Arrival Survival
Phoenix to L.A. to
Amsterdam to Nairobi with a maximum of two hour layover in each city kept us
cruising along. The usual mish-mash of
foreign businesspeople, returning residents, tourists, volunteers and others
jammed into our oversold flight headed for Jomo Kenyatta International
airport. The international terminal is
still being rebuilt from the fire that consumed nearly the entire thing two
years ago. Passengers deplaned onto the
tarmac and crammed into buses that shuttled weary masses to the immigration
line. That’s where things really start
to liven up. Fill out your blue entry
card, or the tan one they gave you on the plane, don’t forget to pick up a visa
application…oh and your customs form.
Once you actually get the visa to be allowed in the country from the surly
desk agent it’s time to play “Where in the airport is my luggage…if it is,
indeed, in the airport?” The little
things we take for granted at airports like the signs that point us in the
right direction or the instructions you
can study while waiting in line, you know the ones that we reply to in our
heads with “Well, duh, everyone knows to have their I.D. and boarding pass out
for inspection” are sorely missed in
this setting. Oh, but that’s not
all. That suitcase full of maybe forty
dollars’ worth of books or medical supplies that you decided to bring along to
help people can be taxed at a nearly one hundred percent rate. Thanks, Obama. (He’s just an easy target these days.) It’s really not that bad after the 7th
or 8th time coming through this way.
I know that it’s way better having someone travel alongside of you. She’s (Anna, aka Mrs. Gurath, aka the more popular
Gurath in Kenya already) counting how many times I mention that traveling alone
is the worst and traveling with her is tremendously better.
So far, it’s a lot. Jemima and
her friend Joan were kind enough to pick us up from the airport and take us to
our guest house for the evening. We are
already adjusting to the time change and had Monday to finalize some trip
details and even make it out to see our friends at the Lutheran Heritage
Foundation out in the suburb of Hardy with the help of driver and friend,
Abdallah. He laments the fact that I
come every year at Ramadhan and we don’t have the opportunity to sit down to a
meal together as he is fasting during the day.
They have been very generous in
helping with our work here in East Africa by providing issues of Good News
Magazines, along with Martin Luther’s Small Catechisms, The
Book of Concord, God’s No and God’s Yes
by Walther and several hymn books in either Swahili or a local language. We went to and fro without hitting the
dreaded Nairobi traffic jam and settled in for the evening. We’ll be waiting for the other three at the airport tomorrow night. Thanks for all the prayers and support. Psalm Devotion of the day Psa 62:1-2 For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. (2) He alone is my rock and my salvation, my
fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken