It is rainy season in Kenya, and much of the country has been experiencing serious flooding. On Sunday Adams had word from one of his friends who had travelled from Nairobi to Kitale, that the journey had taken him from 8 in the morning until midnight, as many of the roads were cut with floods.
This was some concern to us, as we had to travel from Kitale to Nairobi on Tuesday, and needed to be at the airport by 7pm for check-in. Adams suggested that we would need to get going as early as possible, and pray that there would not be any problems along the way.
Having sent out prayer requests all over the place, we left at 7am. Praise God, though there was plenty of water at the sides of the road, there was none over the road, and we arrived safely in Nairobi mid-afternoon. After a quick lunch (KFC) we decided to head straight to the airport. I’m so glad we were not cutting the timing fine, or I could have been really stressed. The traffic was horrendous, and it took us nearly two hours to get from central Nairobi to the airport.
Mary had not been able to come with us, as she had business she needed to attend to back in Kitale, so it was just a quick goodbye to Adams when he dropped me off at the terminal. In a way I was glad, as I hate the teary goodbyes.
I was still early, so I had to wait at the cafe near the terminal until check-in time. That was not a burden – they make good cappuccino, and it gave me a chance to catch up with my Bible reading for the day.
Both legs of the flight home were pleasant. Emirates is a great airline, and for the flight from Nairobi to Dubai I had a row of seats to myself (on the plan I had one other person in the row, with a seat between us, but there was a vacant row in front of us so he moved there to allow us both to have a row to ourselves.) On the leg from Dubai to Melbourne there were two of us in the row, with a seat between us.
I arrived in Melbourne at 5.30 this morning, and because I know the distances in Melbourne airport I decided to swallow my pride and ask for a wheelchair. This proved to be a great decision. Not only did it save me a lot of walking when I was very tired, but when it came to immigration it meant no standing in the (very long) queues – just wheeled straight up to the desk and through in minutes. Definitely something I will do again next time (there are some advantages in being old!) I took myself through Customs, as I needed to declare my shoes which had tramped through farming areas in ten different African countries, but even that was fairly quick.
By the time I was through, my friends Rod and Cheryl were there waiting for me to bring me back to home.
The final figures for the trip:
* Out of 184 days, 37 were spent travelling, including 22 flights, 4 long bus trips, countless journeys by car, a few by tuk-tuk, and four short ones by motor bike
* On the 147 days when I was not travelling, I ministered 133 times, at 40 different churches and conferences, in ten different countries.
* 95 people found Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour for the first time, and 29 recommitted their lives to Him. These were not at evangelistic meetings, but in normal church services and Christian conferences.
* As God promised me before I left for the trip, He began healing people while I was ministering, with nine people (that I know about) receiving their healing while I was preaching.
There were plenty of challenges, both natural and spiritual, but it has been a truly awesome time in God, not only for what He has done through me but for what He has done in me.
Now I have six months of ministry at home before heading off for my next six-month mission, God willing.