Airports and Air Time | A New Mission Post #7

The flight from Entebbe to Amsterdam was uneventful. Actually, there was a great event. I slept for nearly four hours! That is a rarity for me, and I am grateful for it as my last night in Gulu netted only two hours of sleep (which did allow me to finish my John Grisham novel and continue deeper into my current read on nationalism-interesting stuff. I’m also doing my annual read of The Knowledge of the Holy during this trip. One chapter a day).

We had a six-hour layover in Amsterdam, spent in comfort in the KLM lounge. Mike, for all his foreign travels, has access to this perk-and Stu and I took full advantage of it. Caught a few winks and spent the last hour walking around the airport trying to get a little exercise before another eight and a half hours for the plane ride to MSP. It was obvious by the amount of people that were waiting that the plane was pretty full. During the time in the KLM lounge, Mike was able to move me from a middle seat to an aisle-which is really helpful when your bladder is as small as mine is!

Stu and I were on the aisle seats with two seats in between us. The very good news we found was that of the ten or so seats that were open on the flight, the two between us we vacant. If there is any flight you want that good fortune, you want it to be the final leg. I sit now with my iPad on the tray table next to me, using my wireless keyboard. 

One of the upsides of all our technology is that I have been able to keep up with emails, respond to all texts, and help plan a funeral from Africa. This means when I land in six hours, I won’t have a pile of matters to address. I can settle in at home, hopefully stay up late enough to watch Blue Bloods, and get (maybe, hopefully, probably not) a good night’s sleep. It’s always a guessing game how it’s going to go. Sometimes reentry is a breeze, sometimes four days later, I’m still dragging. I’ve learned not to overthink it, but get the work I can done, and try to sneak a nap in when I’m feeling like a zombie. 

It is all worth it. The jet lag, the fatigue, the intensity, upending my sense of routine (which I value highly). Avoiding the snow and cold for nine days was nice. In my next (and last) post, I will try to put into words why this matters so much, not only to me but to FCC and God’s purposes for us. 

The picture here is the addition that is being put on the Pastor’s Training Center that, beginning in March, will host 71 pastors and church leaders to help them receive biblical and pastoral training that the majority of them would never receive.