As I prepared to head to Washington for pre-deployment training, I discovered that I didn’t know a lot about what would be expected of me or what I needed to take with me, and so I began, as I would in the law, a discovery process.

I sent e-mail after e-mail to the company representative to find out what kind of clothing I would need, where I would be staying, how much money I would need (as all expenses would be paid), whether we would have any free time, and the like. I got answers, but the most important questions did NOT get answered: 1) When did I leave; and 2) When would I return? My cousins Ryan and Sarah and their darling baby Lily were coming to see us on the Friday after the seminar was over on Thursday. I wanted to make sure that I would be leaving in time to greet them as they arrived at our house for their first visit as a family.

I finally got my travel arrangements – on the Thursday before I was to leave on Sunday. And the news was NOT good. I had asked to be sent from the Kansas City airport, which had a direct flight to Dulles on the Sunday afternoon I needed to appear, and a return non-stop on the Thursday the seminar concluded. I searched the flight, notified the company, and assumed that the ticket would be waiting for me. Wrong. For some still unknown reason, the company sent me out of Columbia, Missouri.

Columbia is a fine town. It is home to the University of Missouri, has a James Beard-nominated chef, and is large enough to have some entertainment and yet small enough to feel “home-y.” Unfortunately, however, Columbia is not large enough to have a really fabulous airport. When I say that, I do not mean that the people who work there are incompetent or unfriendly – quite the contrary. The people, all of whom, I believe, wear many different hats at the airport, are lovely. Lines are short, pat-downs few, everyone wears a smile: in general, a good airport experience. The only drawback, however, is a major one, especially for a person on a tight schedule. Columbia’s airport has one flight per day leaving for Atlanta, one flight per day leaving for Memphis, one flight per day arriving from Atlanta, and one flight per day arriving from Memphis.

None of those flights coincided with what I needed and had requested. Unless I wanted to pay an additional $250 per direction, which I did not, I was going to have to leave before church started on Sunday, meaning someone would have to take my place three days later on the piano at the praise service and on the organ at the traditional service. My good friend Sandy stepped up to help me at the praise service and to play the hymns at the second service, and my wonderful friend Jerree, who does not read music but who plays the organ beautifully, agreed to play the service music for the second service. I felt humbled and grateful.

What was equally bad about the situation was that my cousins would arrive at our house approximately five hours before I would. Because Max was on his annual teaching week “at the Ranch” in Wyoming, he wouldn’t be home until Saturday. Someone would have to let Ryan and Sarah and Baby Lily into the house!

That someone was my good friend Kim, who first bought some snacks for them that Friday, and that was when she discovered that the air conditioning at our house wasn’t working. I cannot do comedic justice to the scenes that followed as she called me frantically to tell me that the house was HOT. I was in the Atlanta airport waiting for the plane that would take me to Columbia where my sister Libby would pick me up, and I tried to tell Kim how to re-set the thermostat. I assumed that Max had simply adjusted the temperature when he left for Wyoming, not realizing that I wouldn’t be back in time to get the house cool. She followed my instructions, and told me that nothing was happening. She did not feel an immediate flow of cool air. I figured that I left something out, and so tried again. Again she followed the instructions, and again felt no cool air. I thought I was not being clear. I asked her to take a picture of the thermostat and text it to me. She did. Then she sent another text of a picture of the second part of the thermostat. Then I called her back. At some point, we figured that the air conditioning wasn’t working properly. Then I couldn’t remember the name of the company that put in our air conditioner, so I had to look it up - except that the Atlanta airport DOES NOT have wi-fi. Can you imagine? Eventually, I got the White Pages app on my phone to work, and found ACR, and remembered that they had installed our air conditioner and maintained it.

So I called them, explained my situation, and they went immediately to the house to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the house wasn’t yet cool enough for people to sit in it, so Kim and her family then hosted MY family for a couple of hours and then for dinner. What a good friend! Everyone should be so lucky.

I wish I could tell you that the problems ended there. But they didn’t. For some reason, the air conditioner was still not working upstairs where we would sleep that night, and so for the second time that day, I called ACR and told them about the problem, and for the second time that day, they came right away to fix it. Sometimes, nothing beats living in a small town.

I wondered that night, after 12 days in Washington, D.C., where I first knew no one, and left having 17 good friends, whether leaving that small town and those people who would give so much for me would be worth it. I became afraid yet again about leaving - my leaving would change me and my life, them and their lives, and maybe nothing would be the same ever again.

I didn’t pay much attention to that thought, though, thinking that the company had not really offered me a job, and so this might not even happen. I think I was right then hoping that it wouldn’t, that I wouldn’t have to face the fear that could soon overwhelm me, that I wouldn’t have to endure such upheaval, that I could rest in the comfort that was home, in the comfort that nothing would ever change.

But then, I got the phone call. It was right after Court, the very next Wednesday. I just happened to look at my phone, which was on silent, and saw a number coming in from Virginia. I could have ignored it. But I took the call.