Living at the Airport

There’s a big difference in living at the airport and living near one. My wife and I enjoyed years of proximity to Hartsfield International at Atlanta. The airport represented a regional economic engine that helped to grow the city into one of the key transportation and business hubs of America. The nature of airports, however, is to move passengers, not to accommodate them for extended periods. This past week across Europe, thousands of travelers have been stranded due to the unusual factor of volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Volcanic ash in large quantities and in clouds reaching high altitudes has a caustic effect on jet engines and has grounded flights across England and Northern Europe. A day or two might be unsettling, but the disruption has extended into more than a week of challenges for travelers, now cascading into backlogged airports around the globe.
We offer our condolences to those who have been making do without bathing facilities and regular meals. Airport food has often been less than affordable and accessible. The humorous movie some years ago that depicted a stranded traveler who found himself without a country to return to for an extended period gives insight into some of the options available to long term airport campers: check the phones for loose change; get a job with an airport contractor; make friends with the airport manager and security personnel; learn a new language. As the situation resolves over the next weeks and months, we assume more people will be taking boats, trains, and buses, but even those systems seem strained in light of the present load. One lesson for us all -- keep your destination in mind, but remember to live each day…right where you are. Consider the opportunities that such interruptions make possible and perhaps make some new friends, share some good news, and offer a helping hand. Every now and then it would do us all good to be stopped or slowed down long enough to evaluate the blessings of being at home, or while being away, to look forward to getting there.

Confessions of a Guilty Bystander

Almost three years ago, I read the news story of an 8-year-old orphan who lived in a large Ugandan city and worked daily breaking large rocks into small ones. He earned 35c a day by filling two five gallon buckets with his rock breaking labors. Earlier, his mother had taught him this work, that she too had taken up to provide her sustenance, only she had died in a rock slide and now the child was alone to fend for himself. The news reporter shared his account of the government official who took him to the place having difficulty finding it, not really being familiar with where it was. The child was a member of a minority population trapped in the urban sprawl and limited opportunities of his place. The government official was quoted as saying, there was not much he could do to help; but he emptied his own pockets and shared what he had with the people there.

Every time I think about an 8-year-old child faced with that type of existence, it haunts me. I wanted to go and find him and bring him to my house, knowing I could provide food and bread and education and opportunity. But there are children like him in countless places…almost everywhere, and my impulse is to weep for them, and to beg God to help them, and to know that their help may well be in my hands…in my heart…in my capacities. I have friends in Uganda. They struggle daily to share the love of Christ with multitudes who need to know him. They have limited resources, but a God who can make anything possible. I pray for that little boy. I pray he lives. I pray he finds those who care about his future. I pray that I may someday find a way to let him know God cares for him. In the meantime, I pray for God to open the way for a new life for him.