Good Service

 The whistle blew.  The air brakes hissed.  The train was ready to leave the station.

Sunrise on the coast

“Okay, just get on the train right there.  They will help you on the way,” the man said.  
We hustled into the train with our bags.  Moments later it pulled away from the station with us standing in the aisle.  Would we have to stand the whole way to Mombasa—a six hour train ride?

It all started when we ordered the tickets online.  Something went wrong and though it accepted the payment we were never issued proper tickets.  We called and emailed but never received a reply.  Finally we were able to make contact with someone and they assured us that everything would work out fine at the train station. But when we got there, it was not fine.  “Invalid” the electronic ticket dispenser read.

At the ticket window, they couldn’t explain it.  Clearly we had paid, our information was in the system, but we had never been issued tickets.  We had no seats on the train.

“Don’t worry,” the woman assured us as she wrote down all the information and had me sign.  “Follow me,” she said.  With the signed document we walked over to security where she ushered us through, but we still had no tickets.  “Just go,” she said.  “They will help you over there.”

So we went on and as the train started to board we heard them asking, “Tickets, please.”  We explained again that we had no tickets, that the woman had ushered us along.  “Oh, don’t worry.” the nice train attendant said, “Just wait here.”  So we waited, with our bags, on the platform as the minutes ticked by, as all the passengers got on, as the platform emptied and as the departure time drew nigh.  No one told us what was going on, but just told us to not worry. It was just a few moments before leaving that we quickly pushed onboard the train.

Enjoying holiday on the coast

Once inside we heard, “Tickets, please.”  We don’t have tickets, we explained again.  There was some walkie-talkie talk and we waited again.  Finally a man came to us and said, “Put your bags anywhere.”  After depositing our bags under various seats he hustled us through the whole train all the way down to the dining car.  “You can sit here until we find you some seats.”  After sitting in the dining car for about an hour we were marched through the train again and given seats normally reserved for the staff.  

After that the train trip through the African countryside was very pleasant.  We saw animals: camels, cows, giraffe, elephants, antelope, and wildebeest.  It was comfortable, smooth and easy.  But my heart wasn’t easy.  I had thoughts of writing reviews on TripAdvisor—talking about how badly treated we were, how stressful the whole situation was.  But then I started to reflect…  Was the service really so bad?  Hadn’t we made the train?  Hadn’t they found us seats?  Hadn’t they kept us together?  Hadn’t they gone above and beyond to meet our travel needs?

And it struck me that this might be an example of cultural understanding.  If we had come to the train station in America without valid tickets and the train was full, what would they have done?  I think most likely they would have apologized and put us on the next train.  Or perhaps they would have given us scattered seats around the train.  Either way, we would most likely have not been on that train or not sitting together.  But in Kenya the priority was to get us on the train together.  They achieved this.  It meant bending some rules probably, but they got us to our destination.  

In America, they probably would have explained a lot more of the process to us.  “Your tickets weren’t issued because…”  “Due to the train traveling at maximum capacity…”  “Since your tickets were never issued, we will have to…”  We didn’t get any of this kind of information from the Kenyan train staff.  Mostly, “Don’t worry.  Just wait here.  Just come this way.”  I think this is also cultural.  In America, I want to know all the details.  “What exactly is going on?”  In Kenya, it was seen as sufficient to just let us know there was nothing to worry about.  And really, if we had trusted those words, we might have been less stressed, because in the end—they took good care of us.

Happy Father's Day!

Today we took the train back again.  No ticket problems this time.  Everything ran very smoothly.  We’d recommend it!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for a relaxing vacation.  The kids loved swimming in the pool, but we also got in some beach time, and sight-seeing.  It was great having one of our teammates join us too!  Thank you for praying for Tom’s dad— he is out of the hospital and doing better, though still without a clear diagnosis of what caused the episode (we’re praying it was a isolated incident). We’re thankful for Megan’s parents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary! We are also thankful for all our fathers this past Father’s Da


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Passports!  If we don’t have some assurance that our passports will come Wednesday or Thursday, we will have to change all our tickets and we will miss out on the gathering of all our fellow island workers.  Pray that the passports would come in tomorrow!  Pray for the gathering of island workers this coming weekend— that it would build unity, clarify vision and inspire us in our work.  Pray for our teammate who needs to get back to the UK for health check-ups and is encountering lots of logistical hurdles— pray for a clear path forward. One of the new island workers on the big island had some sort of asthma-like attack and was rushed to the hospital. Pray that the medicines would do their work and that she would be able to breathe easily. Continue to pray for justice on the islands— we’ve heard that there are new laws saying you cannot say anything bad about the president and that one journalist and has already been convicted. These are not encouraging developments.