“Flight Cancelled.”  When you are a long ways from home and getting ready to board an international flight, these are not the words you want to hear.

Yesterday I departed Orlando en route to an exciting conference in Thailand which my team is helping sponsor.  About 200 Internet strategy leaders from CCC all around the world will attend.  … And I certainly am hoping to be one of them.  🙂

The plan was to catch a connecting flight in Detroit which would fly me over the Pacific.  But Delta ran into some unforeseen mechanical problems with the 747 well before boarding was to begin in Detroit.  Several mechanics were dispatched as you see in the photo here.

So Delta issued meal vouchers and hotel vouchers to all the grounded passengers.  Delta sent me to a nice hotel and got me booked on another flight on Sunday (hopefully this one WILL get off the ground.)

Of course, another variable to all this is the fact that all of our luggage was loaded (and is still there!) on the waiting to be repaired aircraft:

 

Orlando is 80 degrees and Bangkok is 90 degrees.  I am wearing short sleeves and Detroit is 48 with low tonight of about 34.  Fortunately I did pack some extra underwear, one thin long sleeve shirt, and a toothbrush in my carry on.

SO, I purchased a few items in the airport for my hotel stay:

Please pray for:

1)  Flight to depart Detroit on time.

2)  Connection in Tokyo to go smoothly.  (I don’t take these things for granted now!)

3)  Pray for the 200 attendees – our missionary staff and volunteers – also flying in to Thailand from about 26 different countries.  Pray that they make it safely and that the Lord provides for their every need.

3)  If it goes well with my travels this time, I should make it to the hotel in Bangkok about 6 hours before my first seminar is set to begin.  Fortunately I am not scheduled to facilitate the first seminar, but will be facilitating two short seminars later in the day.  I really need time to prepare AND would nice to be refreshed before going into the seminar.  Pray for rest and focus from the Lord as I arrive.

Thanks!  I’ll try to post more updates to Facebook and Twitter after I arrive.