Took a ride to JFK this afternoon to meet my sister, who was arriving from the UK to spend a couple of weeks with us. Friday I was there to meet Jonathan and the kids off a Delta flight from Dallas and I’ll be taking them back there very reluctantly on Sunday.

I sometimes think my Expedition could easily makes it’s way to JFK unaided, as ever since we moved here 18 years ago, hellos and goodbyes in one or another of its terminals have become a regular part of our lives.

My first encounter with the former New York International Airport (and even earlier, Idlewild Airport) was in April 1984 on my first ever visit to the USA. My British Airways flight from London heathrow touched down early in the afternoon at Terminal 7, but I didn’t need to venture outside the building as I was traveling on to Norfolk, Virginia.

Over the next few years, it would become the hub for my ministry to churches all around the country as I flew into there and then off to other cities, north, south and west.

I would stay in airport hotels in Queens whilst preaching in Brooklyn churches and would be in awe of the busyness of this huge complex serving millions of travelers every year.

Little did I know back then that JFK would become part of my life and that one day, arriving at any of its terminals would mean that I was home. I never dreamed of possessing an American passport, or of passing through immigration in the U.S. citizens’ channel, but what did I know?

It has been one heck of a ride.

And the best is still to come, right here on Long Island, NY – just down the road from JFK.