We arrived at Lagos local airport around 3 pm as our flight to Owerri was at 4:30 pm. While seated at the lounge, my husband and I were watching a video on his phone when he raised his head and saw Elder Solomon Aliche walking towards us. He immediately recognized him as an Area Authority Seventy and he told me this because he had seen a photo of him on one of the pamphlets of the church not too long ago. Elder Aliche stopped a few meters in front of us as he reached out for something in his bag. At that point, my husband made a greeting gesture towards him, to which he replied as he walked past us. We soon started wondering whether we would all be on the same flight. We were not sure but somehow, we came to the conviction that we were all boarding the same flight. A little while later, our flight was announced, and we proceeded to the checking point. My husband turned around and could not seem to find him, so he said to me. Do you think he is aware that the flight had been announced? I told him I did not know but maybe he is booked with another flight. We got onboard the airport shuttle bus anyway which took us to the waiting airplane.
We got seated and were just looking at other passengers trying to settle down when we saw him sitting a seat in front of us on the other side. So, it was true. We were on the same flight. The plane took off and I must say it was horrifying. It had just stopped raining, so the weather was unfavourable.
The flight landed at Owerri about 45 minutes later and we all got down. Elder Aliche briskly walked ahead of us. My husband told me he needed to speak with him, so we walked our way up to him and my husband introduced us.
He said, 'I am Brother Iheanacho, and this is my wife'. Mentioning brother, we suppose, got his attention. My husband continued 'we live in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but we are traveling to Aba for our temple marriage' He was happy to hear about that. The discussion continued as we walked towards the baggage reclaim area. There was a short separation as he went to get his luggage, but he reunited with us again after he got it. After we got ours, we parted ways finally. Or so we thought.
We were just about to charter a taxi that would take us halfway to our destination when a hand tapped my husband's shoulder. It was Elder Aliche. He asked us where we were headed, and my husband told him. He then offered us a ride which we accepted. We were very happy about this offer. He helped us carry our luggage to the car, seeing that my husband had enough to carry.
On our journey from the airport, we learned a lot from Elder Aliche. Again, he told us that he knew my husband's parents very well. Our initial plan was to stop halfway and have my father-in-law pick us up from there, but as we got closer to our destination, he told the driver to take us directly to the gate of the house where we would stay. We were very happy that he went out of his way just to help us.
How great and marvelous are the works of God. We had previously missed our flight the day before because we arrived at the airport late due to the usual heavy traffic in Lagos. We paid extra money to reschedule our flight to the next day, the money we had not budgeted for and neither enough to spare. How we wished we never were late for our original flight.
But Heavenly Father had a plan for us. A plan we never expected. He helped us save money by allowing us to meet Elder Aliche. We had just paid our tithes the Sunday before we traveled. My husband said that because we were faithful in paying our tithing, the Lord blessed us with an opportunity that allowed us to recoup the money we paid in rescheduling our flight by providing us a free ride from the airport to our destination, which is about an hour distant.
We had dedicated a large portion of our Finance towards traveling to the Aba Nigerian Temple for our Sealing.
I know that our Heavenly Father is so faithful that he rewards his children when they are obedient to his commandments in ways they do not expect.