This time my mission was to deliver a big computer monitor to a Bible Society where I was also to do some training in text analysis and typesetting.

I had packed the monitor very carefully, but it was still very obvious that it was a gigantic monitor. This was many years before flat, light screens were invented.

The flight was uneventful and we were ordered to the only baggage claim area at the International Airport. The bags started to drop one by one, and passengers were told not to touch them because the baggage handlers needed to see our stubs before we could take them.

The bags started accumulating on the carousel, and I could even see the monitor on the opposite side from where I was standing. Finally, a man, who was obviously drunk, stood on the bags carousel and started asking for our stubs. When I handed him the stub for the monitor he jumped to the other side of the carousel and found the monitor. Then started swearing aloud in Spanish and complaining about the heavy televisions that people bring to this country and proceeded to stumble carrying the monitor, stepping on bags and barely keeping his balance.

Suddenly, I started praying aloud in Spanish, “Father, don’t allow this man to destroy the monitor. Give this man your love. Allow him to have your peace and recover from his stupor.” While passengers around me froze in surprise, the baggage handler stood still, looked at me and steadily deposited the monitor at my side, apologized for his behavior and asked for my other bags. He also asked me to please wait for him until he had finished with the other bags. No trace of drunkenness in his voice or behavior.

When he finish handling the rest of the bags, he went for a cart, loaded all my bags and the monitor, and took me to a taxi. I explained that the big monitor was not a TV but a computer monitor destined to be used to input the text and, further on, to typeset the Bible. I will never know if he understood or not what I was talking about but, when the taxi was properly loaded and ready to leave, he sheepishly said, “Thanks for praying for me” .