June 18 Greetings from South Africa

Greetings to our Family and Friends from South Africa,
We have arrived safely in eSkikahwini after a long and twisty 50-hour travel adventure.
Many of you saw us off and could see how excited we were! We arrived just on time to check in a total of 54 bags including 33 bags of medicine and supplies, 3 wheelchairs, and 2 walkers. The British Air staff seemed to take it in stride.

Our first flight to London started the initiation of our "long flights". We flew through the night and arrived in London midmorning. Adam, Sarah, Robyn, Kristy, Cheryl, Shelly, Tracy, Alex, Melissa, Megan O, Richard, Megan V, and Rev. Rob rode the express tube from the airport into London and took in some sites during the layover. They saw Big Ben, Piccadelly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Falkand War Victory Day Parade. They also enjoyed a typical pub lunch of fish'n'chips. Sharon, Katie, John, Pat, and Ian took the opportunity to take a rest in the airport day rooms.

Later in the day, our adventure continued as we crunched into a Boeing-747 airplane to get us to Capetown. This flight was approximately 12 hours long and proved to be a challenge because of the limited amount of space - especially for those sitting in the middle seats. Somehow - we all seemed to make it just fine. During the flight, many of us were awestruck when we saw an AMAZING display of stars in the dark skies over Africa - they were breathtaking to say the least. We landed early in the moring in Capetown, South Africa. We breezed through passport inspection but were surprised to find out that nine of our bags never made it.

We had a really short amount of time to connect to our last flight and the baggage claim folks rushed us on without our missing luggage. We sailed through customs and we recognized that this was in direct result of all of the prayer support - thank you. We walked about a 1/2 mile outside from the international terminal into the domestic flights building and managed to check in all 18 of us in less than a half hour - so that we could make our connection to Durban. It was a whirlwind of activity but the team worked together as if we had done it a million times before. Arriving in Durban, many folks took their first steps onto African soil. We all felt a sense of relief that we had made it through our last flight. Isaiah Mafu and some of the folks from the church gave us a warm greeting and helped us get all of our luggage loaded into their truck & trailer.

Later that afternoon we hopped into our 3 rental vans and headed North to eSikhawini. Three minutes into our final leg of the journey the clutch blew out in Rev Rob's van. He handled it like a champ and they were able to contact us via the walkie-talkies. As they sat on the side of the road waiting for assistance they were overwhelmed with how many concerned drivers stopped to help. We eventualy made it back to the airport again and received a new van which was in full operational mode. We were so grateful. We traveled in a caravan to eSikhawini and arrived around 7pm. We were greeted by the wonderful sounds of African Song and warm hugs and handshakes. Yes - We finally arrived!!

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. We have felt the presence of God throughout this trip. Tomorrow we will be counting and packaging medication. It will take a lot of stamina and concentration - so please continue to pray for us and the Zulu people. (and that the luggage would arrive tomorrow!)

Kindly,
The 2007 South Africa Medical Outreach Team
[John, Ian, Katie, Pat, Sharon, Tracy, Alex, Melissa, Megan O., Shelly, Kristy, Megan V., Rev Rob, Sarah, Robyn, Richard, Adam, and Cheryl]