5-31-2024 A great day at the school

Julius, our van driver last night, had his van at the convent to pick up one of our other teams and, sure enough, my flannel shirt was right where I left it! We left for Kongasis, Catherine's school, around 8am and the going was smooth until we got outside of Nairobi.  There is a two-lane road with lots of truck traffic between Mombasa on the coast of the Indian Ocean and other land-locked countries in east Africa and nearly every truck uses this route. This would not be so bad except for the terrain.  The road goes up and down the rift valley and the trucks can barely make the hills going up and they have their brakes actually smoking going downhill.  So cars and vans have to play a game of chicken every time they more over to pass. The veterans on the team have grown accustomed to this game, it was fun to watch Amanda's reaction to what looked like close calls.  She's a real trouper and adjusted quickly to how things are.  We eventually had to turn off on dirt roads that were in terrible shape after the recent torrential disaster rains and deadly flooding in that area.  We attempted several ways to get to the school only to have to turn back and try another one several times.  Our driver, David and friend Francis inquired of different locals about the best route and they got conflicting answers at times.  We were in a fairly new Toyota Land Rover, but even it, with 4-wheel drive, got bounced around quite a bit as some of the hills were rutted and dangerous.  Our driver David handled each obstacle as it came our way with skill and grace.

We arrived at the school around noon and were serenaded by the children, welcomed by the teachers and listened to Susan, the school headmaster and Catherine's sister-in-law as she too gave thanks for our getting there.  We were treated to a tour of each classroom and got to ask the students of all grade levels questions about their studies, their favorite subject, etc.  Many of the kids just had to touch our skin on our arms, they had never seen a muzungu (white person).  Our tour included maybe 7 or 8 classrooms of different grade levels and we learned of the challenges the school is facing, ranging from drinking water and electricity to lack of books, notepads, pencils and pens.  We asked most of the learners, as they are called, about their favorite subjects, difficulties, etc and encouraged them.  We were served a very nice hot lunch of chicken, rice, chapati and slaw by Susan and her team. Hospitality is a very high value in Kenyan culture and they were perfect hosts.  After lunch, we gathered with the children outside, and each of us visitors got to plant a tree on the school grounds.  As we were doing this, the children began touching our arms to see if we felt as different as we looked.  There was a lot of laughter as this was going on! One more gathering of everyone, a few words with the teachers and then I was asked to close with a prayer. What a blessing!

Our ride back was every bit as bumpy, but at least much of it was downhill.  Margaret, one of Catherine's many relatives both distant and near who helped guide our tour, join us on the way back.  We had a wonderful conversation with her and Francis about everything from the school to life in general.  She is quite a phone photographer, a genre unto itself and so we shared some of our pictures with each other and became social media friends to stay in contact.  We stopped at one of the Great Rift Valley overlooks that I had not been to yet and we took a bunch of group photos and shared a few more laughs. On the way back to Nairobi, we dropped Margaret off to head to her home, about an hour and a half journey for her.  We got back to Little Daughters just in time for dinner at 7pm only to find it was rice, vegetables from the convent garden and chicken, a daily double!  It was good, I spent the evening working with Catherine to plan our Saturday.  It looks like I won't get to do any safaris this time unless I arrange to stay over a day or two, which I may look into.  A small price to pay compared to what the rest of the team has been experiencing trying to get here.  Late at night, we heard that Arron and Sarah are finally on their way to London, so the final pieces of the puzzle are almost in place.  They should arrive in Nairobi Saturday night.  That's it for now.  More to follow as our adventures continue! Blessings!

Friday May 31st - Early morning before breakfast and ride to school

 I got about 4 hours of good sleep last night. Amazing what total exhaustion will do for you! I have maybe 10 minutes before heading to breakfast and we drive out to the countryside for our visit to Catherine's school in Kongassas (sp?).  I believe the Amboseli crew of Kevin, Jon, Elizabeth and Finnegan decided to go ahead and drive out to the game park because the train was not available.  Depending on a lot of factors, that's a 6-to-8-hour drive so they may already be on their way.  It is 6:30am here, we breakfast at 7 and leave right away.

Lot of lost luggage to deal with and other issues last night. We got through customs and immigration in record time with their new electronic visa system.  We made friends everywhere we went.  One policeman named Morris came up to Rudy and I and asked permission to shepherd Rudy through the whole process, so who was I to say no?  Rudy is 85 and apparently one of this saints' duties was to take care of our seasoned citizens.  He was a great guy. Of course, I joked around with the folks at the immigration window and had everybody laughing. One guy remembered me from previous trips, I must be a questionable Christian! (That's for you, Laura!)

Our drive to the Little Daughters of St. Joseph convent was uneventful, but I think I left a flannel shirt in the van, hoping to find it today. Gotta head to breakfast, more this evening our time, we're 8 hours ahead of Austin time. Blessings everybody!

Nairobi at last!!!

 5/30/2024 – I was so exhausted after yesterday that I was able to sleep most of the night almost on a Nairobi schedule. I had some water and granola bars in my hotel room at 5am because I needed to catch the Hotel Hoppa, the shuttle bus, at 6am to get to Terminal 5. The staff told those of us waiting for the bus to sit inside since it was about 55 degrees. The bus saw nobody waiting and passed over us. The next bus was not until 6:30. If I missed that one making the flight to Nairobi would be iffy. I waited outside. Once on board, we stopped at multiple hotels and it was nearly 40 minutes before we got to the airport. Luckily, going through security wasn’t too bad so I had time for a hard-boiled egg, cheese and mayo baguette and an Americano coffee, which I needed to get going. I made my way to Gate C63 by taking a lift (British for elevator) down to an underground tram that got me close. Heathrow is huge, even using buses to get you from one terminal to another. As I arrived at the gate, there was Rudy. Yay! The others in Philly came on a flight that was an hour later and we hadn’t seen any of them yet. Rudy and I boarded British Air Flight 065 and parted company. He’s one row away on the other side of the plane. As people were passing by my seat, I looked up and there was Amanda! And soon Ken, Sandra, Elizabeth and Finnegan. They made it!

The Saegerts sent a picture of them on the train to Emali as they made their way to Amboseli for wildlife safaris. Here they are.

As I wrote this on the plane, we still need Pastor Kevin and Jon to make it to Nairobi today and we’re still unclear as to when Arron and Sarah would make it. They were stuck in Chicago and got rooms for the night. Arron texted out how good a hot shower felt and how nice it was to sleep laying down instead of in a chair! I’m hopeful that they arrive Friday night. What a start to our mission!

Lunch was either chicken curry or vegetarian curry. I chose pollo. It was OK. At least it filled me up. About 6 hours til Nairobi, but it will be a little painful with much of the team needing to file for missing luggage. My checked bag was supposedly in London yesterday, we’ll see if it joins me! I sure could use fresh clothes and my own toiletries. 

This is all small stuff compared to the mission we have been called to. Both of our clinic locations are hungry for our vision services and we know many will respond positively to our Gospel message, both by what we say, but also by how we show love to all whom we serve. Countless times at past clinics people have been amazed that we are volunteers serving them at our own expense. This often prompts being asked why and we each have a personal answer but it all boils down to what He did for us first. Many great conversations that started with that question have ended in baptisms, conversions or with seeking with open hearts and minds to know more. We are in the mission field for literally a blink of the eye so we can only plant seeds and may not see the results of our going and telling. I always remind myself and my teams that it is above our pay grade to think we are to convert people. Our calling is to go and tell. Others will water the seed, prune the plant and so on.

We are in Nairobi, my bag got here, many of the others are missing theirs between here and Philly, New York and parts in between.  We filed lost luggage claims and hope it is delivered soon.  More to follow as I get a chance, it's 12:40am here and many of us have an early morning.  We are at the Little Daughters of St Joseph convent.  I got a hot shower and feel much, much better.  All except Sarah and Arron have now gotten here about a day late. Blessing everybody, keep us in your prayers for a safe and effective mission!

London at last and things begin to get sorted out for the team

 May 29^th from London – Once at Heathrow, I had to ask at several places where to go to try to straighten things out.  I had no idea if I was going to be in the airport overnight, where between Austin, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles or London or parts in between my suitcase might be that I checked in Austin.  I finally found the American Airlines/British Air desk and it took three agents working in tandem to sort it all out.  When all was said and done, they were convinced my bag was at Heathrow, but it would be best if I didn’t retrieve it.  They also gave me a voucher for s very nice room at the Raddison Eduardian Blu Hotel nearby, a voucher for round-trip bus fare and meal vouchers for my stay.  I had to wait for about 15 minutes for the bus and it was about a 10 minute drive to the other side of the airport. Once there, I freshened up and had a Philly Cheese Steak and Chips (what the Brits call fries) that was very good.  My voucher was for 26 English pounds, at today’s rate of 1 dollar per .79 pounds, that’s about $20.54.  It was a little less than that, so no out of pocket for me, and the staff wouldn’t take a tip, I tried. I’ll look at dinner, but if it’s like the lunch menu with steak, lobster, etc at high prices, I may just snack in my room. I don’t sleep well when I eat big late!

After lunch, I texted and messaged back and forth with Pastor Kevin and various team members. 6 of them had made it to Philadelphia and sent me a picture of them having lunch there.  5 in the picture so I’m guessing Elizabeth took it…

Arron setup a WhatsApp group so we can more easily communicate with everyone at once which is way better than the emails, texts and other forms of communication that don’t always work well abroad for us. At this point, it looks like Pastor Kevin and Jon will arrive in Nairobi Thursday afternoon and if all goes well the remainder of us will get there Thursday evening around 8:30pm, a full 24 hours late.  Poor Catherine!  Our dear friend is hosting several groups besides us and travel difficulties have  bitten them too, so rescheduling transportation and events has been a big headache.

Once I had settled into my room, I took stock of what was in my carry-on.  Based on experience, I had a clean t-shirt and extra pairs of underwear and socks with me. Just no toiletries because we don’t pack liquids in our carry-on, it causes delays in security at the airports when seconds sometimes really count.  A hot shower at the 33 hour mark since I had left home felt pretty good.  Can’t wait for a shower in Nairobi tomorrow night when I’ll have all my clothes and my own amenities, particularly deodorant!

Right now it looks as if nine of us will meet up at Heathrow and be on the same British Air flight arriving in the evening.  With any luck Pastor Kevin and John will be there early in the afternoon and the Saegert family of four will have arrived tonight right on time.  They left Sunday for London to spend a few days before the trip, so the U.S. travel debacle didn’t affect them.

I’m sure I’ll be writing more tomorrow on the plane and will continue to post to the blog as I am able. Blessings!

 Tuesday and Wednesday 5/28 and 5/29/2024 – The adventure started right away this trip. The incredible weather in Dallas that stretched to the east coast this morning made a mess of the Austin airport.  Our friend Barry Beckman got Rudy, Sarah and me to the American Airlines check-in by 8am as planned. Our original plan was to go through security as a team, but our flight 822 to JFK in New York was delayed from 11:27 to 12:57 and then to 2:30. We wouldn’t have made our connection to London, so we got in a line that took hours. We took turns in that line. Meanwhile, the American Airlines phone app rescheduled some of us to go to Dallas on flight 1595, including me. Arron and Sarah got on that flight, but Rudy and I were next up at the counter when they shut the doors, even though there were empty seats. This had to be because they were ordered to take off by air traffic control. They would have lost their takeoff position if they didn’t pull away from the gate. What a scheduling nightmare! People everywhere and lines that lasted for hours. We joined the other line. Then, I got the bright idea of calling the Aadvantage program, the frequent flier club I belong to with American. Their phone app couldn’t rebook me, but a 45 minute phone call worked and got me on a flight to LA at 3:27 pm. My flight was half an hour late arriving,  so I literally ran for 25 minutes through LAX, took numerous escalators and moving sidewalks and barely made my flight to London as the doors were closing. I learned my heart is still good! I’ll have a 12 to 18 hour layover at Heathrow and if I’m lucky, I’ll arrive in Nairobi at 8:30pm local time after about 55 and a half hours from the time I left home. If luggage is lost, I’ll have to file for that, go through customs and immigration and ride to where we stay. I may end up door to door at 58 to 60 hours total real-time travel, a new record for this trip for me by a longshot. This is a distinction I did not seek!

The others were not so lucky. Pastor Kevin and Jon waited in another line and will get to Nairobi around 1:30pm Friday after a stay in Ethiopia, another first. Sarah and Arron made it to Dallas, only to get stranded when their flight to London didn’t go due to mechanical problems. Ken, Sandra, Elizabeth, Finnegan, Amanda and Rudy never got out of Austin.  They are booked to leave Austin for Philadelphia around 6am Wednesday and hopefully will meet me in London and we will arrive together Thursday night.

Thankfully, with modern communication methods like text messages, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. we have been able to keep tabs on each other and let Catherine in Nairobi know about all the changes. This trip we planned safaris and other activities before our clinics begin next week because our church staff and teachers need to be back for VBS the week of June 10^th. Our clinics should still be fine. I shared with some of the team all of this trouble is the devil trying to stop us because our work in Nairobi will hurt his cause badly. We need to pray and work twice as hard. It’s actually heartening to know we’re on the radar in the spiritual warfare that we aren’t always aware of. Thank you, Jesus!

Once I got onto flight A134 and found that I got an aisle seat  I was a little happier. We took off on time and after about an hour I had a pretty good meal of chicken and rice with a salad, roll and brownie. I’ve been able to get a couple of hours of sleep and stretch every hour and a half or so. My doctor gave me a blood thinner for the flights to reduce the risk of clots or a DVT.

Looking back, our team has bonded as we had good cheer throughout all of this weather-related trouble. Shared experiences are what friendships are made of, and the funniest stories usually happen under adverse circumstances. It’s just hard to see the humor when you’re in the middle of this stuff!

Blessings everybody! More to follow as I am able.

What a blessing! Getting ready to head back to Kenya this week...

 Greetings everybody!

After much prayer and planning, we are ready to saddle up once again.  We are blessed to have a large team of 15 missionaries, so this time we will be doing vision clinics in two locations.  One will be at the Lutheran Church in the slum of Kawangware and it will be led by Pastor Kevin.  We have served there many times before; it is the church where we were able, with the Lord's help, to install a fresh water well to supply the needs of the community in 2012. It is a living water ministry to this day. We have been back to this neighborhood to host vision clinics several times in recent years but have served alongside members of their daughter church in Waithaka, holding our clinics in a community center. It will be good to be back at the mother church where we have many friends and experienced volunteers.

My team will be serving in partnership with county health authorities at Dandora, a community near the international airport.  We will probably see large numbers of people because there is a slum nearby as well as a more affluent tech community, so the demographics will be interesting!  As usual, we are glad to be providing vision care as part of our mercy mission, but we are even more excited about spreading the Gospel.  The county health people requested that our project hold a clinic in this area, so we are happy to oblige, since we need their cooperation for future clinics within Nairobi to be granted approval.  One of the benefits for the local health department are the statistics our doctors are able to provide for each patient we see.  This helps give them an idea of the incidence of specific diseases and conditions like diabetes, cancer, cataracts, eye infections and the like in a particular part of town so they can more efficiently address those needs.

We were commissioned or "sent" by our congregation at all three services this morning.  It was good to have our large team visible to those who have prayed for us and helped support the Vision for Kenya project financially over the years.  It never gets old for me, this is going to be my 22nd trip and I am just as excited as I was on my first one in 2009.

At each service, the team members were presented to the congregation and Pastor Kevin and I got to say a few words about this mission and thanked everyone for their prayers and support.  Usually, Pastor Kevin then prays over the team, but our children's ministry had a special surprise. They had the little kids each make cards for us with personal messages and prayers that we are to read on the trip. How precious.  Little ones at each service took the microphone from me and blessed us before handing the cards to Pastor Kevin in a bundle. What a sendoff, I know it touched everyone on the team.

Here are pictures from the first two services, click on any image to see it full screen.