So we just spent two weeks in Kenya, traveling with a former student from ESSA, on our way back to the United States.  As much as I love telling and retelling favorite travel stories in person (and I'm not being sarcastic), I thought I'd share a couple highlights here for those of you I won't be seeing in person immediately.
 
Contrary to what most people expect a family of four to do in Kenya, we didn't hit any game parks (except an animal orphanage in Nairobi, in which Adam and I got to pet cheetahs).  We spent two nights at a church guest house in the second largest slum of Nairobi (Huruma), and then spent a week in our friend's home village, and then spent a few days in Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, where Adam preached and we all took a boat ride to look at hippos and invasive plant species on the lake.
 
Kenya, we learned, operates on Kenyan time, which is about an hour or two or three later than South African time, which, in turn, is an hour or two slower than Jeske time.  Perhaps we've been spoiled by spending the last year mostly in the bubble of our seminary, where classes generally don't start more than fifteen minutes after their scheduled time, but it came as an adjustment to find that breakfast planned for 7:30 a.m. arrives at 11 a.m., and the day goes on from there.  Fortunately the children quickly learned it was futile to ask questions like "What are we waiting for," and we stocked up on bananas and bread to stay off hunger, and enjoyed going with the flow. And to their credit, we found Kenyan people wonderfully hospitable and kind and respectful, and a perfect group of people to hang out with for our last weeks in the continent.  Phoebe kept a journal during our two weeks in Kenya, and nearly every entry ended in "It was so fun."
 
The most surprising event shaping our journey happened the first night in the village, where we were staying in friend's small room decked out in a castle of mosquito nets.  Phoebe woke up at 2 am and announced that she thought she had a fever.  Sure enough, it was at about 102 F.  By the morning it reached 103, and I stayed home with her and Zeke while Adam went to preach his first church service in the village.  A couple hours later it reached 104 (that's just shy of 30 Celcius, for you South Africans, and is trouble in any measurement).  When Adam returned home Phoebe was just starting to complain of a black line that wouldn't go away whether she had her eyes opened or closed, and when she told us she was seeing a woman killing a horse where there should be only sheets, we decided it was time to speed up the Kenyan timing and book it straight to a doctor.  Phoebe's next journal entry would end, "It was not fun."
 
To reach the doctor, we all got to pile onto motorcycles, the only form of motorized transport in the village.  Phoebe was in a daze, but Zeke was thrilled.  The doctor turned out to not be a doctor, but was better still: a 76-year-old German nun who had spent 53 years in Africa starting health clinics like the one she operated, along with 2 Kenyan nurses in training, in the village where we stayed.  Not only did she discover that Phoebe did not have malaria (much to our relief), she diagnosed Phoebe's acute tonsilitis, loaded her with antibiotics, and then offered us a place to stay.  Our Kenyan friend was more than happy to turn us over into her hands for sleeping quarters and just take us out during the day to visit all his friends and relatives.
 
So we spent a week staying with this German nun named Sister Theresa (she even met the famous Mother Theresa years back during a short furlow working in slums of Rome!), eating many of our meals with her.  We stayed in the building where she and her coworkers also cared for 17 orphans, and ran a huge demonstration garden and tree nursery, with chickens, goats, and fruit trees every where we turned.  We couldn't believe the blessing God tossed our way through Phoebe's sickness.  It was a lush and beautiful place that she had raised up from desert soil in just 15 years, dripping with her peace and insight into life in Africa.
 
On the way out we had our second major surprise event, which was that our flight, set to leave Nairobi at 11 p.m., was delayed until 4 a.m., meaning we would miss our next flight from London to the U.S. and have to wait along with dozens of other people for the next seats available, which might not come for days (Brittish Airlines staff were on strike, which meant all flights on other airlines were already far overbooked).  Phoebe was still on antibiotics and supposed to get plenty of rest, so we used that as an excuse to beg our way into a business-class lounge where we all snoozed a bit in Nairobi, while other people slept on the hallway floor.  In the midst of the chaos, I opened my Bible and discovered a verse in the psalms that said, "The angels of the Lord encamp with the righteous."  Watching my little children curl into airport seat after airplane seat after airport seat after airport floor for the next 48 hours of missed flights and standby waiting, catching little hours of sleep here and there and carrying their little backpacks of toys, I felt those angels tangibly surrounding us.
 
So we have all been thankful to be home, with family, and ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, who came for all people, in South Africa, Kenya, London Heathrow Airport, and even here in the United States of America.