5/9/2010 Travel Travails

The team staying in Kenya for the next week sent us off with a mission song as our bus left from the Norwegian compound at 7:15pm local time Saturday. The ride should have taken about 30-40 minutes, but about halfway to the airport, traffic came to a 3 lane wide screeching halt, with us in the middle lane. Traffic was backed up for as far as we could see. The next 25 minutes were filled with local young men and children trying to sell us every piece of junk imaginable and, with no air flow through the windows, things got pretty warm and stuffy in the bus. We were all beginning to be concerned about getting through security with 60 footlockers and checking in before boarding our flight. Kevin Pieper said a beautiful prayer asking for God’s help in resolving whatever was causing the traffic jam, and within 2 minutes, the traffic seemed to part like the Red Sea and we were suddenly doing about 50mph on our way to the airport. The entire bus sang the Doxology, praising the Lord’s answering of our prayers. I’m sure everyone on that bus suddenly felt very near to God.

After arriving at the airport, we unloaded all of the footlockers onto carts, with most of the group taking 2 footlockers as their checked luggage. Paul Althoff was first in line and security randomly opened 2 of the footlockers, with the first one containing the Faske’s and my backpacks. Somehow, Paul was able to do a little talking about the clinics that we had conducted throughout the country and, after a few tense moments, the group was cleared to come through security. Check in for the British Airways flight to London went very smoothly and in record time. I think maybe God’s answer to the prayers on the bus flowed over into the airport procedures as well. Our flight left right on time for London. I stayed up long enough to be served dinner and then slept for 4-5 hours. I was on the aisle and neither of the other 2 people in my section stirred either. It was the best and longest rest I’ve ever had on a flight, bar none. There was a young Kenyan man next to me who was heading back to Dallas to continue his studies at Dallas Baptist University. We talked about the clinics and his views on the Kenyan constitutional referendum. He was already missing his family and Nairobi, which he said was the best city in the world. After our quick tour of the nicer parts of town yesterday, I can understand that.

We had about a 3 hour layover in London and we appeared to be right on schedule even after boarding British Airways Flight BA195. That is, until the Captain came on the intercom and explained that the Icelandic volcano had takeoffs and landings for the northern routes scrambled and that we would be waiting on the ground for an hour before taking off. That hour came and went fairly quickly, as I got to know a lawyer from Houston in my row and he got to hear my mission and computer guy stories. We also got to play musical chairs as couples found ways to trade others for their seats so they could sit together on Mother’s Day. The Captain announced another hour’s delay and we all groaned, since about the best the Redeemer team could now hope for was an arrival in the Austin area between 9 and 10pm, assuming a perfect drive back from Houston, and that we would encounter no issues at the immigration and customs checkpoints. This time, the Captain’s word was good and we were taxiing down the runway almost exactly 2 hours after our tickets said that we should be. All told, we ended up in that plane for nearly 13 hours. Even though none of us would have wished or tried for it willingly, we set a new world’s record of 34 hours and 15 minutes for the return trip, counting from the time we left for the airport in Nairobi. That's one long day of travel, coming right after a full day Saturday at the Lake Naivasha game park and driving around the sights of Nairobi. This was a very small price to pay, considering all of the travel mercies and wonderful encounters with the people that God had brought to us during the last 11 days in many situations.