It happened on a Blue Friday. That’s the day we Seattle Seahawks fans wear our team colors and take pride in being 12s. Boarding a flight to Tampa I found myself seated in row 12. That had to be a good sign.

Comfortably perched in my window seat, I pulled out my iPhone and started scrolling through Facebook posts. Having been without power, internet and adequate sleep for three days following the “bomb cyclone” that hit our community, I was looking forward to some alone time on the five-hour flight.

The woman seated in my row on the aisle was about my age. The young woman next to me, wearing an Auburn University sweatshirt, appeared to be a recent graduate. When I heard the older woman tell the younger one that her son and daughter-in-law were both graduates of Seattle Pacific, I chose to break my vow of silence. After all, I was flying to Florida to connect with former SPU students in my new role as alumni ambassador for the school my wife and I attended.

I introduced myself as a retired pastor now volunteering for my alma mater. The two women introduced themselves to me. The older one was traveling to meet her husband in the Sunshine State after spending time with her aged parents in Lynden where she’d grown up. The younger one was en route to attend her grandfather’s funeral.

The older one, upon hearing I was a minister, told me her son and daughter-in-law (the SPU alums) were co-pastors of a church in North Carolina. Without batting an eye, the younger one showed us a book she was reading that was written by a pastor. I asked to see it and discovered the author was on staff at a church in Naperville, Illinois.

“This author is from Naperville!” I said excitedly. “That’s where we raised our kids. And this author is the grandson of Ray and Anne Ortlund who had a big impact on my ministry through their writing.”

At that, the older woman spoke up and said that her daughter-in-law who went to Seattle Pacific was raised in Naperville.

“What? Are you kidding me?”

When I asked more information, I discovered her son’s wife attended a church quite near where we lived for eleven years. Then she told me that although she was on her way to spend time at her Florida condo with her husband, they actually lived in Holland, Michigan.

“No way!” I said. “My oldest daughter was a student at Hope College in Holland twenty years ago. And she worked at a coffee shop near campus called JPs.”

“Wait!” the older woman said. “My daughter worked at JPs back then. I’m sure they knew each other.”

My new friend then volunteered that her family was part of Central Wesleyan Church in Holland. I smiled and responded that my daughter’s best friend in college attended that very church before meeting her husband.

“And now they are living in Huntsville, Alabama where they have planted a church,” I said with a twinkle in my eye.

That’s when the younger woman next to me joined the “small world” conversation. With a broad smile she blurted out that Huntsville was her hometown. Her family still lives there even though she moved to Seattle a few years ago)

By this time my pastoral instincts kicked in and I felt prompted to ask the younger woman about her grandfather who had just died. She related to me that he had lived to be 94 and had worked at the Manhattan Project in Oakridge, Tennessee before retiring.

Now it was my turn to smile as I shared that my dad’s cousin “T. A.” was born about the same time as her grandfather and had also spent his adult life working at Oakridge.

I couldn’t help suggesting, “I wonder if your grandfather and my dad’s cousin worked in the same area and knew each other?” But to myself I thought, “Based on the amazing connections we’ve already made on this flight, I’m guessing they did!”

I arrived in Tampa with two new friends and a reminder that seeming coincidental occurrences are much more.

Guest columnist Greg Asimakoupoulos is a former chaplain at Covenant Living at the Shores in Mercer Island.