Part 2: After spending the morning at Charlie's church, we loaded up the vans and drove to the airport. Here, we met up with Alan, my husband, who had spent the morning visiting a friend working in Nairobi and attending church with her. Joy Phillips is one of the minister's daughters from Alan's church in Cape May, NJ when he was younger. Sharon and I planned to visit with her when we returned to Nairobi at the end of our trip. At the airport, Charlie did some fast talking as we were only supposed to have one suitcase apiece on this part of our journey-- we had 14 bags to check for 9 people. I imagined it was something like Obi Wan Kenobe in Star Wars-- "these are not the droids you're looking for!" Whatever he said, we were able to take everything without any extra charges. We were especially glad to see the guitar and keyboard, as these were not on the baggage carousel when we first arrived in Nairobi. We boarded a small plane for the short journey to Kisumu-- maybe a little over 30 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised at the friendly and fast snack (yummy cashews and macadamia nuts) and beverage service. Soon, we were landing and being greeted by Jeff Baltes, our host and dean of KIST (Kima International School of Theology) where we would be serving, as well as Roy Jacks, the retiring principal of the school. We found all but one of our pieces of luggage, which as of this writing still remains missing. After filing a report, we headed up the mountain to KIST, located 5000 feet above sea level. Some of the road had been freshly paved as that week-end, the funeral of a former member of parliament was being held at the Church of God cathedral next to the school. Arriving at KIST, we were shown to our rooms where we would stay for the week and invited to gather downstairs for dinner. Lisa, Jeff's wife, was our hostess with the mostest-- we enjoyed a delicious dinner and visited before retiring to bed. Tomorrow would be the first day of the seminar Sharon and I were teaching, and promised to be a busy and potentially stressful day. Next Post
