Safely arrived in Nairobi

Monday, October 26, 2009

Friends in Christ,

After an arduous 24 hour trip, we Russ and I safely arrived in Nairobi at 9:00 pm (Kenya time) last night. Disappointedly, Larry did not make it... yet. We had trouble checking in at the airport due to the cancellation of another flight that was headed to Amsterdam via Chicago. These passengers were shifted to our flight, which resulted in having too many people on the flight. I checked in first and made it on the flight, but Russ and Larry were on “stand by” for this flight. By the time we made it to our gate they had one more spot available so Russ was able to get on as well, but not so for Larry. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:15 and the next flight out didn’t leave until 8:30. The real problem was that this later flight wouldn’t arrive in Amsterdam until after our flight left Amsterdam, so he wouldn’t be able to catch up with us until Nairobi. So much for all together!

Minneapolis was severely overcast when we took off, and we really didn’t see any landscape below until we had crossed the border into Canada. Soon after that it started to get dark, so there was no chance to see any of Greenland or Iceland. As we passed over England I did get to see the lights of Manchester and a few other cities far below – this was far more interesting than the open ocean. I was sitting beside a woman who lived in Cologne, Germany, and was returning home from a week of working in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. We discussed the differences between Germany and the U.S. as well as other things – it was interesting discussion. We finally landed in Amsterdam at around 6:00am and had a four hour layover waiting for our Nairobi flight.

The flight to Nairobi was much better than the flight to Amsterdam. I was extremely tired and was able to get some sleep after reaching our cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. It was pretty clear and I slept as we crossed most of Europe. I awoke to see the beautiful sight of the Alps in northern Italy and enjoyed seeing several Italian cities along the western coast bordering the Mediterranean sea. We even were able to see some of the mountains of Sicily poke through the clouds in the distance off the toe of Italy! The beautiful blues of the Mediterranean soon faded into the dusty beaches of Lybia. I have never seen land so barren and desolate as that which is found in North Africa. Hours went by with nothing to be seen below except for sand and a few clouds! It makes a person realize just how inhospitable the desert really is.

When we finally arrived in Nairobi at about 9:00 pm it was dark. As soon as we debarked from the plane we could feel the drastic temperature difference from Minnesota and Amsterdam to Nairobi. It was quite warm, though not hot. We had our declaration form and swine flu sheet (anyone entering Kenya from a country with a substantiated case of swine flu had to fill out a page assuring that they were not sick) already filled out, so we passed quickly through the passport check, exchanged money, picked up our checked baggage, and made it through customs in record time (about a tenth of what it took us last year)! In fact we had to wait for Charles this time! With him came several other men from the Nairobi area churches.

We decided to stay at the Southern Blue Hotel again this time, since we had such a good stay last year and because of the convenient location. We settled into our rooms and went to sleep, in eager anticipation of the start of our work tomorrow morning.

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever!” (Psalm 106:1)