Jay Kelly - 4/16 - 4/18

Carol and I and the girls are on the plane home from a Spring break visit to my parents’ house in Florida. It was mostly a time of relaxation and refreshment. One highlight of our trip was yesterday’s worship service with the Orlando Church of Christ. We walked in looking for old friends and found Kristin and Cyndy Hessell right away. They were members of the City Sector of the Seattle Church for years and years before making the Orlando Church their spiritual home. Kristin and Cyndy send their love to all of you , especially the singles. Eddie Francis, an Orlando Church elder, preached a great lesson on proper respect for authority. Lunch after church was a blast with Dennis and Lorna Heide, old ministry friends from Denver and LA days.

Boarding this flight I asked the stewardess what kind of plane it was (my dad, a retired airline pilot, always asks me and I never know, because I never care). She said, "OLD, I wish we were on one that wasn’t THIS old." I’m thinking maybe that wasn’t a wise response, but she looked like she’s been doing this job 15 years too long so I acted like it was normal for her to share her concern with a paying passenger. Just before we take off there is an abrupt stop and the pilot announces that some of the flaps aren’t working correctly and we have to spend 10 minutes with maintenance. Three hours later he says, "well, folks, they’re just spoiler flaps and we’d only need those to stop when landing in snow and ice, so we’re going to go ahead without them. It’s nothing to concern yourselves with." Then he says, "we also noticed that we were 2,000 pounds short on fuel for this trip, so after they finish filling us up we’ll be on our way. During the 3 hr tarmac stop I see two men walk to the bathroom with guns visible on their belts. I’m thinking that air marshals should hide their guns so that the evil terrorists don’t know who to kill first with their nail files and shampoo bombs. Later I see the criminal in cuffs, leather straps and chains sitting in the back seat between them and feel much better about the gunmen doing their jobs. You can’t make this stuff up. We felt like we were on the set of a sitcom. We prayed, we flew, we landed and we’re thanking God for our return to Seattle, a city with no snow or ice on its runways.