Touching Down in Nairobi

We left Whidbey Island at 7AM on Friday Nov 21st with two vehicles, lots of luggage, and two excited girls. The check-in process of our luggage and ticketing was uneventful. We had been prepared by other traveling physicians with only a one-way ticket to bring extra documentation from Samaritans Purse to clarify our reasons for traveling and eventual repatriation.
The 10 hour flight from Seattle to Amerstam went quicker than expected. Malin watched lots of movies. Amelia saw Peter Pan for the first time. Sara unfortunatly was struck with a severe bout of dizzyness (a side affect of malaria medication) compounded with motion sickness from the flight. Meredith walked between our seats and Nanna and Papa 5 rows to the back to burn energy until we found out she was waking other passengers.
In Amsterdam we had a two hour layover. Many tears were shed as we said a tearful goodbye to Sara's parents. Their itinerary took them on a later flight to Kenya and then on to Mombassa for mission service at a Christian Eye Clinic. We will miss them as they we a huge help getting us ready to go.
The flight to Nairobi was one hour late due to snow in Amsterdam and de-icing the plane. Overall we were very proud of our Amelia & Meredith behaved. Sara had an extra seat and was able to lie down with Meredith and try to sleep off the dizzyness. Eight hours later our plane touched down in Kenya at a warm 70 degrees at about 10 PM.
We were discouraged to see a terribly long line to get through customs. We were all wiped out and knew even after this line to get Visa's we still had to get our luggage through Customs. It seemed God knew this as well..as a man motioned us and another medical missionary family to new counter and we had our four visas within 5 minutes.
The Kenyans were very helpful gathering our luggage. We only had one action-packer searched and our family went through customs without problems. We packed into a van and were off to a Kenyan guest house to recuperate.
Just two miles from the airport our van broke down. We were prepared as Amelia had her handheld flashlight she was given from Papa! A replacement vehicle was found and at nearly midnight--some 30 hours of traveling we could sleep! But not for long. 4 AM struck and we were wide awake!
The last two days at the guest house have been a mixed bag. We are at this point with gratitude from the support and love we have received from friends and family. At the same time it becomes evident how really far away we are from the people we love.
We anxiously await tomorow as we will drive 200 miles to Tenwek Hospital!