My First Stop

Some of you know how excited I am about getting to Rwanda and attending a Christmas party for close to 1,000 children supported by Africa Mission Alliance. I have lots of gifts from sponsors and friends of children that I have to deliver as soon as possible. As I speak now the gifts are in transit to Rwanda and I am here in Washington DC waiting for my next flight. Please pray that the gifts make it. Sometimes luggage to Africa has a way of disappearing in thin air. I hope this will make it safe and sound.

It is quite cold here in the hotel partly because I live in Portland and not used to the cold, and partly because my wife Erica is not here with me :) Yeah it does get cold sometimes, all the time, when she is not around, just so you know.

The flight to DC was very smooth and right on time except one disappointment: the crew made us watch the movie “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”. Believe me that was the cheekiest flick I have ever seen, or glanced at. And of course there is always NBC in-flight which is always the old episodes of The Office. But I made some time reading John Grisham’s new book The Innocent Man, and of course writing a few pages of my book that I will never publish. I have been writing it for 5 years now. Mostly in my head :)

A very pleasant gentleman whose name I did not ask picked me up from the airport. He is from Sudan so I tried not to ask a lot of questions especially considering that I am from Rwanda and Rwanda has peacekeepers in Darfur. You know how it goes. “Oh yes, yeah, sweet, you are from Sudan? Oh wow! My country has peacekeepers there. Really! No kidding!”. Unfortunately I am not good at that. So we both rode quietly and as we approached the hotel building I managed a smile and said, “Nice riding with”.

Two friends of mine, Richard and Emmanuel have just found out from facebook that I am making a stop here and they are coming to have dinner with me. I haven’t see then since 1998. It is going to be quite a reunion.

More to come.
Amon