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The last seven days have felt unreal. The last few weeks. (Okay, this whole year.) The wild ride that was this wrap up to my American adventures which was actually a Korean (and Chinese-American) wedding was a pretty personal moment. I will share the absolute joy of being reunited in person with my very first Kimdom who are saved in my messenger as “My absolute favourite child” and “My absolute favourite smart child.” I taught half the wedding party, and there were five young adults present who confidently assert themselves in conversation as my favourite child. I’ve always tried very hard not to show favouritism as a teacher, but the groomsman who forgot I was his teacher in high school definitely doesn’t make the cut. The groomsman who drove me four hours the next morning and bought me a pass into the United Lounge so I could enjoy the scone he bought me from his favourite coffee shop? Well, he’s the best humanity has to offer, and I’m so grateful to know that precious child is still actively serving Jesus.

I love, love, love my life in New Zealand, and I’m so grateful for the friendships and stories God is building here with me, but it will take ten years for me to get the kind of history that happens when Esther asks to give up her seat at the head table because she wants to spend the reception sitting next to me and give me the special Korea edition mug she brought me across continents and make sure I’ve got a super soft blanket she designed with her brother and new sister-in-law’s face on it. There’s something irreplaceable about the kid who drunk called me for years handing me his one year sober chip from the week before that he brought to show me. There’s also a different kind of grief sitting next to a different drunk kid who isn’t ready to take responsibility for his actions yet. I got all the things on this last weekend before returning to New Zealand.

In a quick debrief with Christy when I got home, I recounted a few extra heavy disclosures from the course of the trip, and I talked about how working with young people is so beautiful and so hard at the same time. I will always love these children, and I will always grieve their hurts and celebrate their wins. Some of them will grieve and celebrate things in my life was well as we keep up relationships across oceans and time zones.

My blog wouldn’t be complete without throwing in the disability lens on this adventurous life I have, though. So let’s focus on the Auckland layover where all the drama happened. Actually, I shouldn’t gloss over the fact that I got the two and a half hours in the Chicago United lounge to put my feet up before the nearly forty hours of travel, and that scone was perfect with black coffee. Also, the lady at the lounge desk upgraded my set on the first leg to a spot with extra legroom. Nearly no leg spasms on that flight! The connection was tight, but I did make it through LAX to get on my next flight with the booked bulkhead that was by some fluke free to me. Again, minimal leg spasms and kind flight attendants. But also worth mentioning the move from the domestic to international terminal included a bus ride where they loaded me in and then parked at the next curb and waited TWENTY MINUTES while I watched three disability assist people on their break stare at the bus and leave me stranded until they found someone who was willing to take me. Then I sat for FIFTEEN MINUTES at the security stop waiting for them to find someone who could pat me down. I made the flight though. Just with unnecessary anxiety spikes. Because I’m disabled, and that makes me cargo in the eyes of airport employees.

Now to Auckland.

I had a tight connection, but I’m almost certain it’s the same one I had on the March trip. There was an hour and a half to get me from plane to plane. Not much time, but AUK is a small airport. I knew I’d be last off which always sucks when I have a tight layover, but it’s a disability thing. I waited patiently for my disability assistance, and the kind girl pushing me through the international terminal kept saying, “It’s tight, but I think you’ll make it.” The girl wheeled me up to the crowd waiting for the inter-terminal bus, and we chatted for a bit before the driver pulled up and she went, “Uh-oh, this is the mean one.” Sure enough, he packed everyone else on first and refused to lower the ramp for me and closed the door as I shouted, “I’M GOING TO MISS MY FLIGHT!” I had to wait fifteen minutes for him to make his loop and get me through. They’d radioed the disability assist people at the other end, and when I finally managed to get there, there were three women waiting to help me off and rush my luggage through to get checked and loaded on the plane in time. I swear the assist woman was jogging as she pushed me to the security line. We heard the intercom for last boarding call while the assist woman’s radio was in the security scanner. “She’s going to miss her flight!” she shouted at the man operating the machine. He shrugged nonchalantly and made no effort to move the device through, so she was unable to radio the gate and let them know we were literally around the corner.

My friends, we raced to the gate, and my heart soared as I saw people still lined up and going through the gate. “That’s a good sign, right?” I asked, and was so relieved at the affirmative response, “I think I would have burst into tears if it wasn’t.”

And yet, when we got to the desk, the attendant and assist employee had some hushed conversations while one held my ticket. After a couple of minutes she ran back down the hallway, and I was left confused. “Are you giving me a different ticket? Can I board?”

“I’m so sorry, you’ve been bumped from the flight.”

“Why? Are there no seats left? How? I’m here. They knew I was coming. They’d called for the aisle chair. I was on my way. The bus wouldn’t load me.”

“I’m so sorry. The computer bumped you because you weren’t here when we called your group for boarding. There’s nothing I can do.”

I burst into tears.

Like actual loud sobbing in the airport.

I cannot stress how unnatural this is for me. Apart from Christy making me cry a bunch in the past two years, I went like a fifteen year span when I could count how many times I’d cried loud sobbing tears on my fingers, and almost none of them were in public. The gate agent offered to hug me, and I just cried “NO!” and let the disability assist employee wheel me back to the special assistance desk where they rebooked me on the next flight. The whole team at the desk was deflated to see me return. “We thought you got through! We all relaxed when you went to the security!”

You guys, there are flights from Auckland to Christchurch every hour. I was on the next plane. My luggage had made the first flight, and all said, I was delayed less to my final destination than on that Chicago to Asheville flight that got me to America this trip. But the emotional toll. I would have made that connection three times over if I wasn’t disabled.

Disability sucks.

I ended up at the gate next to the previous one, and the same agent was loading me with the aisle chair. I apologised for my outburst and received the hug offered from the hour before. I made it home to Haley picking me up and taking me to Black & White Coffee Cartel – where they now know my drink order two years after her last airport pick up when I arrived home and needed some good coffee to get me adjusted to this time zone.

So then I woke up Tuesday prepared to go to work and realised my body wasn’t ready and my soul needed a day to catch up to the rest of me in this city. I had an understanding staff team who were all honestly smarter than me and never expected me to show up in the office the day after traveling from America. Plus Wednesday when I did make it in, they all reiterated care and concern for my holistic self and ongoing well being. How weird. To be so loved.

Life carries on, and I’m grateful for the people near and far who are with me on this journey as I sort through some pretty heavy stuff on the ground. We launched youth group this Friday, and I love what I get to do, but I also recognise working with young people means they sometimes make some serious mistakes, and I have the heavy responsibility to sort through some of the consequences.

Of those kiddos at the wedding, many of them aren’t walking with Jesus, but a few of them have amazing Kingdom stories as they seek to love Jesus well. In my youth group, there is a wide range of young people sorting out what it means to follow Jesus and figuring out who Jesus is. I’m praying that I can continue to make space for them to encounter Jesus and be transformed by him when the world wants to tear them down.