Friday, March 28, 2014

On the ground in East Africa

(Sorry for the delay in our first post, you will read below about how it took a little longer to get here than originally expected).

10:30 on Tuesday morning our team met together at the church to pack up the bus and head to Columbia.  Everyone was coming in, excited to catch our flight and ready to get on the ground. What they did not know was that about 10:15, I had checked the flight status for our flight out of Columbia only to see a big CANCELED notice.  I quickly called our travel agent and kindly asked we have a plan in the next 15 minutes, because I would soon have to walk into our group and explain the situation.  She quickly responded, and I got our team's and their families attention to inform them of our change in plans.  I began by saying that our flight was canceled, but we had been rebooked, but it would mean flying to Houston and then to London (with a 7 hour layover) and then on to East Africa.  As I was talking I saw everyone's eyes moving around trying to figure out why we were going west to end up going east and doing a quick little geography lesson.  After a few minutes of discussion, we prayed, loaded the bus and took off for Columbia.
The one highlight out of the change and the long layover in London was that Ashley and I happened to have some very close friends who are serving in London.  So to make our time go by a little quicker, we ventured out to meet them and have lunch at place that is heavily populated with their people group (which also happened to be one of the few places in London where they serve ice with your drinks!).  It was great to see them and hopefully encourage them in their work.



Later that evening we took off from London for our second overnight flight, but driven by excitement to be landing in a few hours.  Once we landed we very quickly made it through customs, got our bags and had a great time visiting with Stephen, Sarah and family.  We loaded up on our bus for just over an hour drive to where the conference was being held and even saw a giraffe on the way. The scenery all over is BEAUTIFUL.  We were able to spend most of the day resting, getting ready for the conference and spending time hearing from Stephen and Sarah.  




Most of us only made it until about 7-8 pm before we were sound asleep.  We have had a great day that we will update about tomorrow.  Continue to pray for our team and for these workers that they would be encouraged and ready to be sent back out into some difficult places.

2 comments:

  1. Yay! I'm so thankful to see that you have made it safely. The photos are great and I know you are all doing an awesome job for His kingdom. Praying for you daily! Tell the Dinkins I said hi and I look forward to more updates. Love y'all - Patricia

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  2. God bless and safe travels as you share God's message and do His work.

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