Prepare for Departure
With a few friends seeing us off at the airport, we left Thursday just after 1:00 in the afternoon from Kansas City. Both Christie and I had the thought; “I sure hope all of our bags make it to our final destination.” We boarded the plane and set out on our journey both planning to sit by the other for the next 25 hours straight. When we arrived in Amsterdam, we realized that the Dutch Airline KLM had us sitting apart from each other on totally different rows. We quickly remedied this horrific situation of separation anxiety, by a quick conversation with the help desk. As you can see, our faces say it all, “Thank you KLM, you made our flight enjoyable.”
As we flew across the entire continent of Africa to Johannesburg, I realized again that Africa is so ridiculously gigantic. The size of this continent is unbelievable. It took us over 11 hours to fly from the Netherlands to South Africa. At least three of those hours were spent fly over desert that looked like the picture below. The desert went for as far as my eyes could see in all directions. It was really hard to grasp just how big the sand dunes were, because there was nothing to reference (like cars or houses). It was also interesting to me, just how captivated I was by the monotony of endless amounts of sand. It was beautiful in an obscure sort of way. I woke up Christie to see it, but she didn’t seem as impressed as I was with the landscape.
When we arrived in Johannesburg, we weren’t sure if our bags were going to be on the baggage carousel, or if they had been checked all the way through to our destination that we left for the following morning. We lucked out and found them coming out as we made our way through the South African Customs. This was a relief because we were sure that our bags were going to spend the night in the Johannesburg airport, where bags are often looted and stolen.
We made our way out of the airport and were greeted by my friend Henry, who lives close to the airport and graciously opened up his house to us for the evening. We ate a small dinner, had some good conversation, and headed for bed. Surprisingly, Christie and I already had adjusted our bodies to the seven-hour time zone difference, and went to bed on time and slept all the way through the night. In the morning we took Henry out for breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants in South Africa, and headed back to the airport for our last short flight to Nelspruit, South Africa.
When we arrived in Nelspruit, Pieter, Rika, and their three boys were waiting with big smiles on their faces. It was like walking out to family that I hadn’t seen in almost year. It is so good to be back and sharing life with this wonderful family. It is even better this year, because I am getting to share it with many people from my community of friends in Kansas City.
The rest of the team joins Christie and I tomorrow morning. I will be at the airport bright and early, to greet them with a happy smile. I hope that they have traveled well, grown closer as friends, and are well rested, because they will be extremely busy keeping up with this wonderful household of toddlers.
As we flew across the entire continent of Africa to Johannesburg, I realized again that Africa is so ridiculously gigantic. The size of this continent is unbelievable. It took us over 11 hours to fly from the Netherlands to South Africa. At least three of those hours were spent fly over desert that looked like the picture below. The desert went for as far as my eyes could see in all directions. It was really hard to grasp just how big the sand dunes were, because there was nothing to reference (like cars or houses). It was also interesting to me, just how captivated I was by the monotony of endless amounts of sand. It was beautiful in an obscure sort of way. I woke up Christie to see it, but she didn’t seem as impressed as I was with the landscape.
When we arrived in Johannesburg, we weren’t sure if our bags were going to be on the baggage carousel, or if they had been checked all the way through to our destination that we left for the following morning. We lucked out and found them coming out as we made our way through the South African Customs. This was a relief because we were sure that our bags were going to spend the night in the Johannesburg airport, where bags are often looted and stolen.
We made our way out of the airport and were greeted by my friend Henry, who lives close to the airport and graciously opened up his house to us for the evening. We ate a small dinner, had some good conversation, and headed for bed. Surprisingly, Christie and I already had adjusted our bodies to the seven-hour time zone difference, and went to bed on time and slept all the way through the night. In the morning we took Henry out for breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants in South Africa, and headed back to the airport for our last short flight to Nelspruit, South Africa.
When we arrived in Nelspruit, Pieter, Rika, and their three boys were waiting with big smiles on their faces. It was like walking out to family that I hadn’t seen in almost year. It is so good to be back and sharing life with this wonderful family. It is even better this year, because I am getting to share it with many people from my community of friends in Kansas City.
The rest of the team joins Christie and I tomorrow morning. I will be at the airport bright and early, to greet them with a happy smile. I hope that they have traveled well, grown closer as friends, and are well rested, because they will be extremely busy keeping up with this wonderful household of toddlers.
posted by justin at
1:59 AM
3 Comments:
Thanks for making me cry. I'm sitting here at my desk, wishing I were there.
Have fun dear friend. We are all praying for you guys!
jb
hug each and every one of those babies for me!!!!!! :)
and know im praying for y'all!
Thanks for your update! The pray-ers at Arbor Drive are looking forward to direction from you. We love your blog and what it does to align us with God's goals for you, the team, and the babies!
Thanks for all the photos!
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