Departure

It is 6 p.m. at the Des Moines airport, and the wings of our American Eagle plane are de-icing for take-off.

Marlo and I didn’t plan on taking off until 6 a.m. tomorrow.

But this morning we woke to phone call from the airline: “We are calling all international travelers—tomorrow’s flight will be cancelled because of freezing rain. Would you like to catch a flight this afternoon instead?”

We say yes. Then we condense a day’s work into six hours.

Marlo delegates to church team members, who will join us February 12, the jobs he has planned to do: Change oil in the church van. Print congregational photos for showing to Nicaraguan sister churches. Buy supplies for a Nicaraguan school with funds donated by children of our congregation.

I shorten my to-do list. Laundering my travel wardrobe can wait until arrival. Write Place business decisions can be made while traveling. Houseplant cuttings can wait for potting until I return.

On the Pella-to-Des Moines drive we think of items we have forgotten: the confirmation number for our Dallas hotel, a thumb drive for my computer, an extra battery for the electric toothbrush. But we decide we can survive without those—and without the additional oversights we will probably discover tomorrow.

The discipline of simplifying has already begun.

And we haven’t even left Iowa.