I meet the team at O'Hare. Between us we have 22 x 50 lb boxes of hemorrhoid cream, gently used clothes, school supplies and sundries.
The flight is uneventful. Even so, I can't sleep. A four hour layover in Amsterdam means we haven't slept all night. We're dragging, running on adrenaline that's dissipating quickly. We perk up big time, however, when one of the younger members of the team discovers right as we're boarding that her passport has been lost or stolen. Everyone else is on board the Jambo Jumbo headed for Kenya, except us. We pray. We search. It's nowhere to be found. Very reluctantly, and with some high emotion, we leave her and another woman team member behind to solve the diplomatic crisis: they won't accept the photocopy of the passport which we had as a backup.
We sit down and buckle in, sweaty and a little rattled. Then the captain tells the plane over the intercom in his Dutch accent that a passport has been lost and so they have to unload some of the luggage to find the two women's bags (they won't travel with unaccompanied luggage). Another hour or so later, we are in the air, a bit deflated.
Sovereign Lord, would you get them to Kenya fast.
