MINNEAPOLIS — A Twin Cities church group is on its way home tonight, after spending the last few days stranded in New Orleans.
"We are really sick of the airport," Leisha Tays, supervising the trip, said in a FaceTime call from the airport.
That trip, to the Evangelical Lutherans in America Youth Gathering, was supposed to end this past Saturday.
"Every once in awhile, it would just get bumped back farther and farther and farther," she said.
That group from Our Saviours' Lutheran Church in East Bethel consists of 14, mostly made up of kids. Tays says it's been a challenge to figure out their next steps with a group so big.
"It is frustrating, but I also know it's nothing I can control," Tays said. "That's what I keep telling my kids that I'm here with, is that you can only control yourself."
"Doing our best, what else do you do, right?" she added.
To keep themselves busy, they've spent time exploring New Orleans, a vacation that they were initially alright with extending. They quickly realized there were challenges that came with that, including working through Delta's vouchers, which covered not nearly enough for a group their size.
"We have been given three $12 meal vouchers per person, which doesn't really cover much," Tays said. "Especially in four days."
They made it through thanks to donations from their church members back home, donating to keep the crew fed.
"A lot of details, and everything went great until it didn't," Lisa Rykken Kastler, Director of Congregational Ministries for the church, said.
"There wasn't even an ask, the situation was such that, ok, you're gonna need money," Rykken Kastler added.
At the time of this article's writing, Tays tells KARE11 that they're finally taxiing, ready to take off and come home – a vacation they can't wait to end.
"We're just exhausted, you know?" she said. "There's the emotional and the physical exhaustion that's going on, and we're ready."