The Perfect Journey

Rachel and I talked a couple days ago about feeling like Daniel Day Lewis and his two buddies, the last 3 Mohicans, when everyone else has gone on. Not just the Cropders, but also many of our friends linked on the sidebar.

But all that has changed. Last night around 11pm, Nairobi time, we pulled into the Mennonite guest house in Nairobi, with visas in our passports, among the newest residents of the country of Kenya. We were delighted at breakfast to find Alyssa Pfister (see sidebar), who came into town to meet us, and tomorrow evening will be the long-awaited southeastern hemisphere McCropder reunion extravaganza! The jetlag is significant, but Maggie is a champ.

If we could have planned the details of such a trip (which one never can), we would have planned it just as it happened. Totally amazing. Things we are very very thankful for:

-Getting to see all of Eric's family within 24 hours of leaving Nashville

-Making all our 3 flights, in Nashville, Detroit, and Amsterdam

-Never having to check Eric's guitar (they let us carry it on for both int'l flights!)

-Getting an empty seat between us to Amsterdam, where Maggie could sleep in her carseat.

-Getting into the "baby row" to Nairobi, where Maggie got to sleep in a wall bassinet.

-Paying the minimum visa fees in Nairobi, with a nice guy to process our application who is from the region near Tenwek Hospital.

-Maggie having zero significant crying spells the entire time

-ALL our luggage (all 8 pieces plus the carseat) arriving the first time through

-the grace that all this represents to us, confirming our decisions, in a time of a whirlwind of change

Thanks to all for supporting us so much in the last days in the US.