Icelandic Volcano!

When I left for Russia, I could have never imagined that a volcano in Iceland would affect our mission trip! There was no way to plan for that!

On Wednesday, I was doing e-mail in the Kohtla-Nomme orphanage that evening and read a Skype message from a friend that told me about the volcano eruption. I went to news websites to read about it and the current status with the airline. I told our team that evening and then wrote the team in St. Petersburg.

News reports said that 40,000 Americans were stranded by the volcano. The airline industry said it was the worst airline disruption since 9/11. Tony & Martha Leone were to return to the states on April 18. They didn’t get to return until Friday, April 23. Jonathan Furr was also due to return from St. Petersburg to the USA on April 17th. He didn’t return until Friday, April 23 as well.

Tony and Martha stayed in a home owned by some Americans that were not there. One of our volunteers going with us everyday knew of this lady watching the home and we connected up. It was later I found out she also knew Mike Cantrell, president of MIR, our partner in St. Petersburg and he had stayed there before. That was a God thing as we were provided the connections to ensure the Leones had a place to safely stay while they waited out the volcano.

Jonathan Furr continued his stay at the Transition Home in St. Petersburg. He was able to log-on and do some work remotely from Russia since his job is in computers and he can connect from anywhere with an internet connection.

I realized a little later that for our team, we were allowed to make it to Russia and Estonia BEFORE the volcano erupted. It allowed us to do our ministry and continue to work for the Kingdom. Had the volcano erupted a week earlier, it would have prevented us from starting our new work in Estonia, prevented the St. Petersburg team from going, and likely would have cancelled our entire trip! Nevertheless, God was in control and we completed our mission and our teams returned home safely… a few of us later than expected! It’s amazing what something like this can do to affect a mission trip!