2. Trip to Zambia

I had a smooth flight to Frankfurt all Tuesday night. Found a great little brand new hotel at the airport that had a day rate. They were very flexible on my hours of stay. I stayed from 10 in the morning to 9 at night and got 8 whole hours of sleep! For those of you that know me, I don't sleep a lick on a plane, so this was a huge blessing. If you ever need a place to stay by the airport in Frankfurt, write down the Park Inn. Free shuttle, free internet, and soundproof windows. Perfect!

I made it smoothly on my next 10 hour all-night flight to South Africa. I only had one problem at the Johannesburg airport. When I went through passport control, something on the computer flagged my passport and they had to take me to the police office. For some reason the guy next to me and myself had a warrant out for our arrest from the same police station somewhere in South Africa for stealing an Avis rental car. Strangest thing. They kept asking us if we knew each other. He was from Tunizia and I was from Texas. Finally, they just let us go because they couldn't figure it out. The man and I exchanged email addresses just in case we had other issues traveling throughout Africa.

So I was escorted back to the passport checking area and toward my gate and I arrived there about 20 minutes before the flight. In all the chaos, I had missed the spot where I was to receive a boarding pass. So they said that check-in for the flight was closed. But thankfully, he made a couple of phone calls and then hand-wrote me a boarding pass on a scratch piece of paper. I took a bus to the tarmac and when I went up the stairs to my South African airplane, they asked for my boarding pass. I reluctantly handed her my scribbled paper, and she just looked at me like i was crazy and said, "This is not acceptable!" I told her it is what the guy gave me, and she shook her head and said she would have to make some calls. I survived my third hurdle and they let me on the plane. Then a few hours later I was in Zambia...about noon on Thursday. Finally here!

Oh, but no luggage! And one of my suitcases was filled with about $3000 worth of camera equipment for our friend, Lane.


Lane and Aaron were late because of traffic, but a lady they knew happen to be at the airport picking up some other people. So, they asked her to find me. Then, I turned on my phone to find that I wasn't looking for Lane, but a lady. So we finally found each other. She took me to a mall in Lusaka to meet Lane and Aaron, and it was good to finally be with a familiar face.

Instead of making the 2-hour drive to Kabwe where I was staying, we decided to hang out at the mall for 7 hours to see if my luggage would come on the next flight that came in from Jo'burg. Lane had a vested interest now in my luggage as well. Aaron is from New Zealand and had his two best buds with him who were heading out the next day, so i hung out with 4 guys all day - 3 Kiwis and a Texan! They were lots of fun.

Even if the luggage came on the next flight, Jo'burg is known for having stuff stolen out of luggage, especially when it's been sitting around. But...Thank God...both my bags came on the next flight, untouched and intact. We were happy to see Lane's equipment.

For those of you that don't know, Lane Davis is from our church in Plano, Texas, and was in our small group which meets at our house every Thursday night. He is an amazing photographer, and is spending 9 months as a photo journalist for the organization for which I work, HOPE World Partnerships. Please take a look at his amazing pictures at www.ToTellAStory.org. He mentions the organization, Bright Hope World, which is the New Zealand-based headquarters for our organization (called "Hope" in the US).

I will be traveling for three weeks with Lane and also Kevin & Helen from New Zealand, who know all of our on-site partners and where we are going.