Finally Home!

I'm not even sure if anyone is still reading this.....but I thought I would do one last post to let everyone know that we are indeed home after the most horrible travel experience of our lives! We hit delays at EVERY airport we stopped. We were promised hotel vouchers to spend the night in Ethiopia because we arrived there at around 8pm Monday night and our connecting flight did not leave until 10:30 Tuesday night. It took 4+ hours, but our team leader was finally able to secure us a hotel for the night. Go Kevin! It was sometime after midnight when we finally arrived at the hotel and we were all very pleased with the accommodations. We put our stuff in our rooms and then went down to the restaurant for dinner (at 1am!?!?) The next day we decided to just stay put in the hotel for the day and rest. We just didn't want to take the chance of getting a flat tire or something crazy that would delay us in Ethiopia any longer. We all so desperately wanted to just get home!. So at around 7pm our shuttle arrived to bring us to the airport. It was POURING rain. The roads were not designed to handle such a thing. They were completely flooded. There were MANY cars and vans and busses lining the streets all stalled from trying to get through the rivers that had developed in the roads. I wasn't sure we would make it to the airport. I think we all started praying...."Please Lord, keep the engine dry...get us to the airport on time." We made it all the way to the airport ....almost....there was a round about that we needed to go around to bring us to the terminal and there was another bus stuck in a deep river of water! OH dear. It was still pouring and we had to try to turn the bus around with about three other vehicles surrounding us, but our driver was a pro and he got us as close as he could to the terminal and we just ran into the airport. We thought we had finally made it and we were on our way. We were, but we had no idea what was ahead. We left Addis Ababa on time and arrived in Rome on time as well. We were prepared for a 1 hour wait on the runway while the plane refueled. But then the crew could not find the right wrench ...yeah...they told us that! then they had to change the tires and they only had 1 tire and they needed to get one from another airline which would need to pass through customs and they said it would take a very long time. They kept us on that plane for over 5 hours! SERIOUSLY! No food and pretty much no service. All the flight attendants were hiding behind a curtain in the back and would not come out no matter how many times we pushed the button. It was so frustrating. Finally after 5 hours they let us off the plane and gave us a voucher for a meal in the airport. We went to redeem the voucher...I tried to get a slice of pizza with it and they said it was only redeemable for a pastry. GREAT! We waited another 3+ hours in the airport till we could get back on the plane for a 9 hour flight to Washington DC. We had already missed our flight out of Washington so we knew there was a possibility of not getting home Wednesday. Needless to say we were all so tired and depressed. We left the home of our missionary friends at 2pm on Monday and it was looking like we would not get home till Thursday at this point. We arrived in Washington at 4pm Wednesday afternoon and at 7pm we were still waiting for Ethiopian airlines to get us our boarding passes and luggage tags for the new flight scheduled to leave at 10pm. After 3 hours of terrible service where they basically left us standing in an area and kept leaving the desk over and over again...we gave up on Ethiopian and walked up to the ticket counter of United and got our boarding passes ourselves. We got some dinner and then just waited to board the last plane on our crazy journey home. We landed at 11:43pm in Manchester, NH. We probably had to wait about 40 minutes for our luggage to come through since there were 3 flights that landed at the same time and only one crew! Finally we left the airport 12:30ish and headed home. We got home at 1:30am Thursday. I can't tell you how great it was to sleep in my own bed next to my best friend. Thanks for following our journey. It was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat...the amazing things we experienced were worth the arduous journey home...but I don't think I'll fly Ethiopian again. God bless!

Last full day in Rwanda

We went to Pastor Pease’s chruch for sunday morning service and had a great time there again. She is one of very few female pastors in Kigali and it was neat to be in her church and support her in an area that doesn’t always embrace her. At 2 o clock, Kayla went with part of the team to go see the latest well that was dug as a result of the funds that were raised by Grace Capital Church. Some of you may remember that Kayla did a pancake breakfast last year to raise money toward this effort. It was pretty cool that she got the opportunity to see the fruits of that labor. Some of the women and children that use that particular well were there so they got to interact with some of the 3000 people who now have clean water to drink! How cool is that?!
I went to the orphanage again for a visit. I was able to meet with the Mother Superior and show her the recent pictures of JP and how he has grown. She did remember us and him. That was cool. But the rest of the visit was bittersweet. Good to interact and shower some love on the kids, but hard too for lots of reasons.
I stopped at a downtown market after as I was looking for a few specific things to bring home that I couldn’t find at the local market. Sunday night we had our final team meeting and it was a really good meeting. We all got to share and be honest and brainstorm how we might do things differently next time. All in all the trip was remarkable with not much room for improvement but in hindsight we found areas where we should have done more planning ahead of time.

Umuganda

Not sure if I spelled that correctly but the last Saturday of the month in Rwanda is called Umuganda. It is when no one is allowed on the streets (in cars) between the hours of 8-12. Each person in the community is to report to their community director in the morning to find out what the "chore" is for the day. It is often related to fixing the roads, or trimming back trees and bushes, things like that. We opted to stay on the property of our missionary friends and help them do some projects around the house. I helped Rich organize his storage room for all the equipment and medical supplies for the different ministries that they do. It was uneventful except for the huge rat that was hiding in there and ran out. fortunately I was outside the storage room at that point and I just heard Robin yell and then the dogs went crazy! I guess it was a pretty big rat. I'm glad I didn't see it myself. YUCK!
Later in the afternoon we headed out to the same village to do another outreach there. We were actually surprised to see that there were about the same number of people there as last night. The children were all waiting in the church building. We divided them into groups and did crafts with them....simple things, like paper airplanes, stickers and crayons to decorate paper plates and balloons. They had fun and when it was time to start the worship we had all the kids line up and as they left the building we passed out toothbrushes and a small treat to everyone. Once the music started my buddy and dance partner from the night before found me and led me into the crowd. I knew it was one of my last opportunities to dance with my African friends so I danced until the music stopped even though my body was saying "stop". We showed a Veggietale video and as it was nearing the end we felt a few raindrops so we had to kick it into high gear and get all the equipment packed up before it got wet and ruined. It made our goodbyes very fast and for the most part it was ok but my friend Diane came up to me as I was getting ready to jump in the vehicle and she pointed to herself and then to the car. She wanted to come with me. OUCH. I had to say "oh yah", which means "no" in Kinyarwanda and while I have said this phrase many times this week...this was different and hard. All I can do is pray.