Friday, May 15th was a stressful day for us. Wrapping up our last minute plans, we packed into our van and headed for the airport. Walking through the hallways of JFK airport in New York City, Corinne and I finally understood the horror stories we had heard about flying with small children and bags.
After a 3 hour trek to get our baggage put back onto the right flight, Corinne and I finally settled into our seat on the Boeing 767 and the gravity of our journey began to set in. I had an aisle seat, and Carter was in the middle seat to keep him from escaping our aisle. This worked well, but secretly I was hoping that he wouldn’t be too much of a pest to our neighboring passenger.
A few minutes later, a woman in her 50’s sat down in the seat next to us. After watching me trying to keep Carter from pestering her, she leaned over to me and said “don’t worry, I am a Grandma” in good English, through a Hungarian accent. She soon was talking with Carter and soon after take off, Carter, a normally shy boy actually leaned over, put his head on her lap and went to sleep with her running her fingers through his hair. We didn’t hear from him until after we were on the ground in Budapest.
During the flight I began to chat with our new “grandma” and found out that she worked at the Hungarian Art Museum off of Hero Square. I related to her that two years ago when we were in Hungary we had tried to get into to see a Van Gogh exhibit that Corinne had been dying to see, only to find that it was sold out. She lit up.
“I put that exhibit together,” she said…..”it’s coming back in 2011. I told her that Corinne was an artist and loved art. She dug into her purse, produced a card and gave me specific instructions. “When you are able, call me before you come….we have no Van Gogh on exhibit now, but we have some in storage, come and I will give you a private viewing of Van Gogh.” Her card read Director of Art. She had been in the states giving lectures to art students at many prestigious colleges.
So here we were on an international flight, stressed out, and wondering what was ahead of. I had a delightful conversation with our neighbor, both boys slept the entire trip, and Corinne even managed to get a few hours of sleep with the boys occupied. I wonder if our neighbor knew that God was using her to add some rest to an otherwise draining day.
God works anywhere, and through anyone. At 33,000 feet Carter found a Grandma, Corinne, a fellow art lover, and I found a precious woman who wants us to meet her family. I don’t know her spiritual condition, but I’ve been praying that I get the chance to find out.
