28 June (Thursday)

After our breakfast, shower, quiet time, and thanking our gracious hosts for putting us up for two days.  We started the day at around 900 by having Lynn (another member of the Anajoli family and a Pastor and Pastor’s wife of a local Congregational Church) share her testimony with us and how she was churched, but not a Christian for much of her life.  The she came to understand her need for God to be Lord of her life after xxx and then a little while later upon having a real conviction of a particular sin, she realized she needed Jesus to cover that sin and every other one in her life.  She also told us about xxx and our experience in Anajoli.

Then we began final packing and repacking, labeling and weighing of our suitcases and doing a double checking of our carryons to make sure we packed every last item we could possibly fit into our luggage.  We still had to leave supplies behind.  After lunch, we went to the hospital to visit Bradford and say “Goodbye.”  He was clearly at ease with the situation and knew he would be in the hospital for another four or five days undergoing tests.  So he was happy to take it easy.  We sang our Anajali songs to him and several nurses came in to listen to us.  Then as Anne said a final Goodbye to Bradford, the rest of us went out into the hall where we were asked by the nurses to sing more songs.  They were so happy to have us sing and help relieve their stress.  They said people do this around Christmas, but never any other time of the year.  What a wonderful ministry that would be for someone to start!

Then we went back to Anajali headquarters and packed the trailer that was attached to the van that was going to transport us to JFK .  It easily carried our 18 suitcases, five of which we knew were overweight, but which we had been given money for to pay the overweight fee, and all the carryons (so many I lost count, but roughly another eighteen. 

At about 5 PM, Gary and his wife, Frietha, who were our chauffer and copilot, arrived and we headed off to Kennedy Airport.  Three and a half hours later and several oohs and ahs as one new experience after another passed by the eyes of our younger members, we arrived at JFK.  We were able to flag down two red carts almost immediately and got our checked luggage taken to the checkin counter.  We got in line and fairly quickly found ourselves at the counter.  We explained we were nine in a group going to Africa to serve slum school children.  Then confusion set in and after a short time we found out 1) only three of our bags were overweight and 2) two of our team (Christophrer an Hailey) were being bumped  to first class, which meant two of our overweight bags would not cost us.  Then the clerk at the counter said “we’ll let the other one go as well; it’s for the children.”  Our God is soooo good!.  Once we got that settled, we had to carry all our checked baggage to the X-ray machines were we were forced to bid them farewell.

Then it was off to security.  We all went through almost without incident.  Even Lisa was given one of the lightest wandings she had ever received.  However, the female TSA agent patted her down VERY thoroughly.  However there were two slight complications.  One of us (I won’t say who), left his passport on the entry side of the security scan.  Fortunately he realized it was missing just in time to be confronted by a scolding TSA agent asking him who he was.  He gave his name and of course was handed his passport.  The other incident was actually touching.  One of the girls to have peanut butter to take her daily antimalarial medicine.  A TSA agent wanted to confiscate the jar of peanut butter her mother had brought along.  Her mother explained why she needed it but the agent said she still had to confiscate it.  Then her mother noticed that the agent was moving to the other side of the security line with the jar in her hand at her side.  She got the message and walked over to her and was quietly handed the jar back.  Once again, our God is sooooo good!

After one gate change, a little after midnight we finally started boarding the aircraft, but that’s a report for another day!

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