What a trip!

Filed Under News by Pastor Meredith

(Via e-mail from Pr. Meredith Lovell)

St. Paul’s Zambia Mission Team finally made it to the Sons of Thunder Farm about 50 hours after they began their journey at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. After an overnight in Johannesburg, they boarded their flight for Livingstone Friday morning. At about 20,000 feet as we were ascending out of Johannesburg, the captain came on the intercom to announce that there was a “problem in the cockpit”…not exactly something that you want to hear at 20,000 feet! Something had hit the window and shattered it, leaving some concern about depressurization. So, back the plane went to the airport in Johannesburg. After circling the airport at 11,000 feet for about half an hour to burn off fuel, the plane landed, complete with all of the excitement you might expect for a plane with a shattered window. We had a fire truck meet us on the runway and everything! Everyone was just fine, though, and it had felt like a normal flight except that we didn’t go anywhere.

Back at the Johannesburg airport we waited, waited and waited some more. Finally around 4:45 pm, our new flight, with all windows intact, took off and headed toward Livingstone. What a relief it was to finally arrive at the Farm last night.

We were greeted with a warm (well, actually, quite chilly) African welcome. Thankfully all but one of our bags arrived with us on the airplane, a huge blessing! It was pretty cold outside in those open-air vehicles as we drove from the airport to the Farm, but the view of the stars was amazing. At the Farm, we got to experience a brief power outage, something quite typical here in Zambia. Then we had a truly wonderful 4th of July BBQ with hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and sausage. There were side dishes of baked beans, pasta salad and salad. Then for dessert Jaime, our St. Paul’s parishioner and missionary on the ground here, had made a 4th of July cake decorated as the American flag. What an exciting and new way for us to celebrate the 4th here in Africa!

The team are all doing well and are thrilled to finally be here. Needless to say, we are all quite grateful for our safe arrival here at the Farm. Today we will spend the morning playing with the children at the orphanage and getting to know them. For lunch the staff here is preparing a traditional Zambian lunch with shema, chicken and vegetables. Then in the afternoon we will head out to tour some of the 10,000 acres owned by Sons of Thunder that make up the Farm compound. We will visit one of the seven villages on the Farm and see the traditional way of African life. We will also see the school and clinic…It promises to be an exciting day!

Please continue to keep the team in your prayers as we are keeping you in ours.