Pictures Finally

Breakfast Sunday February 5th at Holiday Inn in Nairobi before we headed to Mitaboni for church

Lionel and Stacy are fresh and ready to take on the day, Valpo team is dragging a bit due to 9 hours of time zone changes, and not a lot of sleeping on the plane.










Church Sunday morning at Mitaboni, Lionel preached through an interpreter. The kids from the orphanage danced and sang, what a treat to worship the way God worships, in multiple languages and with freedom.












Group photo with Valpo gang and kids from orphanage. They were in their Sunday best and having a terrific time with the Wazinga (sp?) which means "white people" from Valpo

We were starting to run out of energy, but how can a person sleep when the kids are having so much fun?

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Africa Day 2

I still don't have my cables to get my pictures from my camera. Soon hopefully, I've got 600.

We arrived in London around noon on february 4th. Yes, an eight hoor flight from Chicago and a loss of six hours to the time zones. But we were flying high on energy and actually slept quite a bit of the Chicago to London flight. Now Travis probably didn't sleep as much due to his inopportune seating assignment.

We jumped through customs quickly. We checked our carry on bags with a luggage holder for the day. We changed some pocket change for British pounds at the currency exchance, the dollar is actually pretty weak against the pound, so we walked away feeling a little lighter in our wallets.

One picture, which I'll try and post tomorrow with this thread, shows us jumping into a London cab and heading to Leicester Square. Steiner had a little dog-eared map of London and we pointed to the square and the cabbie said "Ok mates." $100 dollars later and an hour tour of the city's highlights we were on Leicester Square looking like stark raving tourists. Now, what to do in London on a seven hour layover? We sent emails to our wives on Travis' phone to say "we're in London." We walked around marveling at the theater district and little China. Then, what to do ... what to do? Oh maybe we could go to a London pub and have a pint?

Of course that was the plan all along. We jumped right way into an average pub had a pint while seated on a couch in the back corner. At the time a soccer (football) match was on the tele and the crowd was pretty sedated. It just wasnt what we had hoped for in a British pub experience. So, we left, on our Cheers expedition (you know, "wanna go, where everybody knows your name") and hopped into and out of a couple more pubs. In search of the pub experience.

Finally, we found it. A small indescript pub, ordered fish and chips and a Guiness (actually we ordered three different brews so we could try new stuff) and maneuvered our way to the back area where there was a small pool table. You'll see pictures of this pool table, but it was a small pub game of pool with wacky rules. I think the Mayor pushed 10 pounds into the game before he realized it. We played three hours and debated and cajoled and basically did the bonding that is necessary to take on a ten day trip away from our family and businesses. That was the key of course, on a hunt and gather trip, the hunters have to bond and trust each other early.

Before we knew it, we needed to get back to the airport and get on that plane to Kenya. I sent an email on Travee's phone to Lionel to say "prepare the natives, a typhoon of activity is on it's way." We grabbed a cab and hurried back to the airport for a small wait before we got in the air. Oh yeah Danny and I did buy some Cubans for the trip too. Hey George W, drop the ban on economic activity with Cuba, it isn't working. Trade with em, that'll crush the communists faster than anything! Just an aside.

So, day two, drastically reduced in hours due to six hours removed by time zones. But we hit the air on the way to Nairobi a team, bonded a bit, some trash talking as is requisite, ready to see our pals the Youngs. Two meals and a little sleep on our way to Nairobi, eh?

More tomorrow in the third edition, and hopefully some pix too.

''What's happening here in Massachusetts is really a turning point," said Melissa Kogut, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, a reproductive health advocacy group that supports abortion rights but says Plan B is a contraception issue, not one of abortion. NARAL and the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts have been urging Wal-Mart to change its Plan B policy for months.

In Massachusets the legislature passed a law requiring Wal-Mart to carry the abortion drug. I don't really need to say anything more, "requiring" a business to sell a certain kind of product? What kind of Soviet maneuver is that?

Read the article from Boston Globe

Looks like he's gone, about time

Africa and Beyond

I am returned from Kenya and the Sudan. What a wild ride!

I am still awaiting one of my bags that actually has my camera equipment in it, so no pictures until Wednesday or Thursday.

I thought the best way to do the blogging, would be to go day by day, with my thoughts, some written hastily, some remembered, many of which will be sooo hard to describe with just a picture or words.

Then in 10 days when I've told all the little stories that made up my moments and memories, maybe I will have had the time to really process the why's and the what nows?

Our little team of Travis Huber, Dan Steiner, Mayor Jon Costas and myself arrived at 4:30 at Calvary Church, no I take that back. Dan and Jon and myself did, you see we were originally supposed to leave at 5:30 to drive to O'Hair, but Jon's brother Jay suggested that we could end up in some traffic woes and may want to be safe and leave earlier. So, the we agreed at the last minute by email (blackberry is the king) to leave an hour earlier.

The three of us arrived and found that Travis was running late getting the van. He arrived a half-hour later, and we loaded the van. Now, over the last couple months Lionel Young and his wife and kids have been in Kenya. He is our paster at Calvary Church and decided a year ago to go for four months on his sabbatical to teach at a seminary in Nairobi. They left at the end of 2005, and have been posting regularly on their blog africa travel journal pretty faithfully. Those posts have led to some requests for American things to be sent along with our vision team.

So, we had our own luggage, and then each of us also packed another full bag of stuff for Youngs and stuff for the kids in the orphanages. Lots of stuff. The church collected items and then even as we were packing ... into the church parking lot rolled Christie Young with even more stuff to jam in the bags for the Youngs and for the orphans. What a funny spectacle! Four bags open in the parking lots, Christie arrived and had a bunch of stuff including two boxes of cereal for the Young boys. We literally stood on the bags, crushing the boxes of cereal to get them zipped shut!!!!

Now we hit the road, it's 5:15 on Friday the 3rd of February. We start to O'Hair for a long night of travel ... first stop London .... then on to Nairobi.

No big stories while driving, lots of political talk (and Travis aint big on politics) and I think truthfully it was just sinking it to all of us that for the first time in years we would be disconnected from the outside world. I use my blackberry to send and receive over 200 emails a day. As of 9 p.m. on the 3rd of February I was on hiatus for 11 days!!!!

First flight was British Air 777 to London. We were able to obtain "plus" seats for the all night flight to Heathrow Airport. Somehow when we checked in Dan, Jon and myself ended up with the front seats that allowed even more legroom than normal seats. Whew did that feel good. Uh-Oh Travvee (t-bone) didn't get those same seats. So we felt terrible for him right? Nope, we made relentless fun of him and threw stuff at him from three rows away. Welcome to the team Travvver John MD.

Flight was 8 hours .... More on February 4th tomorrow ... I really need the pictures. By the way if you follow the link to Lionel's travel blog you'll see some of his pictures he took while we were together too.

Yes, I know I promised pictures of Africa
I'll start posting them on tuesday. Busy 10 days in Kenya and Sudan.