Ethiopia Flights & Arrival

After 20 hours in a plane and a couple layovers (Chicago and Istanbul) adding additional travel time, the McGoo's are now safe and sound in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is so good to be here. Everything seems so familiar as if we haven't left that long ago. Staying at the same place we did this June, the SIM Guesthouse probably has a lot to do with helping it feel like "home" and then you add the people we know and adore and it's like maybe we never left at all.

The journey here was long, but thankfully successful. We did have our fair share of interesting occurrences along the way... First, we met new friends during our Chicago layover... Kelly is the founder of Ordinary Hero (www.ordinaryhero.org) that was established in Nashville, TN and now has an international leg of their ministry also. She was traveling to Addis Ababa with her daughter, Lauren, and sister Kristi. We were told to keep an eye out for these gals by a friend, but before we knew it Kristi found me with my Amazima Ministries (www.amazima.org/) t-shirt on and we began talking before we ever knew we were the ones each other was supposed to find. As God would have it, we even had seats on the same row together for our flight to Istanbul. It was a nice treat on our journey. Unfortunately that flight didn't go as delightful as it began, and our second interesting occurrences occurred leading up to our landing. Maybe the pilot forgot to take us down to a certain altitude prior to needing to be there, or bad weather forced the issue, I'm not sure. Regardless, somehow the plane when from high to low more quickly than I've ever experienced, and to top it off at the lower level we experienced bad turbulence. So combine a quick drop with shaking and you get a bunch of uneasy stomachs rumbling. I even felt it. Unfortunately it got the best of a large number of our cabin mates and before we knew it, our new Ordinary Hero friends had someone puking in front of them - multiple, I mean multiple times - and then we had someone behind us do the same... to which I believe the entire cabin experienced here and there - wow! Thirdly, our flight from Istanbul to Addis Ababa had us sit in the plane for over an hour before they could get clearance to take off. Needless to say, we left Memphis at 430pm, headed to Chicago - arrived around 6something-pm. We took off from Chicago to Istanbul around 9-10pm, flew 10.5 hours. Had about 45min to get some coffee and walk in the Istanbul airport before boarding, sat 1 hour before departure in the plane, then flew another 5.5 hours to Ethiopia. Our flight was scheduled to arrive at 1:10am in Ethiopia... due to the delay it was 3am Sunday Ethiopia time before we hit customs and about 4am when we got settled into bed.

Now that we're here... we slept this morning from 4am-1030am... then dosed on and off throughout the early afternoon until a late lunch at 2pm. Ate with Kelly Dawson, who has been here a week already and was on our mission trip team in June. We've enjoyed lunch, a soccer match, and dinner and were able to see a few of the kids we've grown attached to during the football match. Now it's time to hit the hay. Thank you for your prayers!!!

A few photos for ya below.



Our New Ordinary Hero Friends - http://www.ordinaryhero.org/

 

Here are two of the halfway home girls - Aster and Hanna



Goofy Photo, What Else 





Loving on Ruth



This is what a 4am bedtime after 20+ hours in a plane and traveling more than one full day straight looks like...JETLAG