Waiting for a plane

As I sat in the dusty heat in a Toyota Landcruiser ambulance for a little 6-seater propeller plane to appear in the clouds, I began to doubt. Airplanes in the northern dessert of Kenya are not a common sight. Actually, in the village where I was waiting, one plane lands and takes off only two times a week (Tuesdays and Fridays). The town was about a 2 hour drive in the desert from the village I had been visiting. I was looking in the direction of the "runway," or where I was told it was. It just looked like a flat open space of sand right next to another flat open place of sand. The cattle were walking along a path near it. I guess the people around know that they should chase any animals away when they see the plane.

I was told that the plane could arrive anytime between 11 am and 1 pm (typically). You never know in Africa what type of delays can take place and there is no fast and reliable way to communicate a delay in that part of the country. I got to Korr at a little before 11 am, and we began waiting. I stopped to see someone I had met a year earlier, so I visited with her for about 20 minutes. Then my driver drove me to wait near the airstrip at a Catholic compound where there was some shade. We sat and waited. I kept watching the sky and listened for an airplane. I started to wonder if it was really going to come. What an unlikely place for an airplane to land--in the middle of the desert. There really shouldn't have been much reason to doubt since I arrived in Korr two weeks prior in a little plane operated by the same organization. But for some reason, I really started to wonder. How long will I wait? What will I do if it doesn't come? I started thinking that it really takes faith to believe that a plane will actually arrive. At other airports, a person sees the little monitor telling the arrival/departure times of the plane. We know that those times are obtained through radar tracking and communication with the pilot. I am usually fairly confident that what I see posted on the screen is fairly accurate (unless the word "delayed" is posted behind the flight). This time I was trusting the word of the person I talked to a week earlier.

I realized that day was just a few days before Rosh Hoshana (Sept 2006), where we look forward to the day when the trumpet will sound and the whole world will hear it. I was listening & looking at the sky waiting for a plane...do I wait and watch as intently for the Lord to return? Do I believe God's Word when He says He is coming again? Suddenly, the driver said, "It's coming. I hear the plane." As I listened I started to hear it, but he heard it much sooner than I did. His ear was trained to hear the plane. I want my ear trained to hear the Lord. What a great lesson to learn in the desert.