Hide your children...I'm back

October 2011, the beginning
So, leaving home 5 days ago and losing contact with the known world, I have not had the inclination or energy to produce archive able material. Having previously set the standard so high, that I now fear that I may not be able to amaze you with my wisdom, knowledge and grasp of human nature…..or be able to construct such dribble as in prior ramblings.
Oct 16^th arriving at the airport, there was Victor….yes, that Victor (ask one of the two that have followed my blog from the beginning [Sandy or me]). Now I like Victor, but I’m really not much for man hugs in public. I may be the only person in history who their baggage handler has ran thru throngs of people just to hug. “going back to Africa?” he asks with a hint of sarcasm. “yes” I replied, “I left something over there and I need to go find it.” “must be important if you need to travel so far” he responds. “seems to be…..can’t live without it…..my heart.” I say, still wondering what happened to me.
Then all of a sudden, it was the next day for us and the same day for you, and Sandy and I were carefully unfolding our legs and arms so as not to break anything before departing into the Amsterdam morning. I still believe that our luggage has more room than we do, and so may ask next time to trade places with it as we travel internationally. It was here that we found that Shylo’s luggage was not sent thru to Nairobi and that it was scheduled to spend an extra day in Holland….once again prompting me to ponder switching with the luggage. But my favorite wife managed to use her beguiling ways to get the luggage on our plane. Oh, Shylo is a cute little twerp that managed to attach herself to us. 18 yrs old, from Pasco, WA and notably the granddaughter of the chairman of the board of Rehema Instep Ministries…..not that that had anything to do with pressuring us to take her….but I’m sure you understand.
8 hrs into the next leg of the journey, on the Dutch airline KLM, one of the flight attendants announced that they had found a hearing aid in a lavatory and said that the owner could claim it. Now don’t hold me to this, but I believe that mostly people that can’t hear wear hearing aids….so, if that’s the case, announcing over the intercom system might not have the desired affect…..think about it…..hey..I may be getting some of the pizzazz back……

Ok, at Nairobi International Airport, (I try to say with a straight face), we managed to get thru immigration soon after the other 430 people did, and so were able to continue our ‘slowest line choice’ record. The 6 or 7 of you that have faithfully endured this blog will be surprised, as I was, that our luggage, including Shylos’ made it undamaged, and that the customs agent looked at the Rehema tag and just waved us thru….I thought I was in a dream…..but wait, there is more….our ride to get to our hotel was actually there….probably because he had fallen asleep….and gets paid by the hour. So, although he wasn’t the best taxi driver in Nairobi, he did know where Marble Arch was….which is good as he works there.
Because it was our early afternoon, and it was about midnight in Kenya, we enjoyed our horizontal 6 hrs looking at the ceiling before heading back to the airport… you see we had to be there before 8 am to check in for our 10 o’clock flight to Kitale….. I was relieved to know that TIA is alive and well and that I hadn’t imagined how Africa is…..our 10 am flight would be leaving right on time….at 3:30.….which wasn’t exactly true.. Oh we did board the plane at 3:30, but due to something, like maybe the pilot hadn’t arrived yet, we didn’t actually take off until about 4. But lucky for us, Jeff lives in Africa, and had no illusion the flight would be as posted….but, he was there….happy to see Sandy and Shylo…..but Toyota was ecstatic to see me…..knowing that my kidneys were probably healed…..but more on that next time….I’ll share about our welcome at Instep……almost felt like home…..Lord help us!!!!