Hello, Blog World! I know it's been about 5,389 years since I last wrote in this thing, so I figured, "Hey! You've recently returned from a mission trip to Tanzania! What better way to jump start the ole' blog than with the journal entries from your trip??" So, that's what I'm doing. I promise no laughs, tears, gasps, or sighs...simply some fairly bland retellings of my goings on in the motherland...not my motherland...but somebody's. Here we go. (Pictures to follow?...maybe?...at some point?)
Day 1: LA - NYC
Woke up at 2:30 AM to go and get the Bells at 3 and then head out for LAX. Dad drove, I rode shotgun, Doris and Michael rode in the middle, and Meg was stuffed in the back with 6 huge suitcases full of medical supplies.
The drive over went fairly quickly, check-in went smoothly, and we got to our terminal about 10 or 15 minutes before boarding.
My feelings about the trip up until this point have been varied and a little odd. I've been feeling a push from the Holy Spirit to radically live out my faith since I was in the hospital last year. As usual, I've done a pretty crappy job at it within my comfortable, home environment--something I need to work on and will hopefully be improved after this trip--so I'm really excited to be opened up to the work of the Holy Spirit overseas.
So, yeah, I was pretty excited when I first heard about this trip to Tanzania. That excitement slipped into complacency as the weeks drew on. I know I probably shouldn't have--I certainly had enough people from church tell me how excited they were for me and how I should've been for myself--but I suppose it hadn't really occurred to me that it was actually happening.
Well, it certainly hit this morning. I was terrified. Mom almost started crying as we left, which, of course, made me start to think about her fears of whether or not I'd see her again, which led to thoughts of Lost, Castaway, and all those other lovely things associated with plane crashes :P
The fear didn't really subside until we got onto the plane. I plugged in my headphones, popped on some a Capella church hymns and closed my eyes as we began to take off. As "Be Still My Soul" began to play, I looked out the window and nearly started to cry. As the beauty of God's grace and peace rang forth in my ears, I was overwhelmed with the visual beauty of his creation as I looked out onto the peaceful sea. That enormous entity that ebbs and flows, storms and even kills, was so peaceful and beautiful, it was breathtaking and such a vivid reminder of the awesome power of our creator, tempered with his peace that passes all understanding.
So, yeah, that was the kick in the butt I needed to get stoked and have pretty much been so ever since. I haven't been able to fall asleep so I tried to watch a bit of Hyde Park on the Hudson (boo) before rewatching The Internship (the better choice by far). I then decided on The Wolverine, and to give you an idea of how enthralling it is, the movie's been going on the entire time I've been writing. :P
I think we should be arriving in New York within an hour or so (woo hoo!), then an hour or two there before flying out to Amsterdam! Hopefully I'll get some sleep on that flight...hopefully.
Well, I don't know how much more exciting I can make a four and a half hour flight in Economy sound, so I think I'll stop for now. Possibly more to come later if NYC proves to be exciting :)
Goodbye for now!
New York update:
We got into JFK around 2:30 and immediately went on a search for food, which we found in the form of The Palm restaurant within the airport. The food was pretty darn good, albeit costly, but that was to be expected. Then we had a nice long wait until our plane took off around 6:00PM.
I wandered around the terminal, called the family, and saw a billion I Heart NY mugs and Yankee memorabilia.Overall, I was a little underwhelmed. I think I was expecting to see every New York landmark from our terminal window like Kevin in Home Alone 2, but instead all I saw was a giant bridge that was under construction and more airport :/ But oh well, I'll return some day, NYC!
- mjl.
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