Friday, Nobember 14th, 2008
Finally, after a very long trip, I am home again.
Charles picked Russ and I up at the Terminal hotel at about 5:30pm on Thursday night and took us to the Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi. I had heard about this place from a freind of mine here in Atlanta, but had never been there. It was really amazing! They had a huge round fire with three layers of all different kinds of meat. We ordered the sampler plate which had beef, pork, chicken, ostrich and crockidile meat. The ostrich was good but the crockidile was pretty tough! It is the most famous restaurant in Nairobi. There we met a yound Canadian lady who was also heading home that night. In fact, we found out that she was on the same flight that we were on!
From there Charles dropped us off at the airport for our 10:50 flight out of Nairobi. We made it through security, checked our bags and made our way to our gate. There we ran into Trish again and visited with her while we waited to board our flight. We also met a few Baptists who had been doing mission work in Kenya as well. One of the men sat right across from me on the plane, so I talked with him quite a bit on our flight.
It was an 8 and a half hour flight to Amsterdam through the night. I usually like to get a window seat but was fine with an inner isle seat on this flight since there was nothing to see anyway. We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:00 in the morning (we gained 2 hours from Nairobi), although it flet much later than that.
Our flights home didn't leave until after 10:00am so we had a few hours to kill. We walked around the airport and found our respective gates (Russ and I split up here - he returned to Minneapolis and I returned to Atlanta). Then we sat down and I did some computer work until my battery went dead (I fried my converter in Africa, so I left it there and had no way to charge it in Amsterdam). About 9:30 we said our goodbye and split up. It was really rainly and dreary that morning but it didn't dampen my mood as I prepared to get on the last leg of my trip on my way home!
I was on and Airbus 330 on the trip home and it was practially empty. I have never seen so many empty seats on an international flight before. I was in a window row and the lady in the center rows beside me had four seats to herself! Most of the trip she spent laying across the seats sleeping! Almost everyone in our section of the plane had empty seats beside them. I was a bit discouraged at first because I had a window seat, but it was right over the wing, giving very little view. But as we took off and cleared the cloud I found it didn't make any difference, because all that could be seen was clouds! Throughout the whole trip, whenever I looked out the window, there was nothing to see below but clouds. It must have been a dreary day everywhere below!
We hit the ground right at 2:00pm on Friday (after gaining 6 hours from Amsterdam). Because of the few number of people on our plane I sailed right through customs and was waiting for my pick-up by 2:45. Debra and the kids picked me up about 30 minutes later with big grins and signs welcoming me home again! It's good to be home!
Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers over the past 5 weeks. What a blessing it has been to visit, instuct and learn from our brethren in Kenya and Tanzania. Even though I am home now, please continue to keep the work there in your prayers. There is much more to do, and we ask for the Lord's blessing in it!
May our gracious Lord be with you and them,
In Christ,
Nathanael
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