Okay I'm a Little Late

I am gonna start posting all our journal entries from our amazing journey to Africa-

Our family is great and God has been amazing to us- I have to pinch myself because sometimes I cannot believe how blessed I am.

Day 1

It began to hit me when we hit the departure gate at Dulles……. this isn’t Kansas anymore. The travelers waiting at this gate weren’t exactly like travelers I had seen many times before in my previous journeys, you know the ones where I launched KFC Snacker or Famous Bowls. These people were almost exclusively Ethiopians… on their way home or on their way to visit family. Some were dressed in traditional clothing while others were dressed in typical American casual. It hit me, that for the next 9 days… Heather and I would be the minority, a weird realization but not one that was particularly threatening just well, foreign to someone born in Pecos, Texas.

As we walked down the jet way to board our Ethiopian airliner I was relieved to see that no one was carrying crates filled with chickens or leading small farm animals by tattered make-shift leashes made of grass rope. These were the images we feared when we booked our flight on Ethiopian Airlines…...typical, I know. As we boarded, we could instantly tell that the jet was very new….. Thank goodness no chickens or goats. We headed to our assigned seats to find an older couple sitting in our seats. I am sure the woman could tell by the puzzled looks on our faces that she and her husband were in our seats. Speaking no English, she just smiled and waved us towards their assigned seats as if to say, “Just sit over there and let us have these.” Now, that would normally not be a problem except our assigned seats were completely rockin’ compared to their assigned seats. A moral dilemma for a couple on a trip to explore the possibilities of mission work later in life! So immediately, the thought that went through my mind is we should probably let them have our seats. After all, we are on our way to act as ambassadors, right? Fortunately, I guess we waited just the right amount of time with that confused American smile on our faces, (which must have conveyed that we were trying to be nice but……no way in hell are you getting our rockin’ seats!), because they just got up and went to their seats. That was good because had it come to a conversation, Heather and I would have been forced to give them our seats and that would have made the 15-hour journey really suck!

So we flew over the Atlantic, just south of England and right over France to land for fuel in Rome. We couldn’t see anything cool in Rome when we landed; I guess the airport is far from any cool buildings. Plus, I was wiped out and half asleep. In fact, I woke to a very loud Italian man standing right in front of our bulkhead, rockin’ seats, holding a dust pan and small broom. Did I mention he was loud? Next we took off towards Africa, right over Libya and into Egyptian airspace. The desert looks very strange from 35,000 feet. You look out the window and there is just a big brown/orange cloud of sand below you.

We then flew over Sudan. In fact, as I write this paragraph, we are smack dab over Khartoum, which is a little scary. Bad things are going on down there, very bad things. There are border clashes between Ethiopia and several of her neighbors including, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. These countries are having disputes within their own borders and with Ethiopia. Just last week, several Europeans were released after being kidnapped in a disputed border area. This is a little nerve wracking because on Tuesday (late Monday in the states) we will be traveling 5 hours towards Somalia to meet the birth family of our new son. Kind of a weird thought for a Bush-loving republican from Texas! What an adventure!

By the way, I could never be an astronaut. How do they pee? It is hard enough after being airborne for 10 hours to do so….I can’t imagine what it is like in zero gravity. Fortunately, neither of us has struggled with motion sickness……..maybe because we over-dosed on Dramamine. Man, that stuff should be controlled by the FDA. Two of those and its lights out! Maybe that is what makes it hard to pee.

I don’t know how Moses made it through the desert, well I do; God. But we are on our 2nd hour of nothing but desert below. Except for Khartoum……No roads, no water…..no nothing just sand and more Sudanese sand. Sudan….there’s a place you don’t want to visit. The only things going on there are war, poverty and suffering. The statistics are bad enough in the “stable” African countries like Ethiopia and Kenya. In those countries, 1 in 10 children die before the age of 1. The life expectancy for a man born in Ethiopia today is 48. Tens of thousands of children under 10 years old live, alone in the streets, in the boxes they call home. There is no one to care for them or love them…. they just exist. When I transplant Maddie or Lilly’s face onto their circumstances it is almost more than I can bear. I couldn’t imagine them living like that. If ever there were a place in need of saving grace it is Africa. The good news is that almost every church in America is responding in bigger and better ways than before. In our own home town of Louisville, churches as big as Southeast and as small as our own Adventure Christian Church are adding more and more mission’s projects and dollars to their programs. This is the church’s responsibility….. to feed the body and soul, everywhere. Amen!

Arriving in Addis Ababa was a welcome event. Coming in for our landing gave us a great bird’s eye view of the city. It is a weird mixture of big buildings and tarp covered shacks. It is a city of about 5 million people. We got off the plane and waited in line for our customs clearance. We quickly learned that things move at a slightly slower pace in Ethiopia. 30 minutes later we were through customs and immigration.

We loaded our belongings into a small van and our driver, Mulat, took off in the direction of the orphanage. The city televises big soccer matches from throughout Europe and Africa on a huge (and I mean huge) TV screen in one of the city squares. A match between Manchester United and Chelsea had just finished and the must have been at least 100,000 in the streets as we tried to make our way to the orphanage. It was so surreal that here, as many people will go see a European soccer match on a big screen as will see a football game live at home.

The drive was interesting, to say the least. I have driven in multiple cities in Mexico. I would never…. and I mean never drive here. It is truly unbelievable. There are 10-12 lane blvd’s that really don’t seem to have a middle line. Drivers here use a mixture of intimidation and sharp reflexes to avoid a stand still or a wreck. Funny though, there were no wrecks that I saw.

Arriving at the orphanage was a little spookier than we thought. We turned down this VERY dark alley off a main road and went for about a half mile. At about the mid point the driver honked his horn twice. A guard stepped through a huge steel door and stood there waiting……….for a sign you see. He was waiting for a signal that this was really a van for the orphanage. Our driver flashed his lights twice and in we went. Our driver unloaded our bags and showed us our room. I will discuss our room and bathroom in a bit because it is a whole story in and of itself. But first let me tell you about our fist meeting with Greyson. We went to the little nursery where they keep him. It was meager to say the least. The room had six miniature cribs in it and was no larger than six feet by 10 feet. The walls were concrete and the door just opened to the courtyard of the small orphanage complex. There were no fans or windows and it was a little hot in there. He was great though! He warmed to us quickly and seemed to have a good sense of humor. He is a bit smaller than we imagined but seems very healthy. Heather got him to start laughing and smiling about half way through our initial visit. It was a very cool time.

OK, as I finish this day’s events I just want to tell you about our room and bathroom at the orphanage guest house. We do have a king size mattress and that is good. The floor is indoor/outdoor carpet……you know, that green stuff that look like what would go on a pool table. There is no air-conditioning and no fans which is not too bad because the temperature here is in the high 60’s at night and high 70’s in the day time (the city is 8000 feet above sea level). The bed in our room has no mattress cover, just a sheet. So we decided to just sleep on top of our Velvet Elvis blanket and put the sheet over us. The god news is that our window opens up to a great view of the guard house.

The bathroom is funny. There is a small hot water heater sitting on a shelf in the shower. The electrical plug is right there too which is kind of hairy. The shower is one of those hand held jobs and the temperature is a bit hard to adjust. You have to keep your lips pursed because it is very dangerous to drink the city water. Just to be careful, I put a little toothpaste in my mouth during my first shower in case any got in my mouth! I know I am a bit paranoid but I am not fond of the idea of puking the next 7 days. The toilet has a little sprayer (like on your kitchen sink) right next to it. I guess this is the African version of a bidet. Thanks but no.

OK off to bed. It is 4PM at home and midnight here.