I soon woke up.
As we were walking down to the entrance, people starting running past us. Running. I heard shouting and yelling. Arms raising in fists.
“Walk a little faster,” I encouraged her. “Don’t look back.”
The police had already formed a line across the entrance by the time we got to the door. They squeezed us past only after she waved her ticket. We managed to get into the terminal and I caught a glimpse of a mass of people swarming in a tangle of fists and shoving outside. I frantically texted Brant that a riot was breaking out. The airport went into lockdown mode. What do I do?
All my training kicked in. So thankful for that training. Look for a place to escape. A place to hide. For things that could be thrown or used as weapons. (Not that I would use them, but to try to figure out what people could hurl at each other.) Look for people in the crowd I might know from church; perhaps another missionary traveling off island today. No one.
The police came in. Doors were locked. We were safe inside. Witnesses to the chaos on the other side of the glass. Safely behind the glass. I prayed the glass would hold. I frantically texted Brant again. We couldn’t talk on the phone. It was too loud.
In an hour it was over. The police had squelched it all. What had started as a fist fight between two enemies and escalated to a full on brawl between anyone happening to walk past ended with me walking out of the airport quietly and safely. Shaking, I called Brant from the safety of my car.
“I’m coming home. It’s over. She’s on the plane.”
I didn’t make it home before Brant called back. Our teammates, dear friends who had just returned from furlough 2 weeks prior, were on the way to the hospital. Their youngest, a little boy not yet 2 years, was losing control of one of his eyes and couldn’t see. The same eye that had been hit last week when he fell off a railing at the mall.
Something like that you can’t exactly get checked out here. The doctor at the local hospital recommended they get out of country as soon as possible. Brant rushed to the airport - thankfully calm - to buy plane tickets. I came out of my “what in the world did I just witness?” fog to start digging through as of yet unpacked suitcases to find clothes and diapers and toiletries for an international trip. Crying, we packed and prayed and sorted clothes and figured out insurance and passports. Less than an hour later, she was on the plane, carrying the baby. I picked up their other son from school to tell him that his mother had already gone.
And I came home. Exhausted and spent. I drank my coffee. I rocked my Caleb, fevered and dripping with sweat and coughing and hacking. This whole crazy morning he had just lain on the couch alone and sick. We rocked and prayed and sang songs. That’s what mama’s are supposed to do when their little guys are sick. Not hide from rioting masses. Not comfort distraught friends. Just rock and sing and pass the tissues.....
Tonight there is a peaceful tension in our home. We dispensed medicine to sick boys and got new library books this evening and had hamburgers (pulled from the freezer for such a day as this!) and tucked little boys into bed after reading chapter 6 in The Boxcar Children. I am drinking hot chocolate as I write.... a treat from the States savored on evenings when the temperature dips below 80. It seems like a beautiful end to a very difficult day. But my mind is still reeling from these past 16 hours. My friend is still flying, even as I write, and will be late into the night. Tomorrow brings CT scans and MRI’s and blood work. Fear. Exhaustion. Stress. The unexpected. Another day. I am learning submission to the Lord, one very hard day at a time. What the Lord gives in a day, I am to be thankful for, and to embrace as from Him. It’s hard. Very hard. I am just thankful not all days are like today.
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