I said “goodbye” to the Bordens yesterday in Arusha. They waved me off on my 5-hour shuttle to Nairobi. I cried. And then I napped. I think those two things go well together.

I had two hours to kill at the airport so I ordered a veggie burger. A strange sort of curried-Kenyan version of a patty arrived, so I baptized it in remarkably gelatinous light red ketchup. The ketchup squeezie-bottle had a loose top, so when I squeezed, I emptied the entire bottle of mystery-sauce onto my plate.

Though I was sharing my table for four with three strangers, no one else seemed to think it was as funny as I did. They didn’t even give my fresh ketchup pond a second glance. The only mzungu in the place was making a saucy-scene, but nobody was noticing. Maybe this sort of thing happens often. I felt like I was in a bad after-school special staged in an African diner.

After taking the red-eye flight to London, I arrived here in Virginia Water with Brooke and Tate and Baby Asher. (And Kerry, too.) I really enjoy these friends from Young Life UK.

I like that tired “goodbyes” are met with some sort of a fresh “hello.” What would we do without rhythm? Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Baby Asher is making me grin a lot. He has clearly perfected the “uh oh” face. I think it would be a good exercise if we all worked on that face. We’d be more prepared to laugh at ourselves when we baptize our plates in accidental ketchup ponds.

I leave for Baltimore tomorrow. Then I’ll be back in the States for awhile, but heading out to Pasadena soon. It’ll be nice to hug my family again.

5 thoughts on “Goodbye, Hello, Uh-Oh

  1. I LOVE your healthy laughter over your pond of ketchup!!
    You bring good things all over this amazing world!!
    LOVE YOU!

  2. I would have liked to sit near by you &giggle to myself over your catsup mishap. I especially enjoyed the last few sentences of your writings this day. See you soon, moon goon.

  3. I was sitting in that airport eating dinner last year. The tv screen in the bar lit up with a scene from the World Cup–thousands of Portuguese fans waving Portuguese flags. So I sat in the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport restaurant and cried.

    I think that in heaven I will be with all the people I love, IN all the places I love at the same time.

  4. Yes dear Lisa,
    there will be a banquet there and I will not need any ketchup. And we will dance and laugh. A lot.

  5. i’m thankful for you and lisa. so thankful. amen to lisa’s interpretation of heaven. and to not needing ketchup. perhaps ranch dressing would be nice though. I’ll have to pray about that…

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