We made it to Kenya!

Kristen here...

Thank you to the many that have been praying for us. We made it to Kenya last night and all of our luggage made it too! This is no minor miracle.  Our whole trip thus far has been no minor miracle :-)

When we went to the Detroit airport to check in for our flights the Delta employees took one look at all of our bags and said there was no way they would all make it on our originally scheduled flight from Detroit to DC. The plane we were supposed to take would be too small. I had called ahead and been reassured that the number of bags we were bringing would be fine, but apparently this was not the case. After some discussion behind the Delta counter it was decided that they should rebook us on a direct flight from Detroit to Amsterdam and skip the DC layover altogether!  So wonderful. This made our long journey just a little bit shorter, gave us one less layover to get our luggage lost on, allowed us to not stress over whether or not our 40lbs of carry-ons each would fit in the overhead bins.  It was an answer to prayer that I never even prayed for. Both Dan and I were exhausted getting on the plane after emotional goodbyes to our families.  Once on board the plane though, we realized that the flight was not very full and we both got a row to ourselves which allowed us to lay down and get some much needed sleep.  Our plane was a little delayed getting out of Detroit due to the snow, but with our flight change we had a couple of extra hours to our layover in Amsterdam which was exactly what we needed to catch our next flight without issue despite our delay.  The flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi was also fairly empty so we again got another row of seats to ourselves which allowed us to get some more rest. 

When we arrived in Nairobi we collected all of our bags and went to customs.  The customs officer was going to make us open up all of our locked bags and search through them.  I told him we were going to Kapsowar Hospital and then he decided we didn't need to be searched after all and let us go.  I am so thankful.  Unlocking and going through all of our luggage would have taken hours and with the chaos of baggage claim and customs with the 5 other international flights that landed the same time as we did I wasn't super excited to show all of our things to the world.  It was a blessing to be spared the search.

We met the Samaritan's Purse representative at the airport without problem and he took us to the guest house where we are staying.  It was so nice to arrive, take a shower and brush our teeth.  Crest never tasted so good! :-)

This morning our luggage was loaded onto a van to be taken up to Kapsowar (approx. 10 hour drive from Nairobi) and we stayed behind to take care of some things in Nairobi.  We were so excited to get to spend some time with our friends the Shirks!  The Shirks are also post residents that arrived in Kenya two months ago and are working at a different hospital. Not only was it nice to see a familiar face, but Dan and I so appreciated them walking us through the tedious process of finding some of things we needed in Nairobi.  Something like buying a cellphone takes hours.  First we went to one store that has all different types of phones and tried to decide which one is going to be what we needed. All of the phones are in a glass display case and none of them are powered on. You have to decide on the phone based on the price and the stats the vendor is rattling off to you from over the counter.  It is hard to keep it all straight. Some of them were phones that were somewhat recognizable from things we have seen back home and some were phones I had no idea existed.  After going through all the phones and purchasing the ones we needed we then had to go to another store to buy minutes for our phones.  This entailed registering our phones with our passports, buying sim cards (which is a whole new world of confusion for me) and figuring out their version of paypal.  A little jet lagged, accents that I am still getting used to, converting everything from shillings to dollars in my head and new technology for a girl that doesn't really understand anything when it comes to electronics made this a very interesting experience. Needless to say, I am so thankful Dan is here and we really appreciated guidance from the Shirks. I am still not sure how the paypal thing really works or how to add more minutes when I run out, but for now I think I will just take one day at a time and figure that out as it comes :-)

Tomorrow we will get up early and fly to Eldoret. We are meeting the McCurry's who are post residents that have been at Kapsowar for almost a year.  We are so thankful they are meeting us and are going to walk us through what is supposed to be an overwhelming first shopping trip.  Starting over from scratch in a foreign country when your grocery store is 2 hours away and Thanksgiving is right around the corner does daunt me a little.  Some prayer for that would be appreciated.  I know it seems so small and trivial, but everything takes three times the amount of effort as you do conversions and read labels to see if anything in the product is familiar or could be used as a substitute for something you don't have.  We are really looking forward to getting to Kapsowar and getting settled.  Thank you so much for following along with us, for your support, for your prayers and for the warm words of encouragement and cheering us on from halfway around the globe. It means more than you know.



Lunch with the Shirks!