After an emotional farewell from our friends and family at the Nashville Airport, we boarded a plane to Washington D.C. and then made our seamless transition to our Gate and boarded our plane for Johannesburg. Only half of the personal media screens on the flight worked, and the two of us were in the lucky bunch, so our traveling was about as smooth as it could be. Our plane refueled in Dakar, Senegal and we were off to South Africa. Then came JoBurg. What happened in Johannesburg is somewhat of a blur now, but I can tell you in the moment, it was everything in me not to just book a flight home and come back.
To be fair, we'd been warned about taking the "Refueling in Dakar" flight. We'd heard horror stories about how long a one hour pitstop easily turns into four, so we were completely prepared to miss our final connecting flight to Cape Town and knew what to do should our flight not get to JoBurg in time to make our flight. So when we arrived earlier than we were supposed to, we thought it would be easy breezy. We thought wrong.
We landed around 5:35, ahead of schedule, and proceeded to a relatively painless immigration check in. We grabbed our luggage and hustled to recheck our bags around 6:00. We ran up the stairs, knowing we were cutting it close to our flights departure when we got caught up in a line and ultimately missed our flight. But no big deal, right? Just go to the South African Airlines desk and they'll put us on the next flight, and we'll just be delayed in our last flight to Cape Town. WRONG. Apparently, (and the jury's still out on whose fault it was, SAA or Orbitz for advertising a flight with such a quick turnaround) the flight was "illegal" because we only had 30 minutes between our arrival into JoBurg, and our Departure to Cape Town. Because of our apparent deviant flight booking techniques, SAA wouldn't grant us a ticket on the last flight, we would have to pay a $500 to change the flight, or buy new tickets for $600. Well we didn't have working credit card yet or a SIM card for our cell phone. We got our phone working and called our contact, Tim, and by the time we got the security flags off our credit card, the SAA desk was closed. So it was off to a hotel we went. Thankfully, Orbitz offered to reimburse us for our hotel, flight, and food, but unfortunately our psyche took a hit.
The next day our experience at the airport was much smoother, and we got to Cape Town just after noon. Natasha, Tim's husband, took us back to our new home. We unloaded our luggage and took a long nap to get ready for our first run at the South African grocery, Pick-n-Pay. The next day we went and got our new car, Jackie, a Toyota Corolla and our adventures began. We revisited the PnP to go by the ATM and as we parked, I heard a little voice call out "NATHAN!" It was Shinazo, one of the little kids from Red Hill who I've gotten to know on our mission trips. Made my day. Then after getting our cards figured out, we went back to the ATM and in the parking lot I ran into Mzo, who visited Rolling Hills 2 years ago and was the reason I went on the South African mission trip. God put into my path 2 people who have been influential in bringing me back to serve long term. Just the affirmation I needed to keep on, the day before we start our work. Praise God!!
Tomorrow we take another step in our journey and we couldn't be more excited! Please pray for the kids and people we'll meet in Red Hill. Pray that their hearts would be softened to the Gospel. Also, lift up Kennedy and Lumka and their families. Pray that they would have the energy to keep on teaching and leading these kids and teens. Please keep us in your prayers as well, we are still battling jet lag and haven't been asleep before 3AM any night this week. Thank you for all your support and encouragement! We couldn't do it without you!
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