36 Hours Of Traveling

After landing, we had 40 minutes to get to our connecting flight. We basically walked from one plane to another. I got real lucky because I was on an aisle seat and I had an empty seat next to me. This flight was going to be 14 hours so I was so happy to be so comfortable. If anyone knows me, sitting is not my thing. So what would I do for 14 hours? I talked to a lot of people. The flight seemed to be full of two kinds of people either Africans returning home or mission workers. 

The first person I met was the college student sitting in my row, Clayton Buback. He was an engineering student from Rolla, Missouri. He was going to Ethiopia to do some medical work. He is hoping to make connections with people so that after he becomes a doctor he could come back and do mission work. This was his first trip out of the states and he was venturing to Africa on his own. I thought he was extremely brave. As we landed in Ethiopia, I could tell how excited he was to begin his adventure. 

Then I met a group from Teens Missions International. You couldn't miss them in their bright colored matching t-shirts. They were a team of 40 youth and 6 adults. I talked off and on with several of the leaders and youth. They were on two missions. One group was going to do foot work. They had a lot of shoes to give out and they had a foot doctor to do any medical problems. The second group was doing eye care. They brought glasses and an eye doctor. They were all so excited about their work they were about to do.

After the long 14 hours of flying, we landed in Ethiopia. The airport was really small. You had to get off the plane on the runway. While we were landing, we tried to guess at what kind of restaurants would be there. We were all hungry at this point. We thought for sure there would be some sort of McDonald's.....HA! I guess we forgot we were in Africa. Here is what they had....



We didn't eat. We had about a 3 hour layover and then our final 3 hour flight to Kilimanjaro airport. We noticed that this flight was full of people going on safari or climbing the mountain. 

After 36 hours of traveling, we finally arrived. The best part was ALL of our luggage made it. We were so thankful!