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"Here We Go Again"
Wednesday, October 18, 2006The day has arrived for our journey back to Guinea Bissau. We are excited. Herb's brother Larry and our sister-in-law, Judy took us to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport for a 6:40 PM departure to London on British Airways (BA). We arrived three hours prior to departure, as recommended and "breezed" right through the tightened security. This left us with two and a half hours before our flight so we called some of our family to give them our love and say our last goodbyes. In the gate area Herb was looking through the envelope containing our itinerary and airline tickets when he made a horrible discovery -the Transport Air Portugal (TAP) tickets, from Lisbon to Bissau, were not there. The TAP tickets were written up separately from BA because they are paper tickets, not electronic. Herb quickly called our son Jim to see if he could rush our TAP tickets to us at the airport. They were in the motor home. Jim was about ten minutes away from our place when we reached him. We told him our predicament and asked him if he could bring us our tickets. He graciously said yes and headed to get the tickets with one hour and ten minutes before our final boarding call. To expect Jim to go to the motor home, get the tickets, and then drive 25 miles through Seattle traffic during "rush hour" is expecting a miracle second only to the parting of the Red Sea for Israel. Jim made a valiant effort but unfortunately we missed by about 3 to 5 minutes. While we were waiting for Jim to arrive Herb called Ken Tank, our travel agent, and asked him what our options were. He said TAP can replace lost tickets but they will charge between $50 and $100 each. Even though this was distressing, we both had a peace that God would provide a way for us. Soon we were on our way to London. It is a nine-and-a-half hour flight.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
There is an eight hour time difference between Seattle and London. We arrived in London the next day, about an hour later than scheduled. This gave us only an hour and fifteen minutes to catch our flight from London to Lisbon. However, we came into terminal 4 at Heathrow airport and were flying out of Terminal 1, a LONG way away. We also had to clear security again; a non-trivial exercise in London. A long story shortened, we got to the gate three minutes before gate closure time. Thankfully the trip to Lisbon Portugal was uneventful. When we arrived we had to claim our luggage because BA does not have connecting computer service with TAP. Also we had to apply for new tickets. This turned into a two hour process that two very tired people did not need! After we got to our hotel we called Ken Tank and explained the situation. He was doing his part but TAP US wasn't communicating with TAP Lisbon. He called them again and got it straightened out.
Friday, October 20, 2006
We were able to get our new tickets. Everything went well and we were on the next leg of our journey to Bissau. We anticipated that it would be very warm in Bissau when we arrived. It turned out to be very hot with high humidity. It generally takes about an hour to get our luggage here. Today it seemed like the longest hour! Tiago was waiting outside the terminal - security has also tightened here. He had borrowed Bobo's car to pick us up at the airport. It was so nice to get into Bobo and Dorcus' house where there was air conditioning. They don't run it very much of the time because of the expense so we "doubly" appreciated it. Caetano, one of our sons-in-the-Lord came to see us at Bobo's. We slept fairly well that night although we did wake up at intervals because of jet lag, and a major wind and rain storm with lots of thunder and lightening. This is the first real storm Herb has experienced here. It lasted about an hour. Martha experienced many in 2000 as she was here during the rainy season that year. It seems that every trip to Guinea Bissau turns out to be an adventure in itself.
Saturday October 21
Today promises to be a busy day. We needed to buy malaria pills, exchange money, and buy a few groceries we cannot get in Canchungo. Our friend Quinito is coming in his Kondonga to take us to Canchungo. The morning went quickly. Quinito arrived early and that was a surprise. We went shopping and by 1:00 we were headed out of town. When we got to the bad section of road there were deep ponds in many places. We held our breath a few times "wondering" if we would make it to the other side?. We arrived in Canchungo at 3:30PM. Quinito took us to Pastor Chenda's house. Chenda was not at home but Terresinha (Chenda's wife) and the children were. There were hugs and kisses and plenty to talk about. We stayed only a short time and then onward to the mission house by the inlet. Our next door neighbors were all eagerly waiting for us. It was good to be home here.
Thank you for your love and prayers.
Love,
Herb and Martha Reynolds
marthaeij@yahoo.com
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