Friday, June 19: The Train, Part 2

When I awoke, The train was stopped at a station (a collection of 5-6 buildings surrounded by open ground. There was a passing siding on one side of the train. I assumed we were waiting for another train to pass.

People were walking around alongside the tracks. Children were staring at the train. I got off and found Timothy who was also curious about what was going on. Apparently we had stopped around 2 AM and had been sitting there ever since. We walked to the rear of the train and asked a man sitting in one of the two unique-looking cars that were attached after the third class coaches. He said there had been a derailment ahead and we were waiting for it to be cleared.

Sarah, Lisa, and Kayla got off with a beach ball, and attracted about a hundred kids around them. They had a good time playing ball. I walked to the front of the train, and got some pictures. I was headed farther up the line to get pictures of the turnout that is operated by a lever in the control tower through hundreds of feet of cables and pulleys, when the horn sounded, indicating the train was ready to leave.

The engineer waited until everyone was onboard before pulling out, and we were on our way again. The delay worked out well for us as we were able to see a lot of wildlife. Had the train been on schedule, most of the trip would have been in darkness.

The xylophone passed our compartment and we went for breakfast. Eggs, sausage, a little splash of cabbage mixture, toast, and orange marmalade (of course). Coffee too. The rest of the trip we spent looking out of windows, or sitting and talking.

We met several people on the train. A young lady sat at our table for dinner. She works on the front page layout of the Washington Post online version. She was in Kenya on a fact-finding mission with some other newspeople, and decided to stay a few extra days for a vacation. We met an older man with tuberculosis of the spine. He has been frustrated with the lack of success with treatments. Timothy knew of a hospital that might be of help to him, and gave him the names of a doctor and administrator that he could contact. His son helps care for him (he is wheelchair bound) and I talked with him for a while. He would like to come to the United States to do graduate work.

The train pulled into Nairobi around 4 PM, exactly six hours overdue. We had communicated with those who planned to meet us, so they had not been waiting all that time. We had to show our tickets to get out of the station.

Timothy, Christine, Gail and I were met by Margaret, who leads a fellowship in Nairobi called Friends of Israel. We were scheduled to attend a prayer meeting with their group. Originally, we were going to go to the guest house (Eshel Garden), have time to freshen up, and then go back to town for the meeting, but the train delay required a change of plans. The others went in a van with all of our stuff to Eshel Garden.

Margaret put us in a taxi and then we met a few blocks away at the Serena Hotel. The trip took about 30 minutes as the traffic was horrendous. At the security gate, they used a mirror to check under the car, and verified there were no explosives in the trunk before allowing us into the parking lot. Another lady, Pauline, and Margaret met us and we had tea and Samosas before driving to the meeting. Afterwards, Christine was commenting that she had seen this hotel frequently on the TV, and now she actually had tea inside.

The meeting was attended by about 50 people. We had a time of prayer, praise, and then Margaret talked about her recent visit to Tanzania. Then she introduced us and I talked about our ministry in Kenya, our family, and our fellowship in Akron. People had lots of questions about our family and life in the United States. We were encouraged to see the formation of more connections between Timothy, this group, and Timothy's church in Mombasa. I think we will also be in contact with some of the people there via email when we get back.

Margaret put us in a cab, and told the driver approximately where we needed to go. When we got close a phone call to Abraham got us through the last two turns and we were "home." We went immediately to bed, after greeting people and making arrangements for Timothy and Christine to leave at 5 AM for their return flight to Kisumu.