Making a Way Home

On Thursday, Cody and I went by the KLM office in Kampala to see about adding Mercy as a lap infant to my plane ticket. My travel agent told me previously to just go by there or the airport to add her on because he could not do it. The reservation people told me that in order to do that they’d have to cancel that ticket, and then rebook me. The problem was the system would not let them do that and I would have to take a later connecting flight meaning a very long layover in Amsterdam. They told me something might open up and to just come by early this week to figure it out. So today, we headed back down there. At first the agent told me that it was going to be impossible for me to leave on Friday and that I’d have to wait until Sunday. I told him I did not want to do that and I didn’t understand why they could not just add Mercy to my ticket since she won’t take any additional seats. He told me it was impossible. Next he told me that he might be able to still do Friday, but with the later connection and in order for me and Cody to travel together it was going to be about $800 in change fees. I had expected about $300 in fees for me and $200 for Mercy’s ticket, but not more than $800! I told him that was not an option either. I asked him for a phone number of a supervisor or customer service. He said that was impossible. Then he made me a deal to switch to Sunday, but he’d waive some of the change fees. I again told him I didn’t want to do that and demanded a customer service number. Finally, he relented and gave me a number. I called and spoke to a woman that told me it should not be a problem and asked to speak with the agent. They talked for a few minutes about ticket “codes” and finally he hung up. He said, “She said the same thing, it cannot be done unless you pay huge change fees.” I begged him to find a solution. Suddenly, he had an idea and said he needed a few minutes to do some calculations. Then he presented his final offer… he said since he could use some other code for my ticket, give me a discounted rate and change fee, and then also discount Mercy’s ticket and not have any fees for Cody. And get this… it’s on our original flights. So, we ended up paying $360 total. Wow! Who knew you could barter with airlines. I really think the lady on the phone told him what to do, but he wanted me to think it was his idea. Now, I did have to promise Paul that we would adopt him. I told him if he could convince the Embassy to give him an adoption visa we’d take him home. Ha! Amazing… my pleading and finagling saved us about $150. Woo hoo! So, we should leave on Friday night and arrive home in Wichita around 4:15 pm on a Delta flight from Minneapolis. Originally, I thought I wouldn’t want a welcome party at the airport, but I’ve been gone so long, I’m ready to see a few friendly faces. So, if you’d like to greet us at the airport you are more than welcome.


Tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 pm (5:00 am CST) we have our visa interview at the Embassy. Please pray for that to go smoothly and for them to get the visa issued on Friday morning.