Travel Home

Travel Home – Nairobi to London
The team is currently flying at 36,000 feet southwest of Stuttgart on the way to London. We left our compound at 6:45pm after our usual heartfelt goodbyes with Catherine, Claude, Rhoda and team member who are taking later flights tomorrow. We battled some traffic getting to the airport, only to find that any rush was in vain, since our plane had been delayed until 1am, instead of the scheduled 11pm. The good news is that we had a planned five hour layover at London Heathrow anyway and we should be able to make our connection. The bad news is that the time was spent in the Nairobi airport, where they don’t believe in air conditioning (the may actually use the heat to torture us!). It was probably 70 outside, but some of the terminal waiting areas had to easily be 95 degrees. We were fortunate that our area was only about 85-90 when we were waiting to board. Pastor Goodwill made a point of greeting each crew member warmly as they passed through in front of us, and all but one or two responded with pretty good humor. We dared him to try his greeting technique on the general public and the first traveler went away scratching his head, after giving us a very funny look. But the next guy was a gem. He had gone to UT Austin years before and wanted to know what was wrong with the football team, with them having just played in the national championship game last year and now being just far too painful to talk about or watch. Pastor and the other Aggies in our group had some good-natured fun with him and made the usual predictions about the upcoming Thanksgiving game. After that light banter, we told him about our mission and he told us that he has been working to save the animals and the natural habitat in Africa. The heavy three year drought that finally ended this year had literally decimated cattle herds and other wildlife. Poachers are now going after elephants, lions, rhinos and other species, some for food, others doing it for big black market money. He pointed us to a National Geographic Wild episode that is going to air on December 8th, detailing what he fears is becoming a losing battle. When it was time to board, we wished him well with his noble calling. While most of us on this trip are pretty outgoing (or we wouldn’t be evangelizing halfway around the world!), Pastor Goodwill takes it to a whole different level, using his gift for dealing with people to pretty quickly getting at what makes them tick. He, Patricia and Rick from Good Shepherd have been a blessing and a great addition to the team, each tirelessly spreading the Gospel in their own ways.

London to Houston
We arrived in London at about 7am local time and the three hour layover worked out as scheduled. We all enjoyed the time, visiting with members of other teams and with each other. It is truly amazing, the variety of ways that the Lord used each of the teams for His purposes. We were finally assigned to our gate, which usually happens about 20 minutes before boarding and were put on three buses to take us out to our Boeing 747-400. There was one glitch, however. One of the new members of the Salem team had her luggage mistakenly put on another plane by British Airways, and, due to security rules, was not going to be allowed to fly with us, since her baggage would not have been flying with her. Luckily, Kevin Pieper was able to get her on our flight, which was blessedly about half full and he also managed to get her luggage retrieved and put on board our plane. This was the first truly difficult travel situation that we encountered and even it worked out OK. I'm glad, since she had never flown before and it was her first mission and was so far from home. The Salem crew came through once again! The plane took off right on time and we expect to arrive at Bush International Airport around 2:15pm. What a contrast between this flight and the journey home from the mission to the Nairobi slum of Kibera last May! The Icelandic volcano was still causing major travel problems then and it took over 35 hours from the time we left for the airport in Nairobi until I was on my front doorstep in Austin. The London to Nairobi leg involved 13 hours in one plane, 2 hours on the ground at Heathrow waiting for a flight slot and 11 hours in the air, since we had to fly north of Greenland into the Arctic Circle before the long trek south to Houston. Today’s flight should take less than 9.5 hours and the total trip will probably be around 30 hours from beginning to end. It will likely take about an hour to clear customs and retrieve all of our footlockers and personal items , if past experience is any guide. Then we will be heading back to Austin, with the mandatory stop in Brenham for Blue Bell and gas.

As predicted during my writing on the plane ride that is shown above, we got in around 2:30pm in Houston. As luck would have it, one of the Salem team members had been in the military with a customs agent who came to inspect our footlockers. It's good to have friends, because we sailed right through security like never before. While there were spot checks of personal items, the mission footlockers were not a problem. Only one footlocker didn't make it with the others, of course, it had to be the one with Howard and Martha, Ralph and Louise and Paul's (leader of the entire mission) personal items. Paul is coming through Austin on Wednesday and with any luck will have their possessions with him at that time. We did stop for the Blue Bell and I was deposited on my front porch at about 6:30pm, about 30 hours after we headed for the Nairobi airport.