Why not make life more interesting with an ER visit?

I am currently sitting in Zurich's airport waiting for the final flight in my journey to the Middle East. As you probably already figured out from the title of this blog my travels thus far have been eventful to say the least. But, as always, God has been so faithful!
To elaborate...We started out our journey with another team flying from Christchurch to Auckland. Its a fairly painless flight and should have been routine and it was...until the last ten minutes of the flight. On the descent I was suddenly overwhelmed by a massive pain in my left temple. The best way I can describe it was it felt like someone was stabbing me. I kept waiting for the pain to go away, but it persisted and the pain was so strong it brought me to tears. My friend Kathryn grabbed my stuff and we began walking off the plane. I felt incredibly weak and the pain was really bad. As we were walking out the exit ramp I passed out. So to make a long story short, after a visit from few paramedics and a small army of airport staff and an ambulance ride I arrived in the emergency room in Auckland. They pumped some morphine into my system as well as some fluids and eventually decided that it was simply a bad migraine. I was discharged at 3:30 in the morning and the airline put me and my leader up in the airport hotel. Since then we have been a day behind on our journey and have had numerous setbacks. Everything from the hospital filling out the wrong discharge papers to the people in Shanghai telling us we didn't have a ticket and would only be allowed on the plane in the next 10 minutes if we purchased another ticket.
BUT I am not complaining at all. Seriously...God has been so faithful!!! There have been so many moments where only God's provision can explain what has happened to us. First of all, it was such a blessing that I had to go to the ER while still in New Zealand. We were still able to easily contact staff and the other leader was able to travel all the way to Zurich with the rest of our tem. The hotel we were put up in was SOOO nice. We got free meals for the entire day in Auckland (and the budget was approximately $35 a person for dinner...no big deal). Our outreach coordinator happened to be flying through Auckland at the same time we were leaving and was able to get all the flight stuff figured out in person. We had an extra seat next to us on the ride to Shanghai...which is when I still wasn't feeling the greatest. We got tickets for the flight to Shanghai even though they said it was impossible. Stephanie was on stand-by for the flight to the Middle East and she got a ticket without having to wait in the massive line because she called the airline on Skype. And most of all, I feel 100% better. I'm still a bit tired from all the travel, but I am so grateful for God's constant presence. He's awesome.
Thanks for your prayers for my travels...it may not seem like it to you, but I have TRULY been blessed by them.
God is awesome.
Merry Christmas :)
God's peace and love! (from Switzerland!)

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