A great first day in Nairobi

I had the best sleep for a first night of any of my trips so far.  I was able to get a hot shower and be in bed by 12:30 am and arose at 5:15 am reasonably refreshed.  While 4 to 5 hours of good sleep might sound like a short night, relative to my other experiences, it was pretty good.  We had breakfast at 6a m and were on the way to the game park by 7.  We saw many of the usual suspects including Giraffes, Zebras, Baboons, Impalas, Water Buffalo, Rhinos, a Crocodile, Hippos, Hartebeests and others.  No Lions this time.  We spent nearly 5 hours on the safari and I got some great shots of an African Widow Bird and some of my best Superb Starling shots ever.  I was in a Land Rover with the more serious photographers of the group and was blessed to have my good friend Barrack along for the ride.  After the safari, we went to The Veranda, a very nice outdoors restaurant with good food and very nice gift shops.  Once lunch and shopping were over, we headed back to Little Daughters for some rest until dinner.

As I write this, it's about half an hour until dinner at 7pm, during and after which Kevin and I will divide our group up into teams and announce worship times and other details for Sunday in Nairobi.
The wifi in our convent is pretty good now, so I'll be hopefully sending out more news soon and possibly even post some pictures.  Blessing to everybody and thanks for your prayers and support!

London to Nairobi

We got through security at Heathrow with only a little delay here and there. One of our autorefractors got a close examination but was allowed through. Some of us had water bottles that we were able to refill at a special filling station. Many airports around the U.S. have these too.  After spending. $3 or more, it's a little bit of a relief to get a free refill. 

We boarded the plane right on time and have already been served water and a snack.  Lunch should appear soon. Anything but chicken curry, please!  We'll, it was chicken, but at least not curry. I had lunch and then a short nap. I'm sitting on this flight with Thomas, a Concordia DCE student who is doing his internship at Salem.   He is excited to be on his first Kenyan mission.  Salem always does a great job with driving home the fact that mission and being a DCE should go hand in hand.

We're about 5 hours from Nairobi as I write this.  If the past is any guide, we'll arrive and spend an hour or more clearing Customs and Immigration and claiming our baggage. Then, we'll board buses and take about an hour getting to the convent we will call home for the next week, the Little Daughters of St. Joseph.  Tomorrow morning the teams will go to one of several attractions and then have lunch. The Salem teams are driving to their clinic locations tomorrow afternoon as well. Hopefully,  after a full day of activities we will all get a decent night's sleep.  I'm sure the choices for tomorrow morning will include a photo safari at the Nairobi National Game Park,  maybe a trip to the Elephant Orphanage or possibly the Karen Blitzen Museum.  We'll make the decisions about who is doing what around  midnight and then be up bright and early for a quick breakfast and saddling up.

We are now about 40 minutes from landing. I hope we shoot through the process, but with 2 large teams traveling together that's probably not realistic.

A good first leg of travel

16 of our team members all gathered at Redeemer starting around 9am, loaded luggage and clinic supplies in our charter bus and left on time at 10am sharp for  Bush International Airport in Houston. Our other 3 team members joined us there for checking in, going through security, food and some fellowship.  Our 20th person, Alison is already in Nairobi. More on that later.  We saw many of our old friends from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball arriving as we did.  After some happy greetings, they prepared to get a group picture. I couldn't help myself. I stood in the back row and photobombed them. I was right next to one of their leaders and my good friend Kevin Pieper. He realized what I had dond after the fact. We had a great laugh.

Only Travis and his mom Julie had issues in security.  Travis' carry on got thoroughly inspected for who knows what.  Julie's Bible set off alarms. It is a very dangerous book after all! I know it's made a radical change in my life, that's for sure.  We boarded our  British Airways 777 without incident and took off for London on time.  I shut my eyes for about 45 minutes before drinks and snacks were served. A while later, dinner service began. Our choices in the back of the plane were either chicken curry or chicken curry. They had already run out of vegetarian pasta due to a large number Indian people and others on the plane that had made that choice.  So, I  ordered chicken curry with a smile. It came with a small salad with balsamic vinegrette, a roll, rice, crackers and cheddar cheese and a chocolate and caramel shortbread confection.  I'm glad I had a burger at the airport!  Airplane food can fill you up but it's still a TV dinner.

We always instruct our teams to try to sleep after dinner on the way to London,  since it helps with the 8 hour time difference in Nairobi.  We also stress staying awake from London to Nairobi,  since we arrive around 9pm and are usually at our rooms by midnight. If you're tired upon arrival,  you can usually at least get some fitful sleep before an early Saturday morning safari or other attraction.  With lots to do on Sunday, from worship to lunch to getting ready for our clinics, we are nearly acclimated to local time by Monday night. Sometimes, I've actually slept well as early as Saturday night.

Now for Alison's story. She has come on mission trips with both Redeemer and Salem Lutheran Church in the past.  She befriended a local pastor in the Mombasa area on one of those trips.  When his wife gave birth to a little girl,  they named her Alison. So naturally, she just had to come a few days early to meet her namesake.  What a blessing!

I've been sleeping on and off using an eyeshade.   It's only about 8pm now in Austin,  but that translates to 4am Nairobi time.  I really should keep at least resting my eyes, but 8 hours is a big chunk to bite off all at once.  It's why it always takes a day or two or three to adjust.  The 777 we're flying is an older plane with no USB for charging phones and tablets or underwear power outlets or a decent entertainment system.  Many newer planes have all of this and individual DVR type control over what you watch. I always come prepared and have movies, books and music loaded on my phone. Maybe we'll have a better plane from Heathrow to Kenya.

I was just awakened about an hour and a half from London by my tray table falling in my lap. I was surprised to see a "special meal" marked Hindu in front of me. I guess I've been out in the sun too much doing my bird photos! I took it back to the galley and had a good laugh with the flight attendants. My actual breakfast consisted of a cream cheese filled pretzel, at least that's what the label said and a honey and maple granola bar. I would have called it a bagel and cream cheese. 

It looks like we'll be a few minutes early into London after a relatively smooth flight. The Fasten Seat Belt light only came on as we ventured out over the Atlantic from the east coast of the U.S. and one more time mid-Atlantic.  It's pretty usual to experience sometimes dramatic bouncing around as you leave our continent.

I managed to follow the advice I give our teams and drank about a liter and a half of water in addition to the coffee and juices that came along with meals. It's easy to get dehydrated on long flights plus we serve in Nairobi at altitude as well. I had a large kidney stone removed in December as a caution. I didn't want any issues halfway around the world.  My urologist told me I could eat anything I wanted if I drank 3 liters of water a day. A tall order, but I'm trying to keep up with that pace.

We arrived on time at Heathrow, walked down some steps to the tarmac, took a series of buses and went through security in Terminal 3 and are waiting for gate info to be posted at the last minute. This is standard procedure here, maybe to foil bad guys.  More to follow from Nairobi as I am able.

Boarding in Houston

All is well. More when we arrive in London.

Lots of preparations during last few days in Austin

After 17 trips to Kenya, I have long ago developed a two page checklist of all the important things that need doing before leaving and a very detailed list of what you pack.  One old timer years ago, on one of my first trips gave me some sage advice.  He said "If you haven't used something in three trips, never bring it again, with one exception.  A rain poncho!"  Truer words were never spoken, it has helped me to travel lighter and lighter each time, but when you REALLY need a rain poncho, you REALLY need one.  Some of the afternoon rains in Nairobi make a Texas gully washer (or do you say frog strangler?) look like a spring shower.

I spent most of today running to various stores for last minute items like medications, snacks for the trip, a new safari shirt, some hiking shoes that should stand up to the rigors of Kenya and other things.  I have made Amazon very happy for the past month since losing a backpack full of camera gear.  I've gotten almost daily shipments of one little gadget or another.  I am back to being in pretty good shape for the trip, with two very good Nikon camera bodies and Sigma lenses for wildlife photography for after the vision clinic ends.  One lens and camera combo will also be good for typical tourist travel pictures too.

I have also been in regular contact with our dear friend Catherine Wangari as we have nailed down various details for the two clinics we will be conducting, lodging, drivers, transportation logistics, local doctors, where we will worship Sunday and many, many more items.  We couldn't be nearly as effective without the support of Catherine and Gloria Sauck, our incredible nurse/missionary in Kenya who handles much of the health end of our project, dealing with community and government agencies. 

Well, I have to get back to working on my checklist!  Stay tuned!

The team was commissioned this morning!

Ten members of our team of twenty were able to attend our commissioning at Redeemer this morning.  It's a busy time of year with graduations, confirmations and other family commitments.  Our friend, Dora Tamez, was able to be with us at our 8am ceremony, but couldn't stay for the 9:30 service, when the following pictures were taken.  We are almost packed up with all of our supplies for our departure Thursday.  One blessing of having a large team is that we were able to charter a full-sized bus to do the round trip from Austin to George Bush International Airport in Houston for only $100 each.  It usually costs me around $100 for long term parking, plus gas and tolls each way, so this makes great sense.  Also, I know how dog tired we can be when we get back, and have sometimes had to pull over and take a nap on my way back to Austin if I was driving alone.  Many thanks to Yancy Parsons for thinking of this and taking the lead in making the booking happen.

Pastor Kevin introduces the team and explains our mission to the congregation

Pastor Kevin prays over the team, which also includes him!

A little over a week to go!

Since my last post here, a lot has changed.  God has blessed us with our largest team from Redeemer ever, with 20 people total.  We had planned to only have one vision clinic, but the Lord had a different idea and now we'll be serving at two different locations.  One team will be in Waithaka, a church plant whose mother church is the Lutheran Church in Kawangware where we have held many clinics in the past.  The other is a church known as Pipeline, a new church planted by the national ELCK church body with incredible support from local lay leaders.  We have had clinics at both of these locations in the past with very good results.  Pastor Kevin will be leading one team and I'll take the other.  Please keep an eye on this space as I will be posting daily (or as much as possible) from May 24th to June 6th.

Another big change is our tour of several locations for photo safaris after the mission is completed.  I had envisioned only 4 or 5 fairly serious photographers wanting to stay over with me.  Out of the 20 person team, only three need to go home, so I'll be showing 16 others the country, people and wildlife I've come to know and love.  Our dear friend Catherine Wangari has worked overtime to book such a large group for some of the coolest locations you can imagine.  She had to come up with three to four times the rooms (in nice places), transportation, drivers/guides, game park fees, etc. and has laid all of the groundwork for a great time for all of us.  We will be heading out to the Masai Mara region bright and early on the first Saturday after the mission for a couple of days of photo safaris in this cattle herding area.  I hope to see my first leopard (been on my bucket list for years!) and possibly an elephant migration nearby.  I know we'll see all of the usual menagerie of animals and birds and many I haven't seen before.  After a couple of days there, we will make our way back to Lake Nakuru, a National Game Park that has large numbers of Pink Flamingos and many other shore birds plus Rhinos, Water Buffalo, Zebras and other animals.  Our final safari will be on Tuesday morning June 5th, when we will stop at Lake Naivasha for a boat ride down a river filled with Hippos and a possible walk with the animals on an island, depending on lake levels and how wet things have been during their rainy season.

That's all for now.  Come back often as I will be posting on our progress many times during the mission.  God's blessings to all of you!