Let the Journey Begin!

December 13/14 depending on what side of the time line I am….

I was flying into Washington DC last night and looked out the window and saw this big beautiful full moon from the side.  I don’t quite know how to describe it…almost like one of those push button night lights hanging in the sky with this beautiful shade of orange mottled bulb.  It was surrounded by a ring of rays of light bursting forth.  The sky around and below it glowed in this soft beautiful light and as we approached the city it looked like a million stars had landed. As far as the eye could see, the ground was spattered with these bright beautiful lights. I wondered how different it is going to be in the next few days. 

Tonight, I am somewhere over the ocean, making an arch that began in Washington DC crossed across Nova Scotia and we are  now at the top of the arch crossing the ocean near a place called Goose Bay,  between a place called Pourcipine Bay and Pourcipine Bank,  just north of Casablanca and south of Cairo.  Earlier today I was able to take some pictures of the ice bergs from the top – what a beautiful sight!   Tonight when I look out, all I see is black, deep, deep black, not even a star to be found.  And, now I know what it is going to look like when I arrive in Akobo.

5:06 AM Addis time 8:10 PM Dallas Ft Worth time,  just passing over the coast of Africa,  traveling between  Al-KaKharijah and Amaan or Cairo and Addis , depending on which map you are looking at.  It is hard to believe I am barreling through the air at 545 mph and a little over 1200 miles from Addis, and another 4 hours, including the layover time, from landing in Juba.  I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Akobo, but not any looking a Juba, so I am not even sure what to expect there.

OK, Annie, Alicia and Dave Ramsey – this one is for you?  How many people can you make friends with traveling to how many different countries doing how many different things in two days in airports and on airplanes?  The answer is more than four new friends at Wal Mart!  I have met people going to Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, Burunda, Zimbawbwei, South Sudan, and of course, Ethiopia!  I have met teachers, and builders and adult children returning home for the first time in ten or fifteen years with their children, grandparents going to visit families working in far off lands.  I think the total is about 8 now and I sill have two more hours layover and another airport to go before I get to Juba!

Sunrise over Africa

06:22 AM, almost to Addis!  My first African sunrise in way too long!  I looked out the window to a landscape bathed in black,  topped by a brilliant strip of red, topped by clouds.  I don’t know what it is about sunrises from airplanes, perhaps, it is as close to heaven as we will get in this lifetime.  I can almost see God stretching out his hand and saying “Let there be light” and as the red turns to brilliant gold flames streaking through the tops of the clouds, I am blessed by the new life I am going to live.  It reminds me of the light showing through the egg photo I used in my blog the other night.  I am bursting forth, not knowing where I am going, or exactly what I will be doing, but I am about to burst forth into this new life that God has planned for me, and tired as I am, I can’t wait to begin!

Sometimes people just bring tears to your eyes.  Sometime during the middle of the night I was in the back of the plane chatting with a gentleman.  He told me he and his wife were on their way to see their grandchildren.  We kept chatting and I told him where I was going and why.  We probably talked for about an hour, asking and answering questions from each other.  Later, before the end of the flight, he came down the isle and stopped at my seat.  With an outstretched hand, he put some money in it and told me he hadn’t been to church in a very long time and our conversation was the closest thing he had been.  He just wanted me to have a little something to give myself a special treat when I come in for R&R.  What a kind, gentle soul!  I will remember his kindness when I go get that “special” treat.  And I will remember sometimes a story is all someone needs to think they have been to church.  God’s blessings!

12/15/11 – I HAVE ARRIVED!!!

I just wanted to jump and run down the tarmack shouting “I’m home!  I’m home! Whoo-hoo!!  I made it back!”  It is hard to hold back the tears that threaten to fall as I arrive in Addis and wait for my plane to Juba.  Not the sad tears from leaving family and friends behind, but tears of sheer joy.  Tears of happiness and that feeling of coming “home” to the place God has called me to be.  It has been a long hard journey to come back, and I am quite certain that the journey ahead will be much longer and much harder. 

I can add a new person to my list of people I met on this trip, a worker with the CDC who was telling me they just completed a study and determined the country is in complete ground zero.  Well, that is what I am here for!

I am sitting on the floor in the airport waiting for the final leg of my journey.  I am listening to a montage of stories and languages, people of all shapes, sizes and colors. It is a beautiful tapestry of God’s people.  Young, old, middle age, teens.  The very tall of the Nuer and Anuak; the shorter, softer Ormo, Ugandans and Nigerians, and those of Middle Eastern descent and  many others.  A beautiful rainbow of colors ranging from the pure white of my skin to the deep, deep black of the Sudanese and Ugangans and other peoples.  I listened to a long conversation about corruption and played tops with a little boy.  

I had to remind myself this is a foreign country and there are not always the freedoms we have at home.  For instance, when we get off a plane from a foreign country in the US, we are free to go where ever after we clear customs. Today, we were escorted down a long hall to a waiting room, where line after line of people were added to the room as they disembarked going to other connecting flights outside of Ethiopia.

JUBA:  I arrived to a small airport, more primitive than the one in Granbury and better than Gambella used to be.  It was an ordeal to collect my stuff and I had to agree to open any of the boxes the soldiers chose for me.  I did, and we were on our way to MAF.  There we unloaded all my boxes in a shipping ocontaner and headed for the guest house where I am staying tonight.

So my first day in Juba what do I do?  I am on my hands and knees washing clothes in a bucket.  They made a great AC!  Hang damp clothes in front of a fan and the temperature drops automatically.  It didn’t take long for me to go to  sleep and a short time later I woke to the sounds of music, laughter and roosters crowing outside my window.  As long as he is crowing, I know he’s not dinner!  Only, later, no crowing and fried chicken for dinner!!!

Now it is off to bed and on to an early flight in the morning.  Final leg of this long journey, and the beginning of the next.  I can’t wait to see what God has in store for me!

12-16  Akobo Here I Come!

It has been a long time since I woke to the sound of monkeys racing across my roof in the early morning hours. It was either a fairly large monkey or a giant rat, so I am going for monkey.  It was followed shortly by the sounds of the first birds and the lightening of the sky; too early for dawn, and not yet light enough for daybreak.

I have a huge sense of anticipation about today.  It is the day I finally get to go and meet the people I will be working with in Akobo.  I learned last night that I will be staying in the hospital and maybe they will have a room for me.  We will see.

Waiting to enter the airport in Juba

The day started with a trip to the Juba airport.  Now, if you have never experienced a true mob scene, you should go there early in the morning.  Hundreds of people were trying to cram through the same double door to have their luggage and packages scanned.  I am not sure I can describe it other than being caught in a wave like they do at the ball parks. I was busy trying to move with the flow.  At one point, I lost my footing and knew in an instant if I did, I was a gonner, so I grabbed hold of someone near me and pulled back up and kept going with the flow.  When I got to the front, or almost, I was shoved back by an elder man who seemed to be in control, as much as possible, as I watched Michael and the rest of our group disappear into the inside.  I shoved back and said “No!  I won’t wait” and kept pushing through as another man told him to let me go.  We all met up on “the other side”, and made it safely to our plane.

Ready to board flight to Juba

This was an interesting flight, we finished loading as we arrived and learned we were stopping Pibor.  When we arrived at the dirt strip people came running from everywhere to see who had arrived.  We unloaded everything from the plane and it took off, leaving us to wait for it to return.  Sure enough, 45 minutes later, he flew back into sight. 

unloading my things in Pibor so the pilot can make another
run, he will come back in about 45 minutes

Tough Choices:  We were talking with someone about their children being there and since they had been raised somewhere else, he wasn’t sure they would know how to survive in the bush if they had to.  What is he to do?  Keep them with him or send them away again?  Will sending the away be safer than keeping them with him? 

Another one…I watched another tough choice involving children today.  When the plane left it went to another village, and returned with one of the men who traveled with us originally and several small children.  As the children were strapped back in the back a young man tried to get on the plane.  The pilot very firmly told our traveling companion that he had to choose – the children or the young man, all couldn’t go.  He chose the children as the young man looked on bewildreldy.

I’m not sure God intended for us to have to make those kinds of choices, who lives, who dies, but I know they have been happening since time began,  Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac; God sacrificed his own son on the cross.  Those are Bible stories I read about. I don’t watch the struggle on their faces as the tough decisions are made in a split second.

part of the welcoming group

Finally, we arrived in Akobo!  I had looked at the pictures so many times before getting here it just seemed familiar.  We are a day early, such is life in Africa, I don’t believe there is any such thing as “on time”.  We were greeted at the airport and had to wait for the church leader to arrive to greet us.

The Journey

12/16 – AKOBO HERE I AM!!

What a journey!  It began with a mob scene at the airport like I have never experiencedWe were packed in so tight that ever move sent a wave through the crowd threatening to push you down.  I lost my footing at one point and grabbed on to the closest person to keep from falling.  I knew if I ever fell I would be crushed and I wasn’t going down.  At one point, as we neared the door,  I was literally hanging on to a metal rail trying to keep my balance and yelling “I will not wait here” at some man who kept pushing me back while Michael and all the others had made it through the check point and shoved my way through.   

Then it was on through the scanners and out the door to the MAF plane.  What a beautiful sight!  All my stuff was loaded and waiting for us.  Soon it was off to Pibor.  We landed in Pibor, unloaded the whole plane – all my stuff included – and waited on the runway for the pilot to take off, go to another village and return when we loaded everything back on the plane and took off for the 25 minute flight to Akobo.

This is what two days from anywhere looks like...

I kept telling everyone that I was two days from anywhere.  I now know what it looked like – I flew over it. nothing except a small village here and there.

We arrived in Akobo a day earlier than planned, so we had to wait for the church leaders to come and greet us, after we unloaded all my stuff from the plane and moved it again under the trees.  We then loaded it again into a car and unloaded and hauled it to where I will be staying for now.  A room in the IMC house.

my room 

my room part 2

It is a nice room, but not my tent.  It appears that I will still be living out of boxes for the next several months.  I should be used to it by now.  I’ve been living that way since July! Like I said, it is a nice room with a water bucket, bed and mosquito net, a table and chair.  There is a “shower” here – a cement room.  You fill your bucket outside, go in the room, wash, and dry off and leave.  That is how it was explained to me.  When you go in, you wave the curtain back and forth to scare off the bats.  Ever stand wet, covered in soap, on a wet cement floor dodging bats?  That was my challenge this morning!
And I am sure the beginning of many more challenges to come.  If that is the hardest challenge, I will be truly blessed!