We were up, showered and had breakfast at 5:30. I had to make sure that the water pump for
our lodge was on earlier than the usual 5:30am for those of us on the 2nd
floor to have any water pressure. This
is just one example of the million and one details that Pastor Kevin and I
always need to attend to for things to go well on our trips, whether it is
timing of meals, transportation, day trips, behind the scenes issues that make
the clinic run or all of the minutia that is required to take a team safely to
and from the other side of the world. We
both have a passion for these trips and we want everyone that comes with us to
have the best experience possible. I think
the number of people that have comes with us multiple times is a testament to how
well the model that Salem Lutheran Church developed for doing these missions
has stood the test of time. We are very
thankful for their leadership and for
mentoring us along the way. We have also
been blessed by partnering with Ray and Flora Tacquard of Trinity Lutheran
Church in Klein. We will be tagging
along with them from now on, while Salem and others will go at slightly
different times. This will make each
group 25-30 members strong, rather than burying our support staff in
Kenya with 60 or more people all at once.
We loaded our check-in luggage onto a truck for transport to
Rosa Mystica for staging, where it would stay until our departure Saturday
afternoon. Allan was there, ready with
our van. I had promised to leave my
travel Bible with him. He took a liking
to it when he saw it up close one afternoon.
On this trip, Pastor Kevin had preached out of it on Sunday morning,
Pastor Robert had used it some in triage, Pastor James had read it to several people
as they were coming to Christ, our evangelist Immanuel worked with small groups
from it, our congregational elder Michael talked with people one on one with it
open in his hands and I had given our Friday morning devotion from it for the
team and our local volunteers. Pastor
James called this particular Bible a very powerful book because it was in the
midst of so many blessed occurrences during the week.
This copy of God's Word had accompanied me for all nine
of my trips to Kenya. I told Allan how
special both this Bible and he had been to me and that I wanted him to have it. He has been one of the keys to our teams
functioning so well on the last two trips.
You might ask yourself, “How important can a van driver be?” Let me count the ways. First, a joyful, easy going but hard-working
driver such as Allan can, along with the team leaders, play a large role in
setting the tone for the whole week. He
always had a good word for us, told our new team members many things about
Kenya and was a marvelous straight man for my jokes. Next, no matter what the team needed, such
as black plastic sheeting right away as we setup the clinic Monday morning,
which was needed to darken several of the church windows so the autorefractor
station and the doctors could work properly, he knew where to get it promptly
and did so. Also, while many drivers
will sit in the vehicle, reading the paper and waiting for us to send them on
some errand, a good one such as Allan actually takes part in helping with translation,
traffic control and other tasks. Another
attribute of an outstanding driver is that he will go out of his way to point
out local sites to newcomers and explains the history or significance of what
is being seen. When it comes time for a
nice dinner, a daytrip activity or just knowing where the best place to shop
for supplies or souvenirs is, a solid driver is right in the thick of it. And, of course, there’s always the actual
driving skills, such as knowing the best routes, the right times to be on the
road to avoid the heavy traffic and always keeping safety number one. Our LCMS liaison in Nairobi Catherine always
gets us top notch drivers and vans, but she has outdone herself with Allan. I know other team leaders have their favorite
drivers to work with as well, and I have a short list of 3 or 4 others that I
would like to work with again when they are available, but for me, it’s
got to be Allan. Our teams have loved him. He taught me Jambo Bwana, a welcome to Kenya
song, and we regaled the team several times singing and dancing to it. He always wore a different hat every day and
the running joke was that I would try to buy his hat from him from morning til
dark, which he refused to do. Saturday morning he brought me a
dark blue beret as a parting gift and I presented him with the powerful Bible, in which I had prepared a
personal inscription. The team took a
picture of us, him with the Bible and me wearing the hat. One of my high points of this or any other trip, for sure.
We pulled out of Africa Heart for the last time at
around 6:15 and headed for the expressway, since we needed to get from the far
north of town to near the airport on the southern edge of town for our
safari. We got a good look at downtown
as we passed through and Allan pointed out the Nairobi University, a large
Catholic cathedral, governmental offices and other landmarks, with an explanation for each.
As usual, our morning in the Nairobi National Game Park was
different than any I’ve been on before.
During the drought last November, there were more species in the areas
of the park we have access to. With
heavy rains and lots of vegetation since then, the animals that were there were harder to
see. A couple of the highlights this
time was a close encounter with a pair of crested cranes, some great shots of a
pair of huge ostriches, a rendevous with a very large warthog, some beautiful silhouetted
hartebeests standing on the horizon on top of a large bluff and a big herd of
Thompson gazelles. We just missed seeing
a male lion, a female lion and their cub right after a kill of an antelope. We got there a minute too late and learned about it from some folks from Australia. This is one
reason I love to come back to the various safari parks, you never know what
you’re going to see. It’s the same
reason I enjoy fishing. You can’t catch
a fish without a line in the water and you can’t see the more exotic species unless
you continue to show up.
After the game park, we had an excellent lunch at the Veranda, sitting outside among palm trees and many flowers. It's a paradise there. The rest of the group loaded up on gifts in the shops there and then we headed back to Rosa Mystica to meet the other teams coming in from the mission field. I bought another nice African shirt from the Lutheran ladies that Catherine knows that work with AIDS orphans in the slum. As usual, I negotiated the price of the shirt upwards by about 50%. They always remember me and keep a nice shirt off to the side. It's a good relationship I have with them. Catherine had 5 pizzas and assorted drinks on hand. I forced myself to eat one slice of pizza and had an orange Fanta. All of the soft drinks in Kenya use sugar cane, rather than the corn syrup that is standard in the U.S. and you can tell the difference. They do have Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, but most people in Kenya have no weight problem, unless the need to put on a few more pounds, so most drinks are sugary.
We still had a little time to kill, so I went to the Nakumatt next door with Catherine in search of cookies for our friend Cecilia back in Austin. After returning to the lodge, we all said our goodbyes to Shara and Catherine. I was blessed to run into our friend Bishop Bakari. He took me by the hand and led me out to the parking lot, where my friend Allan from previous clinics in the slum in Kibera was standing with his youth choir. It was a real pleasure to see him again and to encourage him in his ministry. We loaded most of the 30 footlockers on top of a large bus, stood on end and held in place by ropes. It looked a little sketchy to Pastor Kevin and I, but they all made it to the airport. Some footlockers and our larger luggage were loaded into the back of the bus. The remaining seats filled quickly with other mission teams, so our group took one of 2 smaller vans as we headed for Jomo Kenyatta Airport, named after Kenya's first president, at a little after 5pm.
Things went about as smoothly as they ever have as we checked in for our KLM flight and cleared immigration. Some of us shopped in the duty free shops, while others, myself included, had sandwiches and drinks at Java House, which is similar to Starbucks. We had eaten at a Java House on our first Saturday in Nairobi and really liked it. And, I had bought a pound of Kenya AA coffee there to try when I got back home. We began to go through security afte the Trintiy-Klein teams. I was one of the last ones being a team leader and making sure my "flock" had made it through when the KLM ticket counter lady said something was wrong with my ticket, which was supposed to be an aisle seat. I prefer the aisle, because I like to stay well hydrated and strecth fairly frequently, which definitely needs to happen when nature calls. Since the flight was already beginning to board and the security check line was long, the girl at the counter told me to go through security and she would catch up to me with a revised boarding pass. I was the last one in the terminal, sitting by the door to the jetway when my boarding pass arrived. It was the last seat on the plane and in the middle of the aisle. I ended up in a group of Sudanese Christians that were going to Oslo for a conference. They were very nice and we shared stories until after the meal was served. Unfortunately for me, the lady next to me was a very wrestles sleeper and at least 3 times during the night I caught a roundhouse elbow to the head or ribs, waking up with a start. She was very apologetic in the morning, but this flight has to go down in the annals of all of my travels as one of the worst ever. I think the only one that might beat it out was an Air Italia flight with Mike Naleieha in 2006, when a group from Redeemer went to Germany and it was about 110 degrees the whole way!
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, most of us went to Starbucks and enjoyed some LARGE coffees while Pastor Kevin kept an eye on our belongings. It's a really cool airport, with many shops, electric massage chairs, showers that you can rent by the hour (the thought crossed my mind but I didn't have a change of clothes in my carryon) and much, much more. We had an uneventful flight back to Houston and I got my coveted aisle seat this time. Upon arrival in Houston, we had one of the smoothest exits through Immigration and Customs checks I have ever seen and the drive home was quick and uneventful. That is, other than the traditional stop in Brenham for Blue Bell and a rest stop that Corina and I made. I didn't want to jinx the travel home by breaking tradition. I am a Lutheran, after all!
As of this writing, I am already working on getting lots of pictures with captions to explain them out on my photo site. Come back often as I have a few more really good stories to tell, photos will be added for some time to come and I will write a final reflection on what made this mission special after I have some time to process everything we did. Pastor Kevin can also tell you, when we're leading a trip, the enormous number of details that we need to pay attention to precludes having much time for contemplation. Many insights come to us within the month after the trip when we look back on the ways that God has moved in each of our lives during these missions.
To see the current state of the picture collection, click the link below.
https://plus.google.com/photos/103425019225851329391/albums/5855216623996007105?authkey=CLD_kqXR3_HC5wE
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