Flexibility Bracelets & South Africa

Thanks to Brentwood Baptist member Raja O'Brien, each person on our team is the proud owner of a flexibility bracelets.

What's a flexibility bracelet, you ask? Well, let me explain. It's a fine, one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted symbolic piece of jewelry. It's a gentle reminder that nothing is set in stone on this journey and the best way to handle the change that will inevitably come is with a happy heart and good attitude.

Who knew we'd have to use it so soon?

That's right, folks. Our first connecting flight to New York, which was then going to take us to Amsterdam, which was then going to lead us into Cape Town, is no more.

Apparently, there's some horrendous, torrential snowstorm in Amsterdam that's caused our travel demise. So we've been officially rerouted—from Nashville to Atlanta to Johannesburg to Cape Town. And we're only 3 hours into this thing.

SNAP. SNAP. SNAP. (That's me popping my flexibility bracelet.)

Certainly, there's a reason for everything. Our new friend at Delta Airlines, Shawn, worked hard on the itinerary revamp for an hour and got a Starbucks coffee from our crew out of the deal.

Who's to say that coffee and our friendly smiles and our conversations about where we were going and what we would be doing there won't be the very thing that ministers to him today. (Thank you, Shawn. You rock.)

And that's how it goes on a mission journey. We're expecting God to move. We're waiting and watching for it already. And He already has so far.

Thank you for your prayers along the way as we travel to Cape Town and minister alongside Living Hope (a Hope for the World Missions Offering partner) to the people in their surrounding communities. We'll take 'em.

SNAP. ... SNAP. SNAP. ... SNAP. SNAP.

P.S. Here are some of the extra curricular activities that our team members participated in during our 4-hour wait for the new flight. Hey...you have to find something to pass the time.