MY AFRICA TRIPS

Let me back up a bit and let you about my day in London. I was able to meet up (providentially) with the Krueger family who had a layover the same day I did in London. They were the family that I spent with when I lived in Kenya last year. It was SO good to see them excited about returning to America and have them tell me the news of what has happened in the past year on the farm.

We parted ways, and I had the afternoon to spend hanging out in the London airport. I glimpsed a "Multi-faith prayer room" and my curiosity got the best of me. I took a peak and found a white washed room with some Muslims on prayer rugs and others sleeping on the benches. I was needing some quite time myself, so I ventured into the room. A bit uncomfortable at first, at least it was a nice place of peace and quite after a frantic day in the city and airport. I was right in the middle of translating some of Acts of out of my Greek New Testament, when one of the Muslims said, "Ah...it's our time for prayer..." I gave him a blank look. I knew what was going on in his head. Here I was a Christian and him a Muslim and we were both non-universalistic, but were both thrown into a relativistic "multi-faith room" which is somewhat absurd, and we both saw the irony. I wasn't in a mosic (spell check didn't help me here) and therefore he couldn't throw me out. I just said, "I'll stay here", and pointed to my book. So I continued to read my Greek while they were humming their "Allah Ak-bar"... It was a bit of cultural experience.

So as I said in the previous post, my bags didn't get sent from London. Somewhere between Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 in the labyrinth of London Heathrow sits my little blue bag with the purple ribbon. The guy at the Nairobi airport said that there was a 90% chance that my bags would come the following morning. So I changed my flight to Rwanda (for no extra cost) and planned to spend the night in Nairobi, collect my bag and fly to Rwanda.

The two ways to get into the city are either taxi ($15) or bus (80 cents). Since I wasn't in a rush I decided to try the bus. After about an hour of stop and go traffic with honking, smog, smushed up against anther dude, I was reconsidering my decision. Finally I got dropped off downtown Nairobi. I know the city enough to find the hotel I stayed in a year ago, and book myself a room for the night.

I was exhausted so I decided to take a shower, but soon found that the cold water wasn't working. So I tried to take a shower with boiling hot water. That will probably never happen to me again in Africa. Usually its always ice cold showers.

I fell into bed and was out for 4 hours. Woke, walked across the street to buy some muffins for dinner and then went back to the room, watched some CNN and then fell asleep at 9. Three hours later I was awake again and couldn't sleep the rest of the night. So I spent 6 hours laying in bed resting, reading, thinking, and processing.

After morning prayers I packed up my small backpack with all my worldly possessions and went to have breakfast downstairs. Eggs, juice, coffee, toast, and a weird looking sausage later I was out the door into the chaos of the morning commute. I took the bus again in the morning, but the traffic was smooth as silk and got there in half the time as before.

I walked into the baggage claim area quite anxious and taut with anticipation. "Good morning, I'm back again" I told the clerk behind the desk. "I've come to see if my bag came on this mornings flight." He took my luggage stub and punched in a few things on his computer. "No, we don't have it in our system. You could look around the terminal to see if you can find it." I methodically walked through the terminal, hoping, wishing, praying that I would find my precious bag of clothes. But nothing. A few times I thought I saw it but it wasn't it.

I finally gave up hope and came to write you this...

So now I'm in Africa for 2 months with only a small backpack of things. I still don't really want to believe it, but I've got to get it into my head that I'm not going to get it back until I return to Nairobi at the end of August. There wasn't anything in my bag that I can't live without, but it will require a few trips to the store to buy some clothes, shampoo, sun block, etc. They said that if/when my bag arrives in Nairobi, they will lock it up and I can collect it when I return in August to take it back with me to America.

Who knows why this would happen to me. It's not much help speculating. But I am reminded of how much I find security in things, and how much I depend on things. We should all realize how blessed we are with the things that we have. I certainly am thankful for my little bag of my camera, shirt, socks, books, and credit card!

Next stop: Kigali, Rwanda!