We took two flights home, from Phuket to Bangkok and Bangkok to Mae Sot, both on a small Asian airline. We arrived safely, but I will say they adjusted our flight times by at least two hours on the way there and the way back, so it all seems a little disorganized.
For an in-flight treat, they handed out brown lunch sacks with a child-sized water and some odd Asian treat that my Western tongue generally didn’t appreciate.
Until our last flight.
We’re with about twelve other people on a little propeller plane to Mae Sot, and Stephen turns around his brown paper bag and sees its sealed with a sticker and a logo we recognize.
With hope, he asks, “Auntie Anne’s?”
This is one of his favorite treats–an Auntie Anne’s soft pretzel. I open my bag and see there is, in fact, an Auntie Anne’s bag inside.
I was shocked, thinking they had just found free stickers or something, and replied, “Wow, it’s your lucky day. It is Auntie Anne’s!”
I pull out the small bag and open it to find, instead of a pretzel, a 3″ pizza. It might have been 4″ before it got smashed, but it was now oblong, cold, and topped with a mystery “meat” and “cheese.” I tried a small, risky bite.
“Oh, and it has pineapple.” …Which Stephen hates.
“Awesome.”
And then we laughed. Pretty hard. Because we’re back.
We exited the plane into a dreary rain within the hour, and came back to our house to discover our water pump broke while we were gone. So now we’re trying to get enough water into the house to at least flush the toilet until we can sort it out tomorrow.
This past week was more of a blessing than I could say.
And I suppose that’s really it: I can’t describe it. I can’t describe how much God knew exactly when we needed to go and where and orchestrated every moment. I can’t describe how thankful I am for that breath of fresh air and the weight lifted from our shoulders.
And now we return to this–whatever this is. In Stephen’s words, “It’s good to home, listening to kids arguing in a language I don’t understand.”