Air Port Madness

Hey we are home! Here is the low down and the skinny on our wild trip home from Nigeria. We left Abuja at 9 pm and were schedule to arrive in Frankfurt at 10 am. Note: Before we got on the plane we went for a team hike IN OUR TRAVEL CLOTHES! We figured that we would dry off before we got to the airport but we were still muddy. We also managed to soak our tennis shoes so five of us boarded the plane in flip-flops. When we got to Frankfurt we found out that because of storms the plane from Frankfurt to PDX the day before had been grounded and thus our plane was over booked. The peeps at Lufthansa were offering €600 to the first 18 people to give up their seats. (That's $900 back here) We of course jumped on it and had our flights rearranged so that we would land in Philly at 5 pm and be home at PDX by 8:30. When we got to Philly US Air told us that Lufthansa hadn't actually booked us tickets but had just given us receipts to pay for them. We were able to get Amanda and Chad on the plane with all of our luggage. We then had to go to the Lufthansa desk to see if they would put us up for the night. When we got to the desk they were closed so we called their 1 800 number that was supposed to be available 24/7 and they weren't available( so much for 24/7 huh). Here is the situation, Scott is trying to reach the people who answer the phone 24/7, Katherine and Whitney were praying, and I was counting down the seconds before I went to the US Air desk and demanded to see the manager. When all of a sudden a Lufthansa employ comes out of the back room looking for us. She said she had seen us get off the plane but hadn't seen us make our connecting flight. We explained the situation and she took our paper work to see what she could do. Turns out that the mistake was by US Air but Lufthansa offered to put us up for the night and get us new flights with United. We decided to fly out to San Fran at 6 am on the United plane so she booked us a night in the Sheridon economy hotel across the street and gave us dinner and breakfast money. When we got to the hotel they told us they were over booked so they rewrote our form and sent us to the Sheridan's 4 star business hotel across the parking lot. After a good dinner and our first sleep on beds in weeks we were able to bathe and fly out for the west coast. When we got up we had a message from Chad saying that US had lost all of our baggage so we checked in Philly but it wasn't there. When we got to PDX we checked and they said it would take a few days but they would FedEx them to Chad's house when they arrived. We got a call from them when we were on our way home saying that some of the bags had arrived so my family went back and got 9 of the 11 team bags. (the other two will be at Chad's house by tonight) I want to say thank you for all your prayers and support. A special thanks to those who went out of there way to be at prayer every morning to keep us safe and to the Sabo family in Virginia who offered to rescue us from Philly if the flights didn't get worked out. I may post more later so stay tuned, Hopefully I will be doing this same blog again next year. Sincerely, DragonRunner11