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!
No comments:
Post a Comment