in, or what it says in the computer -- the only thing that matters is what is on the luggage tag, your bag is going there no matter where you end up.
3) Never assume anything a person tells you is true. Call back and talk to someone else and double check. Phrases like "Oh sure your friend can pick up your car" and "I'm re-routing your bag right now so it will be on your flight" cannot be trusted.
4) Don't use Hotwire. They don't understand that you actually want to get to your destination on the same day you left home.
5) Having friends who will: a) loan you their parents car to drive to an airport in the middle of the night - twice; b) drive to the airport to pick you up in the middle of the night; c) search the airport for your lost luggage while you're describing it to them over the phone; d) loan you their clothes and toiletries until yours arrive; e) be worth flying across the country for -- that's priceless!

So the travel problems were my first lessons in my lack of invincibility. I have never packed an extra set of clothes in my carry-on, and for domestic flights I don't even take a toothbrush or contact solution (or expensive items and important medication) in my carry-on. I scoff at the possibility of losing my luggage because that never happens to me! Needless to say I've been a bit humbled.

My second lesson in my lack of invincibility came Monday after returning from Williamsburg. Coming home from work I rear-ended someone in stop and go traffic and did some serious damage to my trusty Honda. No one was hurt thankfully, so it's just a big headache. And I feel like a dummy. After the initial tears and fears and nightmare of logistics, I've been actually calm about the whole ordeal. That's not to pat myself on the back, but I think after my initial freak-out I realized how materially blessed I am to even have a car, let alone three between Danny and me. Additionally, his youth group van, which was going to be my back-up this week, broke down and is now stranded somewhere outside of Chico. So I'm borrowing my sister's car this week and possibly my mother-in-law's next week, which is again just humbling and reminding me of how lucky I am! It's unbelievable how many options I have for transportation and how many people are willing to help. There are people around the world who walk three hours one-way to work, or just to find food. I don't dare complain.

It's been an interesting lesson to examine how materialistic I am. Can I honestly say "it's just luggage" or "it's just a car"? Or am I more attached to those things than I should be? The night I came home after my accident, Danny was still gone so it was even more frustrating to be home alone after a stressful day. I was worried about my car and how I was going to get around the next few weeks, and the beginning of Psalm 23 came into my head: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." So I started reading Psalm 23, and when I finished I read Psalm 24 which begins "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it." I had to have a few of my posessions taken away (albeit temporarily) to realize that I do have all I need, I should not be in want, and all I have is God's anyway because he has given me everything good in my life.

Sorry this turned into a mini-sermon. I don't blog often but when I do I can't seem to stop rambling. I'll end with a few more fun pictures from my adventures with Cass, her fiance Alex, and Tim in Jamestown. After the happy couple was married the four of us took a day to sightsee (and sweat a lot!) in the historic Jamestown Settlement. We got to climb on replicas of the British ships that settled there, try on colonial armor and tour replicas of a Native American village and Colonial fort.