November 8, 2012
The morning started out with a phone call a little before 7:30 from Pastor Kevin letting me know that he had been ill all night and would see if he felt well enough to join us in Houston in time for our flight to London. I immediately headed for his place, where Tammy was waiting with the leader's packets for both Redeemer teams. I went to the church a block away and retrieved the autorefractors for my team and the petty cash we would need for our on the ground expenses at Kitengela and Kiambu. Allison from Wichita Falls arrived first, followed by Kay, Beth, Chris and finally Cecilia. We drove my truck and Beth's car to Brenham where we met the rest of our group for our traditional Blue Bell ice cream.
We caravanned to Bush International Airport in Houston and broke bread together, having one last American meal at the Hot Biscuit. After parking at Fast Park, we made our way to Terminal D and waited for the Vision Kenya Project's 60 footlockers to arrive by truck from Tomball. Check-in and our journey through airport security went very smoothly, with the only problem I was aware of being Beth and Chris needing to be reticketed because their full names were not on their boarding passes, thus not matching their passports. We had just gotten done with security when Pastor Dave called saying that Kevin was definitely not going to make it. A little later, even though he was still not feeling too well, Kevin graciously called and wished us many blessings on the mission. I feel bad for him, knowing how much behind the scenes planning and work goes into fielding a mission team halfway around the world twice a year. From just about the time we return from one trip, we are already taking inventory of the remaining supplies, guestimating what to order to replenish our kits, recruiting new as well as experienced missionaries for our next adventure and the list goes on and on. We are very blessed at Redeemer to have a core group of committed people who are constantly volunteering to help with every detail and are always looking for ways to improve our processes to make us more effective witnesses for Christ. Everyone on both of our teams and all who know him from the other churches are praying for a speedy recovery and are hopeful Pastor Kevin might still find a way to get to Africa.
As I write this, we are at 37,000 feet and traveling at about 550mph. We are approaching Boston and will be over the Atlantic Ocean soon. There is some turbulence due to the northeaster that is hitting the East coast and the Fasten Seat Belt lights are on. Veterans of these missions know that it works for the best if you get some good sleep on the flight to London and then try to remain awake for much of the London to Nairobi leg of the trip. This usually results in a little less serious jet lag. It's almost 8pm at home, so I'll be off to Never Neverland fairly soon now.
It's now about midnight back in Texas and 6am London time as we've just been served a light breakfast and are about an hour from Heathrow. I did get some sleep as planned and am getting ready to stow my electronics, including this Android tablet I'm writing this post with. After the choppy air off the eastern U. S., the rest of the flight was very smooth.
The morning started out with a phone call a little before 7:30 from Pastor Kevin letting me know that he had been ill all night and would see if he felt well enough to join us in Houston in time for our flight to London. I immediately headed for his place, where Tammy was waiting with the leader's packets for both Redeemer teams. I went to the church a block away and retrieved the autorefractors for my team and the petty cash we would need for our on the ground expenses at Kitengela and Kiambu. Allison from Wichita Falls arrived first, followed by Kay, Beth, Chris and finally Cecilia. We drove my truck and Beth's car to Brenham where we met the rest of our group for our traditional Blue Bell ice cream.
We caravanned to Bush International Airport in Houston and broke bread together, having one last American meal at the Hot Biscuit. After parking at Fast Park, we made our way to Terminal D and waited for the Vision Kenya Project's 60 footlockers to arrive by truck from Tomball. Check-in and our journey through airport security went very smoothly, with the only problem I was aware of being Beth and Chris needing to be reticketed because their full names were not on their boarding passes, thus not matching their passports. We had just gotten done with security when Pastor Dave called saying that Kevin was definitely not going to make it. A little later, even though he was still not feeling too well, Kevin graciously called and wished us many blessings on the mission. I feel bad for him, knowing how much behind the scenes planning and work goes into fielding a mission team halfway around the world twice a year. From just about the time we return from one trip, we are already taking inventory of the remaining supplies, guestimating what to order to replenish our kits, recruiting new as well as experienced missionaries for our next adventure and the list goes on and on. We are very blessed at Redeemer to have a core group of committed people who are constantly volunteering to help with every detail and are always looking for ways to improve our processes to make us more effective witnesses for Christ. Everyone on both of our teams and all who know him from the other churches are praying for a speedy recovery and are hopeful Pastor Kevin might still find a way to get to Africa.
As I write this, we are at 37,000 feet and traveling at about 550mph. We are approaching Boston and will be over the Atlantic Ocean soon. There is some turbulence due to the northeaster that is hitting the East coast and the Fasten Seat Belt lights are on. Veterans of these missions know that it works for the best if you get some good sleep on the flight to London and then try to remain awake for much of the London to Nairobi leg of the trip. This usually results in a little less serious jet lag. It's almost 8pm at home, so I'll be off to Never Neverland fairly soon now.
It's now about midnight back in Texas and 6am London time as we've just been served a light breakfast and are about an hour from Heathrow. I did get some sleep as planned and am getting ready to stow my electronics, including this Android tablet I'm writing this post with. After the choppy air off the eastern U. S., the rest of the flight was very smooth.
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