Pre-safari Thoughts on a Saturday

Hi Folks!

Just a quick note at 5:30am as I get ready to head to breakfast and then off to our safari at 6:30.  Our prayers were answered and we had a safe and relatively uneventful last leg of our trip to Nairobi, until we got to the airport.  We arrive at 8:10, right on time, but then had another two and a half hours dealing with Immigration and Customs as we gained entry into Kenya and picked our bags up.  I hope to post again after our safari and before we have a 5pm worship service along with the teams from Trinity Lutheran Church in Klein, TX.

It has been rainy lately in Nairobi, so I expect the animals to be spread out and a little harder to spot, since the grass will be much taller and the wildlife won't be concentrated near water features so much as they are during drier times.  Catherine's son Mark is going to join us, along with Barrack, another birder that will join us on our after trip, and our driver for a total of 6 in our van.  I think it will work out fine as only a couple of us are avid photographers.  More to follow later!

The beginning of our first day in Kenya.  Thank you Jesus!

Blessings everybody!

Frankfurt to Nairobi

We only had about  2 hour layover in Frankfurt and we did have to clear security there. By the time we had walked nearly a mile to our next gate, according to Cynthia's fitness app, I  only had enough time to post the blog entry I wrote on the first flight, send a couple of emails and post to Facebook.  The boarding process went smoother than in Houston but we're on a much smaller plane, the Airbus A340-300.

We took off pretty much on time and will arrive in Nairobi a little after 8 pm local time. We were given a new form on the plane from the Kenyan customs authority wanting us to declare everything we are bringing into the country. I have no idea how to value our vision supplies or my cameras and laptops.  I'm sure it's just another way to tax us. I just hope it goes smoothly on our arrival.

Our lunch on the plane was a choice between a chicken or a beef dish. I chose the beef and it was good. We're all trying to stay awake on this flight so we might be able to get some sleep overnight before an early morning safari.  I'll get to be with my friend Barrack for the safari and for lunch afterwards. It will be good to catch up on each other's lives.  We always do an early morning  trip to the Nairobi National Game Park on the first Saturday for several reasons. Since some of our team members may view this mission trip as a once in a lifetime event, it's good for them to see some of the  countryside and the abundant wildlife and flowers. Second, if we can stay active and be pretty exhausted over the weekend,  we'll naturally get better sleep and will be almost acclimated to the 8 hour difference from Austin to Nairobi by the time we begin the clinic.

After we get our luggage and clear customs, Catherine has arranged for a van to take us to Rosa Mystica,  the  convent we will call home while we are in Kenya. My first order of business will be a hot shower,  you can get pretty grungy when you travel for 24 hours or more!  Next I'll try to let folks know we arrived safe and sound.  Finally, I'll attempt to get some good sleep. On my first few missions, it was Monday or Tuesday night before I got a good night's rest.  These days, Saturday night or Sunday are possible. Never on that first Friday night though. You're still wound up from the rigors of travel, it's a short night and you are anticipating the morning photo safari. But you still have to try, even if it's just laying there, which is still way better than an airplane seat slightly leaned back.  That's it for now. We're about three and a half hours from touchdown.  The next post will probably be short and sweet just saying all is well.  We've been blessed with relatively easy travel so far with only the expected minor inconveniences. Thank you Lord for travel mercies!

Travel from Houston to Frankfort

My day started around 5:30 am and I finished last minute packing and finished up some business like scheduling my sales tax payment for my computer and photography businesses.  As I was taking some items out to my truck, who should I see but Pastor Kevin waiting for me.  Alex arrived shortly thereafter and Kevin prayed over us.  It was a special sendoff from my Pastor, friend and the leader of our global mission efforts. Thank you Jesus for putting him in our lives!

I drove Alex and our supplies and baggage to the Houston airport, where we met Cynthia. She has a friend that lives near the airport who is keeping her car for her. She's going to drive Alex back to Austin after our mission, since I will be staying a few extra days for wildlife photography with my friend Bill from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball. That will work out well since Alex's car is at my house and she lives about a half mile from my place.  Once I had dropped my truck at long term parking, Cynthia took a team selfie and we got through security fairly quickly.  Our flight to Frankfurt was supposed to depart at 3:55 pm,  but the plane wasn't even boarded by then.  It was very warm in the terminal as the team and 800 new friends waited in a snaking line reminiscent of the most popular rides at Disney World! We took off about an hour late and we still never heard what the cause of the delay was. Once airborne, the pilot assured us that he could make up most of the lost time. I hope so, we only have about a 2 hour layover in Germany before our flight to Nairobi. At least the next flight is also on Lufthansa. I'm not clear on whether we will have another security check or not.

Our plane is the biggest one I've ever been on, an Airbus A380-800 that holds 800 souls, 500 downstairs and 300 upstairs. It was supposed to have power and USB in every seat, but not where we are. That's OK because after dinner, it is best to sleep the rest of this leg of our journey to make getting acclimated to  Nairobi time, which is 8 hours ahead of us, easier.  They do have wifi for $20 for this flight or $34 for the next 24 hours, but it is slow and limited to 500 MB per flight. I'm writing this on my phone and will try to post to the blog from Frankfurt. I might get the wifi on the next flight, but with all the sleeping on this one,  it just wasn't worth it.

Dinner was a choice between chicken teriyaki and pasta. I opted for the chicken and it was quite good.  It came with a salad,  rice and a chocolate fudge brownie. Once fed, I took.some Ibuprofen PM to help with sleeping and I managed to get 4 or 5 hours of on again off again shuteye.  We did hit about 20 minutes of pretty strong turbulence, possibly as we headed out over the Atlantic ocean. I was in the bathroom when they forced everyone back to their seats. I hope that was the most excitement for me this trip!

It's time for some breakfast and then about an hour to go until Frankfurt.  Breakfast was also very good. Scrambled eggs with steamed mushrooms and tomatoes, a fruit cup and a biscuit with strawberry jam. British Air could learn a few things about food from Lufthansa!

If I can post this during our layover, it will be around 9 am in Germany and about 2 am back in Austin for you night owls! Thank you Lord for keeping us safe thus far!

Time to saddle up for Kenya again!

As I sit in my living room writing this, my mind drifts off to past mission trips to Kenya.  There are so many friends, so many stories over the years that it is kind of mind boggling as I gear up for my 19th journey to this wonderful country.  I could never have imagined back in 2009 when I made my first trip to Nairobi, that our project would have touched over 300,000 people by now with both vision care, and more importantly, with the saving message of the Gospel.  Each of these individuals has been prayed over personally.  Only the Lord knows how each of those prayers was answered, but I believe that they all were in their own way and in God's own perfect timing.  Many times, not as we imagined at all, but always in His better way.

Here are some photos from our being sent as missionaries last Sunday morning.

Explaining this mission to our congregation

Pastor Kevin adds more to the story

Being blessed to be a blessing

We will be serving at the Springs of Life Lutheran Church in the large slum of Kibera, in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.  I have conducted our vision clinics there several times before and the benefits of our mission philosophy for this project, "Short term missions with long term commitment" will certainly be obvious as we are greeted by life long friends and as we make friends with new volunteers from the church.  We rotate locations around Nairobi and have been concentrating on a couple of new church plants for the last couple of years.  I will be going back to my roots, since Kibera is the first location that I was a Team Leader for in the Spring of 2010.  I have been blessed mightily each time I have been back.  The church has a thriving parochial school and a vibrant congregation.  I can't wait to worship there next Sunday.  The Holy Spirit is present full blast in the music and in the order of service.

We leave for Nairobi on Thursday May 30th and will arrive at Jomo Kenyatta airport at around 8 pm local time Friday night.  We will be flying Lufthansa out of Houston with a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany.  This time all of our flights will be modern planes with power and USB connections in every seat, making for a little less stressful travel when you don't have to worry about your laptop, tablet or smartphone dying on you.  This has become more important over the years, as our travel tickets and visas are now capable of being displayed at security checkpoints on our portable devices wherever we go.

The downside of all of this technology is that the world has become so much smaller that we have grown used to being connected at all times.  Particularly our young people.  Some of the other teams in our project have practically had to take phones away because their people had their heads buried in their screens during cross country travel as incredible scenery and wildlife were in plain view.  I'd hate to miss what might be a once in a lifetime experience that way!  These are much different times than when I first came to Nairobi in 2009 and we were only able to contact our loved ones via a burner phone that the team shared for about 25 cents a minute.  We might call home every second or third day and I would do my best to get a blog post out every day with iffy Internet connections.  Now there is fairly decent wifi everywhere and we can use Skype, Facetime or Whatsapp to do a video call to any phone in the world for free.  Wow!

That's about it for now, I'm still doing last minute things before the trip.  I'll try to post at least daily from the mission field and there may be a few pictures.  Sometime bandwidth just doesn't make uploading high quality pictures feasible, but there will be a photo album available within a couple of weeks after the trip.  I am staying over for an extra 4 days for photo safaris with my friend Bill Goodoff from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball and, if past history is any guide, I will probably have 5,000 or more photos to sort through from that!  So many pictures, so little time!  Blessings everybody!  Please keep us in your prayers for a safe and effective mission.