It looked too good to be true – extend our holiday for two more days at no extra cost. It wasn’t a dubious deal being touted by a sales person, but a strange situation sitting on our computer screen. By choosing to fly home two days later the cost of the flights would drop by an amount that would cover two nights in a hotel, extra car hire and food. We clicked on the obvious conclusion, extended the car hire and booked a hotel in Quebec City - an unexpected treat to add to our trip.

The holiday was great, and even when the end of the holiday rudely rushed towards us at an indecent speed, we smiled as we remembered our extra ‘free’ holiday extension.

We arrived late afternoon at our hotel – Cathy’s research proving impeccable - an excellent hotel with a nearby bus stop whisking passengers to the heart of the city every 20 minutes. The sky was clear, the sun warm and we were soon roaming streets punctuated by entertainers whose performances were staged in the gaze of impressive historic buildings. As we ascended from the lower part of the city to see the most photographed building in Quebec, our journey was interrupted by a parade of marching bands. This was well worth not spending extra money on!

Late that evening we returned to our hotel – exhausted but looking forward to our one full day in Quebec to come. The receptionist however, unknowingly proclaimed the beginning of a series of unfortunate events. We were informed that tomorrow the city was hosting a marathon, many streets would be closed and so there would be no bus service. The hotel would however run a shuttle bus into the city, leaving at 8:15am (not a reasonable time to be up when you are on holiday I would argue) and then return at 6pm that evening. Not wanting to spend our one whole day in Quebec sat in our hotel room we decided to accept the offer of the shuttle.

The day woke grey, the shuttle bus did it’s duty dropping it’s half-awake cargo into a deserted city. As we wandered wondering where to go, the wind gained confidence and the clouds gathered to decide when to discharge their contents. As we walked the city walls closing in on a recommended museum we overheard catches of conversation. Apparently the marathon had been cancelled due to the impending storm. (The storm was the remnant of Hurricane Irene, it had failed to wipe out Manhattan as the news channels warn and had now been downgraded to a tropical storm – how bad could that be?)

In the museum we were cocooned against the weather, but glances through windows revealed a world being increasingly battered. The weather was getting seriously angry. Our plans to later casually meander back through the city stopping at an outdoor café on the way before arriving back at the shuttle bus pick up point required recalculating. The worsening weather demanding the shortest route to be determined, eating to be relocated to the hotel and timings to coincide with lulls in the storm.

There were no lulls. Within minutes of leaving the museum we were soaked. Shops offered temporary places to breath before diving back into the storm. The café cladded streets of yesterday no longer enjoyed lines of diners, now owners were tying down tables and chairs and praying that nearby trees and lamppost kept their grip against an ever angrying storm.

We reached the bus stop and sheltered with another hotel family who shared our determination to not allow a little weather ruin our visit. The storm worsened. The pickup time came, the shuttle bus did not. This was not good. We were stranded miles from our hotel, no buses and a tropical storm seeking to take it’s revenge for being downgraded from a hurricane. One of our fellow soaked shuttle anticipators suggested we all hired a taxi van - we agreed – before our very eyes he transformed into a hero and plunged into the storm to find a taxi. The journey to the hotel was incredible. Squashed in a van with strangers, the driver had to avoid branches and trees obstructing the road, the van fought not to be tipped over by the wind and all nervously surveyed the swaying traffic light posts threatening to add physical force to the light’s commands. It was seriously dangerous.

We arrived back at the hotel; cold, wet and relieved. What an adventure! Turning to more serious matters we located the hotel’s menu – in shock we discovered it was a prize winning restaurant with prices that looked like telephone numbers. The weather was horrendous, we were trapped. Then the receptionist made a suggestion – order a pizza to be delivered. Amazingly they took our order and surprisingly quickly the delivery person knocked on our door offering us our pizza order and displaying a face that said, “you made me come out in a hurricane your tip better be good – or else!” 7:30pm we settled back on our hotel room beds, switched on the TV, hungrily ate and were thankful we had survived the eventful day.

Then suddenly a loud bang thudded outside and the power went out. Complete darkness swallowed the room, the wind howled, rain rammed against our window, the electricity did not return, the adventure had not finished. Emergency lighting illuminated faces as people opened room doors to investigate the extent of this latest instalment. An unspoken decision was then collectively made: people began to bring into the hallway pillows to sit on, food and drinks to share, another brought out a laptop so that all the kids could watch a DVD – it was brilliant.

In the morning the sun reappeared, the electricity found its way back and we discovered ourselves waving good-bye to new hurricane buddys.

I’ve been pondering about this experience – what turned this disaster into an adventure? There are many factors I am sure, but I reckon the one key factor was ‘choice’. If we chose a “that’s not fair” attitude or chose not to share the journey with others, it would have been very different.

The call of God is to choose to do life differently, choose to put into practice Jesus’ way of doing things, choose to apply what God says about relationships, family, neighbours, work, church, finances, community…choose to live life together, choose the adventure of faith.

Individually, as a family, as small groups as a church let’s choose to follow God and experience the adventure to faith together.

Mark Madavan