He sees the baggage when it falls and hears me when I call

Washboard done! Circling small airport parking pads for an opening, we find no room at this inn. I hop out and go to the entrance indicated. You see, I can’t go in by the regular entrance for I need to show my passport to get to the inner sanctum. I explain to the attendant, who pats me down manually since this is not a general public entrance with full service scanning—it’s for employees.
Someone directs me to BAGGAGE, where I approach a smartly uniformed young woman on duty behind the counter. “I am so sorry, but I have someone’s luggage that went with me all the way to Machakos last night. It belongs to David Dewese.” She lights up. This will get one item off her docket. “I will call him now so he knows it has come!” It’s barely 7AM But I know young David will not resent this call. “Please apologize for me,” I say, “for he is likely a brother in the Lord doing ministry here for two weeks.” From her smile and nod I can tell she is a Christian. She points to the area where lots of neglected luggage is strewn over a patch of red concrete floor. “Your bag is over there.”
I am so grateful to God when I hug tight this beat-up old friend that has shuttled my stuff into the belly of many a plane and doesn’t seem to resent those duct tape patches.
Now for George Mitchell. He made it! We see his wee bald head bobbing about near the carousel. He waits. People come out through customs in a steady stream. An hour later and George is still inside. We can see him now going to the BAGGAGE desk to file a claim for missing luggage.
He has a rare tale to tell when we start on the road home.
In Scotland this winter there has been a plague of flu so resistant to medicine that thousands are ill. The pilots for his flight couldn’t make their assignment. It took an hour or so to find replacements. So when the flight got to Amsterdam it was so late that George had to fly down the concourse mazes to catch the plane to Nairobi. He made it. But obviously the bags did not. Ole George had to make a second trip to the terminal a day later, but did retrieve his stuff—crammed with dresses and shirts and ties and balloons and pencils, etc. that folk back in Scotland donate for him to distribute to the poor here.
Next morning he is so happy that his joy awakens me. He has a change of clothes now! And his own toothbrush! So he is washing up whilst singing basso arias from Handel’s Messiah. “For He is like a refiner’s fire and shall shake the heavens and the earth…,” rolling along like a winter wren, singing the scriptures. It could be annoying. But somehow I find it beautiful.
If Jesus were here now He might tell the parable of the Lost Luggage. “Rejoice with me, I have found that which was lost!”
God has seen two of his sparrows falling to the ground without their proper underwear and sox. And from heaven He has heard their cry and seen to it that not a bag of lost luggage is neglected. I think He knows the number of suitcases that are circling the globe in these flying tubes we call jet planes. And we have our stuff.
All is well that ends well, they say.
Sometimes it’s just “All’s well that ends.”