Don't talk to strangers in airports!

Don’t talk to strangers in airports-you could end up in Haiti!

Last November, I was in the Milwaukee Airport, returning to Tucson from a conference.  I wandered into a restaurant to get some lunch and saw a woman sitting there by herself. She looked like a nun to me.  By that I mean, although she was wearing lay clothing, she was about my age (mid 60s), had short grey hair, no makeup and a cross around her neck. So, I introduced myself and joined her for lunch.  Turns out she was/is a Mercy Sister and was returning from the same conference I had attended. Much to my surprise, she was heading to Tucson, on the same exact Southwest flights as I.

Now, there’s one advantage to not having assigned seats on Southwest that had never occurred to me before.  If you should pick up somebody in the airport, you can sit next to her all the way home.  So, I did.

Sr. Mary was on sabbatical, after spending many years in leadership for her community. As part of her sabbatical, she was on retreat at the Desert House of Prayer in Tucson.  We had a lot of time to talk on our way back to Tucson. I mean this was Southwest, after all.  It was not a direct flight.

We hit it off just great, talking about many things that are important to both of us and, by the time we arrived in Tucson, I was signed up for a weeklong trip to Haiti!