Stranded During FL Airport Shooting; Woman Goes on 'God Assignment'

A woman stranded in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport terminal last week, during the lockdown that followed a shooting there, now calls the hours she spent with her fellow passengers her "God assignment."

Christine Sneeringer wasn't supposed to be there. Her original flight took off an hour before tragedy stuck--but she missed it.

"I arrived an hour before my flight, but due to a miscalculation on my part, my luggage was over the weight limit. Before they checked my bag, I had to extract 15 pounds from it and redistribute it to my backpack and carry on," Sneeringer wrote in a Charisma News story.

"This took some doing, and it also took precious time," she recalled. "When I finished, I was informed it was too late to get my bag on the plane and they would have to re-route me now. Ugh! The fee for my new flight through Detroit was $300-plus. I was kicking myself for not asking how much it would have been to just pay an overweight bag fee."

When she texted a friend to share her frustration, she got an unexpected response. Her friend wrote back, "So sorry. God must have some divine appointment for you."

The text helped change her perspective about the flight delay and she began to pray and ask God if there was something He wanted her to do. Soon after that, the shooting took place. 

"...it was mayhem in the terminal with everyone running and screaming 'gun,' trying to get outside of the building. If that wasn't enough, there was a second incident two hours later and it happened all over again. The second time I found refuge under the gate agent counter, crouched inside next to a garbage can while I heard people yelling, 'Go, go, go, go!' to usher everyone outside again. I stayed inside the cabinet, praying for God's peace to fill the building. After that we were all shell-shocked and weren't sure what would be next," Sneeringer wrote.

She found herself on lockdown in a terminal full of passengers. 

"After an hour or two, we realized no one was going anywhere on a plane, and we couldn't even leave the building. After the first incident, only my terminal was closed, but now the entire airport was on lockdown. Planes full of passengers were stranded on the runway. Nobody in or out of any terminal for who knows how long," Sneeringer wrote.

As the day wore on, people started to get hungry -- the food court never re-opened and besides the snacks people had packed there was nothing to eat. Sneeringer had some protein bars on her that she shared, but she felt bad that there were so many other hungry people. After looking around, she found a Hudson News store that was open and selling snacks.

"I looked for something affordable and decided Bevita breakfast bars was my best bet. I asked Ana, the store manager, for a bulk discount on snacks and bottled water, but she just gave me a basket and let me fill it up and get to work! She then assigned an employee to accompany me and carry the bottled water. I kept running out of snacks and bottled water and going back to her for more. Each time I went back to refill the baskets, I wondered when Ana's generosity would end. I must have given out 10 baskets of snacks. Over the next two hours, I cleaned the store out of all the Bevitas then moved on to Nutrigrain bars. This is how I became known as the 'snack lady,'" wrote Sneeringer. 

Sneeringer spent the rest of her time in the terminal serving those around her and sharing smiles and laughter with those she met. She says she knew in her heart that she'd found her assignment from God.