Frequent flyer miles the hard way...British beaurocracy will not relent

Well, we are back. Rolled into Marshall about 20 minutes ago. The galant efforts of diplomats, ministers, and govenment officials were not able to dent the resolve of the Immigrations Department at London's Heathrow Airport.

And galant they were. As I spoke directly to the Immigrations Supervisor this morning after returning to the airport for our early ride home. I was informed that several influential people had indeed made contact on our behalf but it proved to be to no avail. As I requested one final time to be granted at least a business day to generate the necessary paperwork for entry , the answer was, without hesitation, no.

So, we proceeded to add to our frequent flyer miles, departing at 10:50 AM London time for Houston. There we connected to DFW and from there home, thus ending a 58 hour period in which we were either in route to an airport, in an airport, returning from an airport, or airborne, for all but 9 of those hours. I cannot sleep on a plane so I realized a few moments ago that I have had 3.5 hours sleep since I awakened at 6:15 AM on Friday morning. The guys are in much the same mode, just younger. But at least we didn't see Seattle!

So, how do you assess a situation of this sort? Here is how I see it.

First of all, as believers who truly desire to see God's will accomlished, I mean really want His will to be done, we must have two principles of faith firmly established in our lives. The first is the understanding that, as His people, we are RESPONSIBLE to do all that we are instructed to do regarding the execution of His plan. Secondly, we must also have complete TRUST that His perfect plan will be accomplished regardless the opposition or seeming impossibility.

We have things set forth by God for us to accomplish and complete in the active pursuit of His will in all situations. There are preparations we must make, steps we must take in the process of faith. It is not a "hide and watch" approach that gets things done in God's Kingdom work. He expects us to get our hands dirty, to roll up our sleeves in doing all we know to do to ensure success.

We also must come to understand that He will accomplish His purposes regardless of opposition or conflict. We must realize that there is no power in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, that can compete with Him!

Therefore, as a believer who diligently seek, pursue, and perform what he or she believes His will to be and does not see it come to pass as he or she may have planned, there is always the peace that comes in knowing HIS WILL SHALL BE ACCOMPLISHED! Just because it was not accomplished according to our plan, does not mean it was not accomplished.

So, I must believe that if God had wanted us there more than 48 hours you can rest assured we would have been. We did what was required to get ourselves in a position to be used and did all that was within our power to stay. We sent up prayers and petitions as we are instructed to do in scripture and still it did not occur. But, whatever God intended to occur, did occur. You can bet on that.

We may realize it tomorrow. We may see His purposes years ahead. Or, we may not know till we ask Him face to face. But I do know that if we; Trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding , if we acknowledge Him in all our ways, HE WILL DIRECT OUR PATHS!

Thanks to all of you who supported this effort. Thanks to all who prayed last night for our opportunity to stay. Thanks to all those faithful parents who have entrusted me with some of the finest young men on the planet, and thanks be to God who makes all things work together for our good.

I will continue this blog until we have finalized the plan for reimbursement from ANM on this trip. Mike has assured me that they will make things right for us financially and who knows, maybe next year....

God bless and Go Tigers!!

Coach Sartain