(Been in Myanmar for a week — no internet — the next few days I’ll post a few blogs that I journaled while I was on the trip.)

It all started with a haircut. Janet came over a couple of days before we left and gave Sarah and Katy a haircut.

Let me explain. All week long as we were packing for our trip to the orphanage in Myanmar, we were worried about baggage limits. I had booked two separate tickets for our trip – Air France from Newark to Bangkok and Thai Air from Bangkok to Yangon. That was the cheapest way I could find to book our tickets. But while Air France allowed two bags per person with a weight limit of 50 pounds per bag, Thai Air only allowed one bag per person with a 44 pound weight limit.

Now I know what you’re thinking, surely 44 pounds worth of clothes is plenty for one person, but that wasn’t our concern. We had over 300 beanie babies – thanks in part to my mom’s lifetime collection – and you would be surprised how much 300 beanie babies weigh! Then we had about 50 pounds of candy and toys. To top it off I wanted to bring some study books from my library for the bible school. To shorten the story, I will just say that if we couldn’t get past Thai Air’s weight restrictions AND we decided to bring everything we wanted to bring, we would pay over $500 in baggage penalties for a 45 minute ride on Thai Air.

The only way around it was to have our baggage checked all the way through from Air France to Thai Air. If we had to re-check our baggage in Bangkok, we would be paying the penalty. So I had Mike, my assistant checking into it. What he found was bad news. Air France and Thai Air did not have a baggage sharing agreement. This meant we would need to recheck and pay the penalty.

We decided that we still wanted to bring all the stuff we planned on bringing so we squeezed our personal belongings into three suitcases and packed as best we could, and then asked everyone to pray. My prayer shield was praying. Calvary’s prayer chain was praying. Some staff members were praying. Extended family members were praying. We told God it was his money whatever He wanted to do with it was fine with us.

We unloaded all our baggage at Newark. We stood in line at the Air France baggage counters. While we were standing in line, an Air France agent – wonderful lady – came over and complemented our girls on their haircuts. She wanted to know their stylist’s name because her boss thought the haircuts were so cute, that she wanted to go there to get her haircut. “Sorry” we told her, “Our stylist lives in State College.” We smiled at each other and continued to stand in line.

We got to the agent, started checking in and I thought, we’ll give it one last try God. We told the agent, that we would like to check our baggage all the way through on Thai Air to Yangon. He said, “I will have to go check with my boss. If we have a baggage sharing agreement, we can do it. If not I can not check it all the way through.” I told Lynn that I already knew that they did not have a baggage sharing agreement with Thai Air. We stood there praying, while he was talking to his boss – the same lady who loved my daughter’s haircuts. She smiled at us. He walked back and said, My boss says that we can check your baggage all the way through. We can do that for you.

With that decision we saved over $500.

On Sunday, we met a lady who lives in a remote area of Yangon. She leads an orphanage of forty children. They had run out of food a month ago. The children were eating once every three days – eating corn they had gathered left in harvested fields. We gave her the $500 we had saved.

God knew where He wanted his money to go. And it all started with a haircut.