Dealing with disappointment

The last time I saw my family and friends in person was Christmas 2019. It was a trip that I had booked with about 6 weeks’ notice. I flew across on Christmas Eve and then back to Cairns about 16 days later. While I was home, my family discussed plans for my 40^th birthday celebration in June and decided to arrange flights and accommodation in Sydney for a long weekend. My best friend and I also started making bookings for a 3-week campervanning holiday in July around Darwin, Kakadu National Park, and the Kimberley.

At the time it felt like the 6 months would pass pretty quickly. However, as we all know, less than 3 months later the world was reeling from Covid, NZ was in level 4 lockdown and in far north Queensland we were working from home. At the time I wrote about how unsettled I felt, primarily because I was in the situation where I couldn’t go back to NZ if I wanted to.

June 2020 and my birthday came and went. Instead of a long weekend holiday with family, another MAF family helped me organise a dinner event within the Covid restrictions at the time (max 20 people).

July also came and went with no campervanning holiday. Optimistic, we moved all the non-refundable bookings to the same dates in 2021.

A family from church who had said they were coming to visit the Cairns area in September had to reschedule their holiday to take place in NZ instead.

There was no chance of a quick trip home for Christmas (not least of which I was just getting out of quarantine in Darwin).

MIQ became a thing, although I hoped it would be irrelevant to me by the time I was due to go back for home assignment, given the NZ government announcements about making announcements about the trans-Tasman travel bubble.

When the bubble opened in April I felt a great sense of relief, like I had been holding my breath without realising it. The underlying stress caused by this chronic uncertainty reduced almost overnight.

And now it’s back.

 I have tickets booked to fly direct from Cairns to Auckland on 10 September for my home assignment - my first trip back to revisit churches and supporters to update them on what I’ve been doing, and my last chance to see friends and family before I go to Papua New Guinea. However, last Friday the NZ government announced they were closing the bubble for 8 weeks (i.e. until 18 September at the earliest) and that Kiwis in Australia have until 30 July to get back, otherwise they will have to go through MIQ.

So all of a sudden I now have three options to choose from:

1. Pack up my life here, abandon the Cessna Caravan training course starting this week, forego having my second Covid vaccine, and try to get back into NZ before this coming Friday (along with up to 20,000 other people).

2. Reschedule my flight and book a MIQ spot so that I can get out in time to start my home assignment as planned. While this is theoretically possible, the chance of a) getting a spot and b) having it be on the desired date are slim to none. MIQ is booked out until November, and it seems that you need a bot to get in at all. Not to mention that I’m more likely to catch the actual virus in MIQ than anywhere else!

3. Wait and see what happens. (Best case scenario is that the bubble opens around 18 September; worst case is that it doesn’t open at all before I am scheduled to travel to PNG.)

Of the three, option 1 isn’t feasible; option 2 is unlikely (and undesirable); which leaves me with option 3.

It’s taken me a few days to recover from the kick in the guts of the 8 week closure announcement. (Why so long? Surely it could have been 2 weeks with ongoing review?)

Once again I have found solace in the knowledge that God is in control. This hasn’t caught Him by surprise, and His plans will prevail. If He could incite Caesar Augustus to hold a census of the entire Roman world to get Joseph and Mary to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the right time, then if He wants to, He can make things work out for a missionary pilot who would like to go home to see her family for the first time in nearly 2 years.

When I was driving home from church this afternoon, I was reminded that I have much to be thankful for:
- I don’t have a deadline for moving out of the place where I’m living - the timing is completely flexible (and the place is fully furnished and equipped, which means I can still ship my stuff off to PNG when it needs to go).
- We currently have no Covid restrictions here, and haven’t had any for some time.
- The climate is warm and the weather is settled - it’s the best time of year to be in far north Queensland.
- I have a Caravan course to look forward to.
- I have many people praying for me.
- I have a God who loves me enough to send His only Son to die in my place.

To be continued...