Yesterday I preached a (rather hasty) sermon at Mid-City and then went to lunch with several friends. Richard Samba took me to the airport and Deron, Leigh, and Matt followed. Nate Alcorn met me there to help with bags and to also say goodbye. We had a prayer together and I went through security. I don’t remember much of the time between security and boarding the plane because I was tired beyond belief, but I know that any coherent thoughts I had were about San Diego the place, San Diego the people. I said see you in awhile to the city as we lifted off into the cool clear night sky.
Chicago is some kind of cold for this time of year and we landed in thick fog. The pilot told me that he has to see the runway at 300 feet or they have to pull up and try again. They just barely saw it at 300 feet and we landed on time. There was a fresh few inches of snow on the ground here. I am packed for Congo’s equatorial rainforest weather, but I have a sweater and a windbreaker and some of my own natural insulation and I am doing alright.
We had mexican food tonight down near Michigan Avenue. It was my choosing since I realize that there aren’t many Mexican food joints in Kisangani much less Congo much less Africa. It was Mexican but it wasn’t like the Mexican food you get in San Diego or Phoenix. I guess that’s the way it should be.
It was a good first day on the job with HOPE. I’m with Dave Larson, the Director of Programs and Michael Smedley Africa Regional Director joined us today. I’m more excited about what I am doing by the hour. It’s great to be learning about this challenging field that helps people financially and cares for their spiritual growth as well.
I am soaking up the cold weather here in the hopes that it’ll take that much longer for the heat in the Congo to warm me to the bones.
Brian
That’s when I’ll be boarding a plane for Chicago the day after tomorrow. Between now and then I’m surrounded by my incredible friends here in San Diego. In the car today I realized that I’d be hard pressed to ever find another place with quite as many wonderful friends in it. Maybe God will surprise me and prove me wrong, but if not I’ll be OK and I’ll be looking forward to my visits.
Speaking of Friends old and new, I’d like to give major thanks to Leigh Nottingham (old friend) and Matt McKinley (new friend of Leigh, new friend of me) who “happened” to be coming to town for a visit. They showed up while I was in Florida and by the time I got home Leigh had all of my things organized and ready to pack, Matt was already steam cleaning the carpet and using his own toothbrush to clean my bathtub. I asked Leigh last night what it felt like to be sent to a friend by God. She said it felt good. I don’t know if I’d have gotten everything done, cleaned, wrapped up, given away, without the tireless help of these two saints. I hope that I can help people in Congo half as well as Leigh and Matt have helped me.
Joel P. West helped me pick out the right digital camera, and I’d like to thank him for that here. You can all thank him too, unless I lose or crush that thing you can be sure that I’ll be posting pictures to the site soon and many of them will look sweet. If you are looking for a digital camera (people always asked me about this in my old job, usually at LEAST once a month) I will pass on Joel’s suggestion: just go buy the Canon PowerShot SD-400. You’ll find it on BHPhoto.com.
Goodbyes are hard. Someone told me that Doug Harrison said that we should live for hard goodbyes. (I think Doug may have been quoting someone, but he could have come up with it himself because he’s one of the top five most creative people that I have ever met.) I love the community I live with here. Yet I keep trying to remind my friends that this is not goodbye forever. It’s just that we won’t see one another face to face for a year probably. If we still want to be friends, technology enables ample communication and for better or worse it’s shrinking the planet every day.
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