11:00pm Zim 10:00pm London 5:00pm US
We began our trip 2 days ago and just arrived this evening. Carol, Laurel, Zellie, and I were taxied to Dulles international airport by Peggy and Jason where we met Kirk. Our first flight was a short 6 hours and it left at 6:30pm EST arriving at Heathrow airport 6 hours later at 5:30am.
I didn’t sleep at all.
London was beautiful in all its rainy splendor. During our 15 hour layover we got to ride the London Eye where I jumped back and forth from the window and the bench in the middle where I could sit and be scared. I was free to let my imagination run wild while saying things like “holy crap wouldn’t it suck if this bubble broke off and we tumbled down into the Thames?” I realized how my hamster must have felt when he rolled his little hamster bubble of the edge of the table I had left him on when I was eight and he squeaked the only noise I ever heard him make.
Anyway back to London. We left the Eye and went to eat at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce then walked to Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus before catching a double decker bus to take us back to the airport. By 7pm London time I was exhausted. We boarded our second flight from London to Harare and I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I love that God has blessed me with friends like Carol who know me well enough to grab me a diet Pepsi from the flight attendant while I lay sleeping with my neck pillow, eye mask, and ear plugs.
We arrived in Harare 10 hours later at 5:55am Zim time and basically the first thing I did could have gotten me arrested. Apparently you are not allowed to take video footage at the Harare airport or at least that is what I was told by the cop. Things are strict in Zimbabwe but only on strange issues for instance you are not allowed to say anything bad about president Mugabe but they let us right through customs with our 16 bags without asking any questions.
The rest of the day was spent in transit to Mutare. We spent the morning at a friend of Amos’s house and then spent 4 hours on the road, stopping at the Half Way house for Stoney’s Ginger Beer.
The hotel we will be staying at is liveable. I wasn’t expecting anything posh, so the hole in the floor for a toilet doesn’t bother me too much.
On the way through Zimbabwe this afternoon we saw many rock formations that the local’s call balancing rocks, to look at them you wonder how they are even staying up. We asked if there was any folklore about them and when Amos said no, I said they reminded me of Ebenezers (which was fun to fingerspell in Zim sign language)
Thank you God for my jet legged mash potato brain. Thank you for the safe flight and the London Eye and the little boy that I watched who was deriving great joy out of smashing Doritos into the floor at the Zim airport at 6am. Help me to find that kind of joy in myself and others on this trip. Amen.
“Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by thy health I’ve come,
And I hope by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home,
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God,
He to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.”
We began our trip 2 days ago and just arrived this evening. Carol, Laurel, Zellie, and I were taxied to Dulles international airport by Peggy and Jason where we met Kirk. Our first flight was a short 6 hours and it left at 6:30pm EST arriving at Heathrow airport 6 hours later at 5:30am.
I didn’t sleep at all.
London was beautiful in all its rainy splendor. During our 15 hour layover we got to ride the London Eye where I jumped back and forth from the window and the bench in the middle where I could sit and be scared. I was free to let my imagination run wild while saying things like “holy crap wouldn’t it suck if this bubble broke off and we tumbled down into the Thames?” I realized how my hamster must have felt when he rolled his little hamster bubble of the edge of the table I had left him on when I was eight and he squeaked the only noise I ever heard him make.
Anyway back to London. We left the Eye and went to eat at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce then walked to Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus before catching a double decker bus to take us back to the airport. By 7pm London time I was exhausted. We boarded our second flight from London to Harare and I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I love that God has blessed me with friends like Carol who know me well enough to grab me a diet Pepsi from the flight attendant while I lay sleeping with my neck pillow, eye mask, and ear plugs.
We arrived in Harare 10 hours later at 5:55am Zim time and basically the first thing I did could have gotten me arrested. Apparently you are not allowed to take video footage at the Harare airport or at least that is what I was told by the cop. Things are strict in Zimbabwe but only on strange issues for instance you are not allowed to say anything bad about president Mugabe but they let us right through customs with our 16 bags without asking any questions.
The rest of the day was spent in transit to Mutare. We spent the morning at a friend of Amos’s house and then spent 4 hours on the road, stopping at the Half Way house for Stoney’s Ginger Beer.
The hotel we will be staying at is liveable. I wasn’t expecting anything posh, so the hole in the floor for a toilet doesn’t bother me too much.
On the way through Zimbabwe this afternoon we saw many rock formations that the local’s call balancing rocks, to look at them you wonder how they are even staying up. We asked if there was any folklore about them and when Amos said no, I said they reminded me of Ebenezers (which was fun to fingerspell in Zim sign language)Thank you God for my jet legged mash potato brain. Thank you for the safe flight and the London Eye and the little boy that I watched who was deriving great joy out of smashing Doritos into the floor at the Zim airport at 6am. Help me to find that kind of joy in myself and others on this trip. Amen.
“Here I raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by thy health I’ve come,
And I hope by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home,
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God,
He to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.”
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