We have arrived!!

It has happened. We have arrived in Kenya. We did well on the flight stopping in Chicago, London, and then Nairobi. Each airport required security clearance again. We hoped we might be required to do our strip-down dance only once, but alas, that was just not the case! We arrived here a little after 9:00 PM and got processed through customs. Then we went to claim our luggage. Only one of four our bags arrived in Nairobe with us. We are hoping to get the rest in the next day or so. Having to sign for our missing bags took alot of time so we were the last passengers to straggle out of airport. Our patient, long-enduring mission president and his wife still waited for us. It was great to hug them and finally get on the last leg to their beautiful, stately mission home.

I don't know what I expected, but it was far more lavish than my imaginings. The apartment is in a large gated park that looks very much like a jungle itself with a lake, river, palm trees and jungle growth throughout. The home itself reminds me of a Bostonian Brownstone crossed with something out of Baton Rouge. It is in a long line of other walk-up apartments with brick-a-brac on the outside of stone or brick-faced buildings--hanging baskets and lamp-lit streets.

The Broadbents (Pres & wife) graciously served us soup and bread (just perfect end to a long day). Their home has five bedrooms, parquet highly shined floors, two bathrooms, dark beauitful wood throughout. We slept heavily and intermittently! We awoke to the most exotic bird calls....it truly felt like the jungle although we right in the middle of a huge congested city.

I forgot to mention the crazy, aggressive driving. We survived barely a couple of face-on challenges to get home and then back to the office this morning. We are still groggy, and it is 5:46 PM. We spent the morning meeting with the office secretary & his wife about finances, and attending a District Training. We didn't feel nearly so badly about our lack of sleep when we realized all the folks who attended the meeting came from hills of North Kenya having arisen at 3:00 AM and arriving by foot and bus an hour early for their meeting. So, the meeting was moved up and went beautifully. President Broadbent is an orthodontist and kindly irrigated and inspected all my recent painful dental work. I was grateful for that blessing.

Many of the women wore weaves in their hair, and a couple of them wore traditional brightlly-colored dresses. When in Western dress, almost all of the women wore red suits. I don't know if that was planned, but they looked beautiful in those bright colors. The men, most with closely shaven heads, generally attended the meeting wearing suit coats or jackets and white shirts. I was really surprised at the maturity in the gospel evidenced from their responses and the grasp of English they had. I didn't expect that from reports we had had earlier.

All of the African people we have met thus far have been gracious, smiling, soft-spoken, and quite retiring. I realize those are pretty broad generalizations, but have been pretty true across the board. The branch presidents are a shade more out-going, but not much.

We befriended Mother Mary, a Dominican nun, about our age, during customs check-in. She runs the Catholic Cancer Home in Kisumu, and this was her 7th trip to Kenya from her home-base in New York. She was delightful and explained that generally, Kenyans are much more laid back than we Americans, much kinder, taking time to see things through than wanting everything in a hurry like we insist and often demand. We took that interchange as a sign.

COMPARING FIRST IMPRESSIONS of this mission with the Philippines: Kenya is so much cooler---it is great. We've only seen two big ants....great...it is much more modern here (of course, we are in Nairobe and I'm comparing that with Tacloban). The people seem much more reticent (generally). Well, someone is at the door....must close. Neal & Jackie