Dude, where are my shoes?

I have spent the vast majority of the last 15 years traveling. I have experienced my fair share of travel problems, things like:

• Pick pocketed in Athens (they got Debbie’s passport and wallet out of my shoulder bag)
• Stolen credit card in Kyiv
• Identity theft in Chicago, only to have the credit card company send the replacement card to the thief.
• Forgetting to renew my Russian visa only to discover it as I was standing at the passport control in Russia.
• Hotels with rats eating my food in the middle of the night.
• Showing up at the wrong terminal at Heathrow (even at the right terminal Heathrow is terrible). Missed that flight by five minutes.
• And a host of missed, cancelled, and over booked flights, questionable taxis, and hotels spewing brown water from all spouts. (And let’s not talk about that embarrassing episode in Istanbul.)

Yes, travel can be this glamorous.

Then, this morning I added to my list: I lost my shoes. My shoes people! My shoes.

I was packing away, getting ready for my flight from Sochi, Russia to Kyiv, Ukraine.

Everything was going as planned. Then a question rose in my mind, “Dude, where are my shoes?”

Please understand, I have been in Sochi for three days and it has been very hot. So I have been wearing running sandals rather than shoes. But now that I am heading to Kyiv to conduct a pastors’ seminar and speak in a church, I needed my shoes.

I looked all over the room. Nothing.

Then I remembered that when the hotel moved me to another room, because the air conditioner was not working,I forgot to grab my shoes.

I contacted the front desk. They were very friendly. They called housekeeping. Nope. Sorry, no shoes. What? They didn’t just walk off by themselves.

Maybe they were still in the room and somehow housekeeping just didn’t see those size 12 shoes hiding in the corner. After all, they didn’t see the bed had been slept in and needed to be made. Surely if they didn’t see the bed they may have overlooked my shoes. So I asked if I could check the room myself. “Yes, of course.”

The room (and the bed) had been cleaned. No shoes.

How could they just disappear? I reminded myself, “This is Russia, and strange things happen here.”

I went back to my room, looked all over the place again. Nothing.

It goes to show that no matter how many mindless things you do in your life, you will never cease to amaze yourself, sometimes without even trying.

Now, I am heading to Kyiv as a shoeless preacher standing on the promise of Scripture, “how beautiful are the feet of those who preach Good News.” Standing on the Word of God is a great thing with or without shoes.

Check out this short video about a new podcast I am launching on September 15, 2014