Now I was officially on the ground in Africa, but you'd never know it from looking at Tambo International Airport. I followed the signs for International Transfers and ended up at the end of an extremely long queue for Immigration. At this point I was glad that patience was one of my gifts and that I had a few hours in between my flights. In this queue, I witnessed one of the things that really irks me—hypocrisy, especially since this instance involved a lack of justice.
While standing in the queue, a group of three Indians, one couple and another man, cut into the line behind me. A little while later, the third Indian man cut in front of the couple. The husband very passive-aggressively explained the point of a queue to the man. Then, not even 5 minutes later, the couple cut in front of me around the next bend of the queue. Not wanting to press the issue, I calmly stood behind them despite wanting to say the exact same thing to the husband that he had just said to the other man.
After winding my way through the Immigration queue, I made a pit stop at the bathroom to relieve my insides of the distress I was experiencing from the airplane food (Note: Any airline food containing chicken will also contain peppers and other spicy morsels which they don't tell you when they ask, "Beef or chicken?"). Once I felt better, I headed to the SAA counter to find out the gate number for my next flight which wasn't on the boarding pass. I proceeded through another security checkpoint without having to reveal the money pouch I was carrying.
Now I was in the airport mall on my way to the next gate. Tambo is a poorly laid out airport (It's actually genius. To get to any of the gates, you have to walk through the entire mall). I breezed by all the shops on my way to find my next departure gate. I still had 4 hours (or so I thought) and had to make another pit stop at the bathroom. I hoped that this trip would clear me out, but I knew it probably wouldn't. Afterwards, I took a quick tour of the mall and then returned to the waiting area for my gate. By my watch, I still had 3 hours and 40 minutes so I opened The Hobbit and began reading.
After nearly an hour, I closed the book and stopped reading because I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I wanted to avoid falling asleep and missing my flight, so I decided to get up and explore the mall for a while. Just as I was about to get up, a white South African man (sadly, I didn't catch his name) came up to me and asked if I was Claude. I said I wasn't and he explained that he was supposed to be meeting a Claude for a job in Beira. He didn't have much information about Claude, but if Claude didn't show up, he would be out the R1,800 (R stands for Rand which is the currency in South Africa. Approximately R9 is equal to $1.) he paid for a one-way ticket.
The man sat down beside me and we talked for a good while. He was an engineer for a South African company that works on fuel lines throughout Southern Africa. I explained that I worked for BICWM in Human Resources and that I was visiting some friends who were missionaries. He went on to tell me how God was doing amazing things in his life. He worked for a brewery almost his entire life, but at the age of 60, God convicted him to leave his job because of all the problems associated with alcohol. Everyone said he was crazy. He had no idea where a 60-year-old white South African male could find work. Fortunately, God was working behind the scenes and he got a job working for the engineering company. His current job paid him nearly twice as much as the previous one and all his co-workers were Christians.
The new job was an answer to prayer, but during his time off he had accrued a substantial amount of debt which included R19,000 (just over $2,100) which he owed to his landlord. Fortunately, his landlord was a compassionate man and allowed him to pay what he could during his unemployment. So despite things looking up for him, he still had this debt looming over him. Then one day, he was looking over his bank statement and noticed a deposit of R1,000,000 (roughly $111,000). He called the bank. "Surely they made an error," he thought, but the bank assured him there was no error and that the money was truly in his account. He immediately thanked God and used the money to pay off his debt. He used what was left over to send his son to a Christian academy in Texas.
Then I shared my testimony with him. This was a completely new experience for me to share it with a complete stranger I had just met. After that we mainly made small talk comparing things like the weather and economy in the US and South Africa. It was about this time that he checked the time and said we should be boarding soon. I looked at my watch. It was only 8:45 am. There were still 2 hours until boarding so I was confused. Just then an announcement came over the PA system that boarding for my flight was beginning. It was actually 10:45 am! The weight of the situation dawned upon me and I thanked God more than I ever had before in my life. If God had not sent this man to talk to me, I would have surely missed my flight to Beira. Reality check #4 that the Lord wants me in Africa!
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