Traveling through Closing Doors

On the first flight of five!

We’re supposed to be in Kenya right now.  For us, Kenya acts as a buffer between the islands and the US, giving us time to decompress from the islands and prepare for returning to the US. Kenya also gives us a chance to do a variety of errands and meetings that are easier to do in Africa. So we scheduled a week in Kenya before continuing to the US. 

But as we closed up our house on the island, we could see the world’s doors closing. A couple weeks ago it would have seemed impossible to imagine that entire countries would close their doors and shut themselves completely off, but as our departure day drew nearer we had a disconcerting question rise in our minds, “What if we can’t get back to the US?” Usually we wouldn’t have a problem hunkering down and staying on the islands in a crisis, but this was different. These plans to come back to the US had been in place for over a year. We needed to slip through before the door shut. Suddenly that productive week in Kenya didn’t seem so important.

But even as we made the decision to not stay in Kenya, we didn’t know if it would be enough. Each day seemed to come with some country making a surprisingly drastic announcement, and while our path home hadn’t been cut off, the path was narrowing.

On the last flight of five

Two days before we traveled to Kenya, Kenya announced they would be shutting their borders in 48 hours. Our flight arrived around the 36 hour mark.

We also learned that our original flights via Europe couldn’t travel directly to Boston anymore, we’d have to add a leg and travel via Toronto.

It felt as if we were riding a wave about to crash, staying just ahead of policies to shut down borders and stop travel.   When we landed in Zurich, the airport was quiet, most shops were closed and travelers were limited.   We sat down to wait for our flight to Toronto, not realizing that while we were in the air, Canada had closed it borders with the US.  We couldn’t travel through Toronto anymore.  Thankfully, when we checked at the desk, there was still one more path open to us. Two more flights would run between Zurich and the US. They could change our flights and have us go through Newark. 

As the airline attendant worked on changing our flights, she commented that in another day there wouldn’t be anymore flights like this. Word on the street was that everything was going to close down. We gratefully thanked her, wished her good health, and clutched our boarding passes to the US— almost home.

Upon arriving in Newark, they held our plane taxiing to try to minimize the number of people being processed at once.  We went through a very efficient screening process where they took our temperatures and told us to self-quarantine for 14 days. We were constantly reminded to keep our distance from other passengers in line, but everything kept moving. We didn’t mind the wait too much, we had been accepted back in the US! 

Ready to see grandparents in Boston

Ultimately the adventure continued a little longer. We missed our connection to Boston, but with not a lot of people traveling, we easily got on the next flight. The terminal was sparsely populated and all the restaurants were closed, but we were able to grab some pre-made food from a shelf.

We finally arrived in Boston where we waved to the grandparents and smiled behind face masks. Almost 4 days after leaving our home on Clove Island and after over 33 hours of continuous travel from Kenya, our travels had finally ended. Let the doors close, let the wave crash, we had made it through!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We made it to America! Thank you so much for all your prayers and words of encouragement. We are very thankful with how well our kids did and that even though it wasn’t easy travel there were no major delays or obstacles. God is good! We are also thankful that it seems like the islands are taking the pandemic seriously and have closed their borders. We are thankful that our teammate and former teammate who had dengue are doing better and that the short-termer and visitor on the islands were able to leave before the borders closed. 



PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for the islands.  There have been no official cases yet in the islands nation, but the islands have gone into lock down just like the rest of the world.  Our colleagues just let us know this morning that all flights into the country have been stopped, and we hope that this will be effective in slowing the virus’ entrance into the country.  Pray for our colleagues there that they could be a light during this time. Our teammates may have the chance to pray for the wife of one of Tom’s good friends who has just admitted that she struggles with evil spirits.  Pray that they would agree to have them pray and that she might find freedom! Pray for us as we try to stay quarantined from Tom’s parents while living in the same house as them! Pray for our transition as we settle into new rhythms and continue to adjust to the time zone and weather, and as we brainstorm the best ways to share with people about the islands during lockdown.