Dec. 7, 2006

Hey all!

We just wanted to say a quick thank you for praying. Our trip was uneventful in the sense of emergencies or dangerous situations. We made it to Jogja early so stopped at a little restaurant for some lunch before going to the airport. At the airport we got checked in and then waited for our flight.

On the way out to the plane (we have to walk across the tarmac here in Indonesia…no boarding ramps) we discovered that there are no chivalrous/gentlemen types here, at least not on the flight we were on. We had 7 carry-ons, not counting the bags the kids were carrying. Each carry-on weighed about 15-20 lbs and for some reason, when we went out to the plane, Lexie had 3 of the carry-ons (two of them rolled, one was sitting on top of one of the rolling ones) and one of the computers in a backpack. She was also carrying Reece in a sling type thing. Everything was fine until we got to the plane and had to walk up the steps. I had the other 3 carry-ons and was guiding Rehn along. So I picked up the ones I was carrying and Rehn and I went up the steps. Lex stopped at the bottom to reorganize and probably a total of 8 men walked right passed her without offering to help! I was so mad! Of course, I was stuck in the plane aisle and couldn’t get back out. Somehow, Lex managed to make it up the stairs carrying 4 carry-ons and Reece while coaxing Ember to climb the stairs a little faster. It wasn’t til Lex got to the top, into the aisle and caused a traffic jam because she was too wide to fit that one of the stewardesses finally said, “Oh, let me help with that.” Finally!

Because of the fiasco in Jogja, we decided to try to check some of our carry-ons in at Bali. That was a mess. I was really just asking if we could go ahead and get our boarding passes, and then we were going to go out for some dinner. Well, we had already checked in as much as we were allowed, so there was going to be some overweight charges. I wanted to find out what they were, so one of our carry-ons was weighed. That was a mistake. It was overweight by carry-on standards so HAD to be checked in, which resulted in the lady wanting to weigh the rest of the carry-ons. 4 of them were well overweight. So, she wouldn’t give me my boarding passes until I had paid overweight. That meant I had to go over to a different window and take care of that. We were 37 kg (81lbs) overweight. The total bill came to $150. I told them I didn’t have that kind of money. So he said, well, you can ask for a discount, but you have to do that at Customer Service. So I found customer service and explained that I was in the process of moving and also pointed out that the overweight amount didn’t account for the free carry-on baggage allowance of 7 kg per person so the total should be 9 kg overweight instead of 37. The lady said, no that’s not the way it works, but wait here a minute. She talked to her boss a minute and then came back and said, ok, we’ll give you an extra 25kg allowance. So, I ended up paying $45 dollars for 12 kg overweight.

Then we took a taxi and got some supper. On the way back to the airport Reece had a dirty diaper that leaked…on me. No problem since we had changes of clothes...in the carry-ons which had just been checked in! So, back at the airport I spent a while in the bathroom trying to clean up a little and spent the next few hours with a wet section of pants and shirt. The kids played until about 10pm and then we laid them out on the seats in the waiting area and they eventually fell asleep. We had to skip a couple of seats to dodge the leaks in the ceiling!

Our flight to Papua was delayed for 2 hours due to Technical problems. When we finally did get on we had to carry our 3 remaining carry-ons as well as Rehn and Reece while Ember gamely sleep walked out to the plane. J So, the carry-on baggage check-in fiasco was a blessing in disguise since there was NO way we would have boarded the plane with all that stuff as well as two sleeping kids.

The flight to Papua was nice, well, there wasn’t much turbulence anyway. When we got to the bottom of the stairs to board the plane, one of the officials there took one of the bags I was carrying (thanks!) and helped us up the stairs. He asked what row we were in. “10.” “10?” “Yeah, ten”. He looked a little confused. When we got to row ten we sat down and he says, I’m sorry, you can’t sit here. This is an exit row and kids can’t sit in an exit row. You would think that since we were the first ones to check in to the flight, the person behind the desk would have given us appropriate seats, but…maybe she was too distracted by the overweight carry-ons she was trying to check in… So we moved up a row, switching seats with the folks in front of us.

When we took off they turned all the lights out and I thought, “Maybe I can get some sleep after all.” But no, as soon as we got off the ground the lights came back on and remained on the rest of the flight. It’s 3 o’clock in the morning! Why are the lights on? Lex and I caught about 10 minutes of sleep each. Lex ended up sitting in the middle seat in a row of three, Ember sleeping on one side, Rehn on the other, and Reece sleeping in her lap. I offered to take Reece but she was afraid he would wake up so…I decided to get some shut-eye, but discovered that all of the reclining mechanisms for the seats in row 9 don’t work so in case of an emergency, the exit row behind us (which we had to move from) will be clear. Of course the chair in front of me worked fine so the guy in front of me slept the whole flight while my goatee picked up lint off the top of his seat every time I moved! At 4:30 I was awakened from my dozing by a stewardess who wanted to offer me some breakfast. Wiping the drool off the top of the seat in front of me I said, “No thanks, just coffee please since it looks like I won’t be getting any sleep.”

We landed in Jayapura at about 9 am and were met by one of the area leadership families and the guy who runs the guest house here. All of our baggage made it just fine, so we loaded up and headed to the guest house where we will be staying for this next week. Yesterday after lunch we all took a really long nap (Lex and I had been awake for about 38 hours) and are feeling much better this morning. The kids are enjoying being outside again as well as other kids to play with that are also staying at the guesthouse here.

Thanks a bunch for upholding us in prayer! Your prayers and the power of our Almighty God make surviving trips like this seem easy!

Porter and Lexie Hampton
Missionaries with NTM in Salatiga, Indonesia