Hello, weekend.

What a week. There’s no question I’ve never had such a rocky transition to Tenwek, and while all’s well that ends well, I was certainly not well in the process…

Having gotten a good snow fix from the “bomb cyclone” in Boston, I was happy to depart the crushing Arctic cold that followed it, and I arrived at the airport last Saturday evening more ready to be on my way than I normally am leaving home. But when my plane still wasn’t at the gate an hour and a half after we were supposed to depart, things started to feel a little ominous, and I ultimately went to the desk to ask about contingency plans should I miss my connection in Paris. The desk agent seemed to be struggling to line up a backup seat on another flight – she kept saying she didn’t understand why the boarding pass wasn’t printing out correctly – and said that I’d have to talk to an Air France agent at CDG if I needed the alternate flights anyway. I very explicitly confirmed that my original ticket and boarding pass for the 11:00 am flight to Nairobi were still valid and resumed pacing the halls of terminal A.

We finally pushed back from the gate three hours late, and despite the captain’s repeated promises to make up as much time as possible in the air, it seemed likely that the two hours and forty-five minutes I originally had in layover time was likely to disappear entirely. My sister figured out my gate assignment and sent it to me while I was in-flight – miraculously, the arrival was in the same building – so when we touched down just after 10:30, I thought there was enough of a chance that I could make it that I had to try. I don’t love running with luggage, or getting sweaty, or any of the assertive-bordering-on-pushy things that go along with trying to make a flight that’s leaving imminently, but the alternative is a potent motivator. I made it off the plane – and to/through security – relatively quickly and sprinted the remaining distance to the gate, arriving 15 minutes before the scheduled departure. So when the desk agent told me that they had already sent the final bus from the gate to the plane and couldn’t do anything about it since it was just me, I put my head down on the desk and started crying.

Oh, and by the way, my boarding pass wasn’t valid because the Boston agent had rebooked me to alternate flights anyway.

The CDG-NBO flight is a once-daily shindig, so Air France rerouted me through Amsterdam to catch the evening AMS-NBO flight on KLM. On a full flight in a middle seat. Sigh. The short version of the next several hours went like this: nap in awkwardly rearranged seating near the airport hotel, overpriced airport dinner including apricot tart (probably the highlight of the whole eight hours), discovery that the AF website was now noting “one or more” of my checked bags to be missing, and another flight delay that left me in tears in front of my second – and third – ticket agents of the day.

This delay really WAS only fifteen minutes, though, and while I didn’t have time to sit down in the Amsterdam airport, I didn’t feel compelled to do any of that running-and-getting-sweaty nonsense I’d done in Paris. I made the connection easily, and eight hours in a middle seat wasn’t actually the worst ordeal of my whole life. But after clearing immigration in Nairobi, I took up my post in baggage claim with a deep conviction that my bags were not coming. They didn’t. The internet, at least when it comes to scanning baggage, apparently doesn’t lie.

The revised plan had been to drive directly to Tenwek from the airport, but after being told my bags were scheduled to arrive that evening, I decided to wait in town rather than risk the additional step of having them couriered out to Bomet. It also meant I could get some rest (my cumulative sleep deprivation at that point was not something to be examined too closely) and do my grocery shopping prior to returning to the airport so that we could leave early the next morning and get out to Bomet before noon. I was scheduled to start ward service on Tuesday, so I had to ask Annette to arrange for someone else to cover the day. But lo and behold, only one of my two bags dropped onto the baggage carousel that evening, and it was, quite naturally, the one containing shoes and food and gifts but absolutely no clothes whatsoever. I said a quick hello to Mike and Julie Ganey, who had arrived on the same flight, and then made my way back to the lost luggage desk, where I was told that the remaining suitcase would arrive the NEXT night on the same flight. The skepticism I felt upon hearing that was… significant. Since it seemed fruitless to delay any longer in Nairobi, I signed my suitcase up for the courier service with a sinking feeling that I would never see my clothes again. I managed to avoid tears until I got back to the guesthouse and started video chatting with my parents, but at that point, I melted into a sobbing mess.

Past midnight I finally hung up with my parents, who had been on the phone with Air France trying, unsuccessfully, to get more information about my luggage than I had been able to and slept for only a couple of hours before finding myself awake again. At some point it crystallized for me: I was not going to be able to pull myself out of this of my own accord, and I didn’t feel like God was anywhere nearby or listening. But I had the wherewithal to write an email asking friends to pray, which was probably the wisest thing I did the whole day.

Eventually it was time to face the morning, and after a shower and breakfast, my driver took me back to the shopping mall, where I'd seen a Woolworth's and several other stores likely to sell a few essentials. Business completed, we headed finally for Tenwek, an uneventful trip other than a slightly unnerving phone call from the airport, aiming to confirm that I wanted my bag to be delivered to Kijabe Hospital (what?! no!), and arrived mid-afternoon. Adrenaline got me through the rest of the day, and after several offers from women here to let me raid their closets and a lovely welcome dinner with friends, I passed out in bed. Wednesday morning, I was able to confirm that my suitcase had actually arrived in-country (amazing!) and was being handed over to the courier service (fingers crossed). The following afternoon, I received this text:

Mildly incredulous is probably the best way to describe my response, but the visiting staff coordinator arranged a driver to transport me into town before the office closed that evening. My bag and I were reunited in a duka whose appearance made me feel slightly justified about the skepticism I'd felt (see below).

It was really quite a day. Hospital events aside - which would extend this post from merely Too Long to Seriously, Nobody's Going to Read This - Mike and Julie and the kids arrived from town, I got to laugh myself silly over dinner with them and the Horns, and I had my stuff back. 

I've spent a fair bit of time reflecting on the events of those several days this week, and I've come to a number of conclusions, at least one of which should have been obvious. Some of the others, though, fall more into a category of Things I Wish Weren't True About Me, and are ultimately areas in which I want God to work and grow me rather than just convict (see Hebrews 12:12-13). 

1. Sleep deprivation is the worst. It reveals every weakness of character you could ever imagine, and then some. It stinks, but it's worthwhile paying attention to what those are.
2. Seriously... it was Just Clothes. I tend not to think of myself as a materialistic person (to be perfectly transparent, probably to a point of unhealthy pride at times), but it was crazy how the absence of my material things had the power to undo me. One friend reminded me of Matthew 6:28-30, which was humbling and encouraging - and also true, as evidenced by the generosity I encountered when I arrived at Tenwek! It's clear there are many material comforts I take for granted, and I want both to be more aware of those and to learn to hold them more loosely.
3. Maybe I don't trust God in the day-to-day as much as I think I do. Unlike this week, I'm fortunate to have a lot of agency in the daily events of my life under usual circumstances, and that makes it easy to believe that I trust God to provide for me, when in fact I may actually be trusting myself to navigate life and make reasonable choices that will keep me pretty happy. 
4. God is still nearby, even when I can't tell. Monday night was not a good night, and I felt incredibly alone. I certainly wish I had been able to feel God's presence then, but I'm very grateful that I have friends who are willing to remind me of True Things and pray for me when I don't feel coherent enough to do it myself. One more reason that living this life in community is so essential.

It's almost time for lunch at the Manchesters' (not to be missed!), and if anyone has actually read all of this, I'll be shocked, but I promise to keep the rest of my updates shorter. I work the remaining twelve days of my trip without a day off, so prayers for endurance and good rest when I can are appreciated.