Thanks for the reports. You have all been through a lot, but glad to know you are all okay, PTL! I am remembering you all, especially to have a safe and good flight home. Take care and Blessings!
Warmly,
Siang Yang
Sent from my iPhone
Below is Glenn's account of our Erbil to Istanbul flight, sent to you with his permission and quite humorous. One thing he said is not quite correct is when he said Brandon had exchanged some money for a Turkish Liras in Ankara. How we had any money at all is a story in itself. When Turkish airlines said we had to pay a penalty fee of $15 to $18 (depending on what our ticket originally cost), that is not entirely correct. They wanted to charge us about $30 to $40 penalty, but we complained vigorously that this is completely illogical that we should pay so much just because we missed one leg of the flight, so the Turkish Airlines official came up with the idea of a rebate. If we paid say $30, the airline would refund us $15 in Turkish Liras so our net penalty cost was $15. That is how we ended up with enough Turkish money (about 6000 Liras) to pay for our meal at Ankara Airport. Isn't our God amazing in providing for our needs?--"So, like what happened? The original plan was that we would leave Duhok at 4 a.m., narrowly make it on the plane for the 9:20 a.m. flight to Istanbul, and chill for the afternoon. Well, I already mentioned to someone before that we'd be cutting it kind of close, especially if something happened and we didn't leave on time. So guess what...our driver overslept and never showed up, so Willy called Kaizak around 4:15 wondering what happened, and Kaizak scrambled to get another driver to fetch us an hour late. I cannot explain this, but my kidneys went into diuretic mode on the bus, and when I finally couldn't keep my bladder from leaking like that of a pregnant woman getting her ultrasound, I noticed Sharon holding a nearly empty water bottle, and discretely asked for it to go pee in the back of the bus to avert disaster. That I managed to aim my stream into the tiny opening was somewhat miraculous. Oh, yeah, and we arrived at the check-in counter at 9 a.m., way after the gate had already closed for the flight.So, plan B was being formed out of necessity. We were told that all Turkish Airlines flights out of Erbil were full until the 3 a.m. flight on Sunday, and the possibility of us ending up spending two quality days in Erbil instead of Istanbul was becoming quite real. Yes, perhaps God wanted us to be in Erbil, perhaps for some divine encounters that only He can orchestrate. Meanwhile, the mighty Willy and Kaizak machine started to spin at its full glorious fury, and out came plan C - we would get on an alternate airline's flight, pay extra as a result, have a long layover of over 5 hours in Ankara, and then finally get on a 9:15 p.m. flight to Istanbul, but landing at the smaller airport on the Asian side. Tickets were purchased. Boarding passes were issued. We were going to fly on Pegasus Airline. Their web site is flypgs.com. Almost looks like "fly pigs". Yeah, like we'd make it if pigs can fly.We did manage to get airborne with the "pig", but barely. So, we casually lined up to board our 1:20 p.m. flight, after already checked our baggage beforehand, just to be informed at the gate that our tickets got cancelled because there was a problem with the credit card transaction. We were not going to get on the plane, and Kaizak reportedly was sending someone with money to the airport (its amazing how many connections this faithful brother has). The only way to actually get on the plane, we were kindly informed, was that we pay for the tickets in full, in cash. Something like $2,910. We had no choice but to completely empty our cash and pool the money, at which time I realized that I inadvertently packed my wallet into my checked luggage. Sweating bullets, not just because we weren't sure that we could come up with the money, but also that I'd have a huge mess on my hands if our luggage somehow got mishandled. Something like "God, help!" probably was being muttered under many lips at the time. As it turned out, we did manage to collect the required sum and managed to board (about 20 minutes after the posted flight departure time), with not more than pocket change to spare between our party of eight.We were filthy rich in comparison when we reached Ankara, as Brandon exchanged for some Turkish Liras when we were at Ataturk Airport a couple of weeks ago, so we had enough money to have dinner at Burger King. I ordered a bean burger, for no other reason than that I was curious. It literally was a deep fried patty that had the taste and texture of a can of refritos. Check that one off the list. However, our saga still had a couple of turns left. We were instructed as we were boarding that we would have to go to the Pegasus counter in Ankara to get our boarding passes to Istanbul, as our boarding passes for the connection was voided once our tickets got cancelled. Plenty of mishaps could occur again, but Kenny took charge of this and helped get things figured out. He also astutely noticed that we were put on an earlier flight, with a departure time of 7:30 p.m. instead of 9:15 p.m. Good pickup, or there would be even more trouble. We were also advised, thanks to Christy Tan, that we needed to check with Turkish Airlines to make sure that our tickets to LAX weren't cancelled. They were. We ended up having to pay $15 per person to reissue our tickets. After having seen multiple credit cards bounce during this trip, we were relieved that Amy had a card that worked, and she was able to pay for the transactions.As the drama finally seemed to wind down with our arrival in Istanbul, we realized that our baggage weren't where we were expecting, but that they were routed to the baggage area of the international arrival area. All was well after our rendezvous with our ground transportation connection and our luggage.So, what's the take home message from all this? Make sure that you hire a driver who can wake up early in the morning, never put "air travel" and "close shave" in the same sentence, and that God is good. Psalm 91, which was the subject of our morning devotions a few days ago..."He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways; with their hands they will bear you up, that you will not strike your foot against a stone."Istanbul tour today. My wallet is in my pocket. I'm counting on my ATM card working, Lord willing.Glenn"
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