London to Nairobi

Our flight from JFK to London was uneventful and was about six and a half hours.  We had dinner about an hour after takeoff and then I tried to get some sleep, with mixed results.  About 45 minutes before landing, we were served coffee or tea, no breakfast this time.  I did ask one of our flight attendants about the gates closing an hour before international flights and he said there was no way that would happen.  As evidence of this, he pointed out the 3 people we waited for at JFK.  He was right.  While it took about 15 minutes to deplane, since Ralph, Dora and I were all in row 50 or higher, we were rapidly moved from Terminal 5 to a connecting point by a tram and then road a bus from there to Terminal 3.  The security system was much improved and we made it to our gate about 15 minutes before boarding.  We met up with the other teams from Salem and other churches and renewed old friendships for a few minutes before we boarded the 777 that would be taking us to Nairobi.

While I was supposed to have an aisle seat, it turned out I had seat 30B, the middle seat out of three on the left side of the plane.  The window seat was empty, so I took that and am glad I did.  I have gotten some very nice pictures with my cell phone of cloud cover, Munich and the Alps as we passed over Germany and several other places so far.  As I write this, we are over Greece with about five and a half hours to go until we reach Nairobi.  I feel a little bit like an astronaut watching features on the ground below as I check the in-flight entertainment system map to see where we are.

We were served an English breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, ham and tow kind of biscuits along with a fruit cup.  It was actually pretty good, then again, as my Dad always used to say “Hunger is the best seasoning!”  Almost anything would have tasted good at that point.

We are now about 2 hours from landing at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.  It’s been a very smooth ride, I don’t think the Fasten Seat Belt light has been on even once, unless it was while I catnapped occasionally.  We will get a light box lunch, if the past is any indicator, it will have a sandwich in it with some mysterious substance resembling egg salad or chicken salad, nobody really knows what it is.  We’ll have to clear Immigration and Customs, but with the new electronic visa system, it tends to go a little better until the inevitable problems retrieving luggage and getting it through security.  It would be nice if the Red Sea parted for once and we just walked right out.

We’ll load up all of our luggage and footlockers onto a truck and then take a small bus or several vans across town to Rosa Mystica, a Catholic convent that we have stayed at many times before.  The grounds are beautiful and the staff and the sisters are very nice.  We will only be a block from the Junction Mall, which is anchored by a Walmart-like store called Naku-matt.  You can buy everything from food to a moped there!  For once, we won’t have to move to another location but will be there during our entire stay.

Saturday a safari is planned at the Nairobi National Game Park and our team will join the others for that as well.  It will be followed by a nice lunch and then the teams that will be serving outside of the Nairobi area will purchase their water, snacks, etc. for the week.  The day will end with a group worship and dinner.  We are always blessed to be able to worship on Sunday at the church where we will be serving.  The other teams need to use Sunday as a travel day.  More to follow as time and Internet access permits.