As many of you know, I am in Pittsburgh at the fabulous Postpartum Support International and Marce Society Conference. My physical journey here started Sunday night when my husband and kids dropped me off at a relatives home in Atlanta so I could catch MARTA (public transportation) to the airport the following morning. But my spiritual journey here started some time ago.
The provisions for this trip have been nothing short of astounding. Based solely in faith and prayer, I am so humbled to be here in Pittsburgh at this conference and hosting a special discussion as well.
Back in April, my husband lost his job. I was already in discussions with a fellow PSI Coordinator to host a special discussion in regards to encouraging professionals to communicate in order to increase continuity of care for the Perinatal Woman. We moved forward and submitted an abstract in June. I had faith my husband would find a job and we would somehow manage to get me to the conference.
He is still unemployed.
On July 4th, I received an email congratulating me on the acceptance of our abstract to the conference (YAY!) and immediately thought, Oh no. Now I HAVE TO GO. I began to pray. I asked others to pray.
Then, in August, I went to Austin, TX for a fundraiser. PSI again was involved. On the return journey, I was stranded in the Austin Airport for 6 hours. The next day, I got ahold of Delta on Twitter and they sent me a travel voucher. At the time I had no idea what I would use it for as I was sure I could not afford to fly to Pittsburgh, even with the discount the voucher offered.
More and more time went by, I continued to pray and wait patiently. I even set up a donation page but nothing happened there.
PSI offers a scholarship to the conference so I applied and received the funds. I now had a partial scholarship but held off on cashing the check because I was unsure if I could still go.
Two weeks ago, I began to panic a little. Continued to pray and tried to stay calm. I tweeted and blogged about praying me to Pittsburgh. I emailed my brother. We checked the flights at Delta and lo and behold, found one for just $178 + tax. He paid what my voucher did not cover as a late birthday/early Christmas present.
I now had a flight.
I received an email from PSI’s awesome Program Coordinator letting me know that there was a Coordinator who had an extra bed I could sleep in for free.
I now had somewhere to stay.
I continued to pray.
PSI’s awesome Program Coordinator found two angel donors to cover the remainder of my Conference stay (thank you whoever you are!) and suddenly I was attending ALL days of the conference (including the pre-conference workshops) and going to the banquet.
I continued to pray for money for meals not included in the conference and to cover checking my bag at the airport.
I mentioned the miracles God had worked so far in my travel needs at my bible study class and only asked for prayer for the remainder of the funds.
After class, two of my classmates walked up to me and handed me cash totaling exactly what I would need to cover these costs.
I was going to Pittsburgh.
Prayer?
WORKS.
