It’s a Small World

We left Karbala early ish and headed back to Baghdad. Close to Baghdad we ran into a large thunderstorm. It was totally delightful, hearing the rain pound on the car, seeing the lightening and listening to the thunder. In fact I fell asleep. Baghdad was a flooded mess and men were frantically trying to clear…

Thank goodness our hotel had beautiful clean bathrooms, as last night was the hour for our first fit of travel sickness. Apparently there’s some Iraqi germs we haven’t encountered before. The hotel had shared bathrooms, but as I was the only lady there I had one all to myself. It was maybe 5×5 with a…

In spite of the noisy street and pillows of stone, we slept well. We were sitting in the lobby, munching on Buffalo cheese and bread at 6am while our driver, Hadaifa waited outside. Today we’re off to fulfill a long time dream and visit Babylon. From there we’ll head to Ur and spend night in…

Wow! It had been a long time since we had gone to a completely new country, and I am on serious sensory overload. It doesn’t help that the last few nights have been extremely short. Anyway, I’ll try to give you a small picture of Iraq as we’ve seen it. It took forever and a…

We left the house at 5:30am and already the roads were full of kids headed to school. It’s a five hour drive from Sengera, Kenya to the Uganda Border and then five more to Kampala. That’s all very approximate in Africa, and the border was a huge unknown. Needless to say we left with prayers.…

The guys really wanted to visit the Masai Mara again. Apparently when you’re young you don’t notice how terrible the road going to it is. Heath and I remembered, but we were enthused if they were, so at 6:30 am we took off for the park. We had no breakfast, no packed lunch and the…

A $20 room was good enough to have a great sleep! We woke up refreshed and ready to tackle Kenya. Our goal was to make it to the Luanda-Kenya Ferry for 8 o’clock and we weren’t sure how far it was. We made it, and even had time to stand around and listen to a…

We all left the house by 7:30 and headed off to meet the other Uganda missionaries at Sipi Falls. We were all packed up and ready to head for Kenya straight from there. The guys had previously done a beautiful 2-3 hour hike to the bottom of the falls, but nobody could remember where the…

Imagine falling asleep peacefully under a large spreading mango tree. There are only a couple other people sitting around and a little ways away the guys and Little Isaac are fixing a borehole. The ground is a little hard, but with a blanket to lie on and a purse for a pillow, it’s so comfy….…

The day started with a fabulous breakfast by Amanda. That girl can really cook! I’m surprised the guys aren’t 200# each. At this rate I’ll have to be upgrading my wardrobe when I get home. One of the main jobs Forrest and Lance do here is repair boreholes that are no longer working. The boreholes…

Sunday morning church in Africa; hot, drowsy, and uncomfortable on a backless bench. I leaned against the rough brick wall, hoping to get some respite, when suddenly I stared into the eyes of a massive striped spider. I promptly decided to switch seats. I can’t worship next to a spider. Of course we were late…