Divine Serendiptity in the Seattle Airport

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To put matters in perspective, 24 hours ago I was at Cedar Springs Conference Center in Sumas, Washington. Tonight I’m writing this entry from my office at home in Tupelo, Mississippi. Between then and now I’ve had about two hours of sleep, mostly because I had to get up at 3:15 AM to make my flight from Bellingham to Seattle.

I really don’t remember much about the ride through the darkness to the airport nor do I have any memory of the brief flight to Seattle. I do recall that when I got to the main terminal at the Seattle airport, I was half-asleep, in that sort of semi-zombie state that often happens when you travel a lot. 

I was walking through the main terminal, trying to find the gate for the flight to Las Vegas, thinking that I needed to get something to eat and trying to keep my eyes open, when I heard someone say, “Ray Pritchard.” Or it was more like, “Ray Pritchard!” I turned and saw someone looking at me but nothing registered so I assumed I had misheard and kept on walking. A few minutes later I was standing in line to buy a breakfast sandwich, thinking about nothing in particular when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice say, “Are you Ray Pritchard?” I turned to see the smiling face of Mark Wilkening, a good friend who graduated from Moody Bible Institute and now leads worship at a growing church in Lakewood, Washington. We first met Mark and and his wife Kelsey in 2006 when I spoke at Cannon Beach Conference Center in Oregon. Since then we’ve kept in touch by email and Facebook.

But what were they doing at the Seattle airport at 6:30 in the morning? It turns out that they are on their way to Ethiopia to adopt a 20-month-old boy who had been abandoned by his parents and placed in an orphanage. You can read about it in their blog called Adoption Journey. 

I got to spend almost 30 minutes with them, listening to the amazing story of how God first put a burden for adoption on their heart and then led them step by step through the long application process. They already have two children and feel strongly called to pursue adoption as part of their Christian witness. 

At this moment they are somewhere over the Atlantic, on their way to Ethiopia where they will meet their new son on Monday. God willing, they will bring him back home a week from Friday.

I thought of it later, how much of a “God-thing” it was, that we should happen to meet in the Seattle airport so that we would talk and laugh and share and pray together.

Mark and Kelsey are truly on a “mission from God.” When the time came to go catch my next flight, I walked away smiling at the privilege of sharing a bit of their joy.