We were scheduled to return to PNG this weekend but while we were waiting for our approval from the gov’t the airline canceled one of the flights and thus nullified our entire booking. It looks like our travel agent has rebooked us to leave near the end of September. We are able to stay in the house we are currently living in and will start into an online school with the boys early next week.
The rest of the story
The last several days have been a bit of a blur. I certainly won’t try to document all that transpired in this note but here are a few of the highlights.
Last Sunday everyone in our family took our covid 19 test. We expected to see the results as early as Wednesday. Well, by Wednesday evening we had received back the results for everyone but Daniel, and all 4 of us were negative for covid. We thought that surely Daniel’s test would arrive Thursday morning. It didn’t. I double-checked to see if his sample had gotten to the lab but the UPS tracking site said that one of the five packages was not marked as delivered. Are you kidding me?!
That day we moved over to my parent’s house with all of our bags and gear but with no gov’t approval and no covid test results for Daniel. I could say that it was by faith but, to be honest, I didn’t know what else to do.
Friday morning we woke up and saw that Daniel’s test had come back and that he was ‘negative’ as well. That was great, and a wonderful way to start the day. Unfortunately, we still didn’t have our approval. So after breakfast, we headed back to the Farm house to finish cleaning up. Oh, did I mention that when we got into the Jetta we noticed that it had a flat tire? Seriously?! I sent Judith and the two older boys off in the van and dealt with the Jetta.
About noon I contacted the travel agent to cancel our tickets and found out that the airlines had beaten me to the punch; so to speak. We had heard that if we needed to cancel the tickets ourselves and rebook for a later date that it would cost over $4000 more for the family. Because the airlines canceled the flight it will only cost about $250 to rebook. That was great news!
Earlier that day I had received a text from the owners of the house we are in that we can continue to stay here until we can return to PNG. That was also great news and a huge blessing to us.
So what is the moral to this little story? For one, I, Eric Hedeen, am not yet ready to be enshrined with the heroes of the faith found in Hebrews 11. Even after so many years of seeing His faithfulness, I can still allow the circumstances of life to ‘upset my apple cart’.
Another teaching point for me is that I can get fixated on going places and doing things instead of just walking with my God. This is probably something that many of us are facing during the present Covid kerfuffle. We get stressed out by what we can’t do instead of focusing on what our Lord and Savior has called us (in the moment) TO do.
So now we have another month or so before we will try this all again. What opportunities will the Lord give us during this time? We’re not really sure. I’m trusting that his ‘marching orders’, together with His Mercies, will be new every morning.
You can pray for us as we do know that the three Hedeen boys will be starting into an online school program starting Monday. We aren’t sure exactly how that is going to go except that we can trust that His grace will be sufficient.
Thanks so much for praying for us and being an encouragement to us during this time. We love the emails and texts that many of you have sent us during these past weeks.
In Him,
Eric and Judith, Stephen, Daniel and Timothy