Tuesday, Nov 29
My wife Cheryl dropped me off at the Colorado Springs airport 1:45 hour before my scheduled departure for Lilongwe, Malawi. I wrestled three 70 lb boxes out of our Explorer and carried them into the check-in area, one at a time. The folks working at the African Bible College in Malawi got word that I was coming and asked if I would bring several items with me due to the difficulty of international shipment. These boxes took all of my allowed luggage and I was happy that we weren't charged extra. I went outs one more time to say goodbye to my wife of 20 years and grab my things - a backpack and a roller board carry-on. In the last several years, I've had to learn to pack light and take my personal items with me because I seem to be the one left at the luggage carousel waiting for bags that never show. When traveling to remote places in Africa, it is always a good idea to have few creature comforts like clean underwear, flashlight, knife and soap.
My check-in process was not filled with good news. My flight plan was to go from Colorado Springs to Chicago to Frankfurt to Johannesburg to Lilongwe. The united person told me that my flight to Chicago was delayed making the connection for the flight to Frankfurt impossible to catch. Needless to say I was deflated and stressed. I shut my eyes and prayed. God brought to my memory of my 10 year old son, just the night before, giving to God his fears and anxiety and asking God for help. I prayed a similar prayer and a spirit of thankfulness came over me. The United person quickly snagged a seat on a flight to Houston and then another seat from Houston to Frankfurt, allowing me to connect in time to the original plan going on to Johannesburg and then on the Lilongwe.
This process took about 30 minutes and the flight to Houston boarded 30 minutes earlier than my original departure time - meaning I had only 30 minutes ledt to get through security and to the gate. Meanwhile, two of the three 70lb boxes got flagged by TSA. Before I ran to security, I watched them cut open the boxes and proceed to slowly remove each item and then check each item by first cutting the packaging material away.
I mentioned to them that my flight leaves in 30 minutes, could them speed up the process as I can't afford to lose these boxes. This request made them work slower. I asked one worker who was just standing if he could help. His response was "No". Once I saw that one of the boxes was being taped back together, I headed for security fast. I was now down to 20 minutes.
I made it! God is so faithful.
Please pray that the boxes make it completely intact all the to Malawi with me and that all of the items are safe. Also, ease pray that upon arrival in Malawi, the customs officials will let me pass with a of the items with no problems.
Wednesday, Nov 30
Groggy seems to sum up this day for me. After the 9 hours overnight flight, I arrived around 11:30 AM in Frankfurt and don't' fly again until 8:30 PM - another overnight flight about 10 hours. I found my way through the airport to the Lufthansa Business Lounge. Within the first 10 minutes or so, I was able to take a hot shower and get woken up for the day. Counting my blessings...this is one huge blessing. The rest of the day was spent working on email, catching up on scheduling things all the way out through July 2012 and planning the details of things scheduled that are soon to hit my desk like staff the major end of year all-staff meetings in Colorado Springs during the second week of December. I am ready to get to Malawi and begin learning about the country, the people, the children and how God wants to use VisionTrust. ;-)
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