Pam Parish

I’ve been planning and preparing for this trip for months. Today, as I begin my journey, I find myself with no shortage of thoughts, emotions, apprehensions and excitement. The challenge before me will be words. How do you take all each and every spectacular, mundane, boring, funny, exciting and inspiring moment and put it into words? I’m not fully sure that I know the answer to that, but here… I will try.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the London airport with their fabulous free, lightening fast (no exaggeration, it’s awesome) wi-fi. The time now is 8:35 a.m. London time, 4:35 a.m. Georgia time on October 26th, day one of my journey is behind me - my body is totally telling me that I should still be asleep. None-the-less, I’m here and determined to make the most of this time.

The day started early, meeting the team at the church at 7:00 a.m. to load the trailer with all of our luggage and the boxes of medicines, toys and clothes that we’re taking to Sierra Leone.

As we prepared to leave, we paused to take some pictures on the shuttle. I don’t know most of my teammates, although, I have made it a personal goal to get to know them and discover something about each of their lives and personalities before the end of my journey.

I met Imogene, my seatmate, and discovered immediately that she is a woman full of the joy of the Lord. Instead of saying “Cheese” she broke out into praise for Jesus, bringing laugther and energy into our tired crew right from the beginning. I would soon learn that, unlike the rest of us, she had gotten up very early and had time for tea, giving herself a facial, a nice milk bath and breakfast - all this while the rest of us were still wiping sleep from our eyes and downing Starbucks by the gallon. As the day progressed, Imogene’s sense of humor would delight us at each turn. I look forward to getting to know her, and all of the others, as the days progress.

After arriving at the airport, we unloaded all of our many bags and boxes, with some much needed help from the United Airlines team.

After getting checked in, we had a several hour wait before our flight took off for Chicago’s O’Hare airport where we would take the redeye to London. Our team spent the time, reading, getting breakfast and grabbing a few needed zzz’s before heading out.

We arrived in Chicago and had a 4 hour layover until our flight to London. It was a great time to spend with the team, getting to know one another and walking around the airport. Several of us took a looooooooonnggg journey through the entire airport looking for “authentic Chicago style pizza” to no avail. Pam Bolick (the other Pam on the team), Craig and I ended up a 1/2 hour walk from our departing gate, starving and settling for a hot dog stand that actually did have good Gyros. We enjoyed our meal, until Craig pointed out the mouse traps lining the wall right next to our table. GROSS! Pam and I were both immediately full.

Before we headed off on our flight to London, I had a few minutes to take some more pictures (my team has already discovered that my camera is my constant companion….). I love this shot that I got of Joan, the founder of Joshua International Ministries, our team leader and a native Sierra Leoneon, and her lovely mom who has been visiting Joan in the states and is returning home to Sierra Leone with us.

The flight from Chicago to London was scheduled to be 8 hours and 3 minutes. Leaving us with plenty of time to rest (or so I thought). After eating the dinner served on board and watching about 1/2 hour of the movie, Get Smart, I took two Advil PM and expected to drift off into oblivion until London. Um… that didn’t happen. Although extremely tired, the flight was very bumpy and sleep, in the early hours, was often disrupted by another passenger laughing loudly at the movie he was watching. The more disturbing part, was that I recognized the laughter… it was Craig!!! Since landing in London, I’ve learned that he had his sound up so loud that he didn’t realize that his laughter was breaking the silence of the cabin frequently and annoyingly. Ugh. Don’t worry, Darrell & I have harassed him about it! :o) Never-the-less, our team arrived blurry eyed but ready to complete our journey to Sierra Leone.

Well, I’ve made it through Day 1 - a bit tired and blurry eyed - but happy, healthy and well. I can’t help but to reflect on my day and think about all of the little joys and frustrations and that they’re not even close to the pain, suffering and happiness we will find when we reach our destination. As the 3rd poorest nation in the world and a country still recovering from the devastating effects of a 11 year civil war, Sierra Leone is going to be a place to discover true courage, real fears and incomparable happiness. It’s hard to put into words what I hope to experience and discover about God and myself while there, but my expectations are high. And, with God, I’ve never been disappointed.

Next stop - Sierra Leone.

Anxiously Awaiting the Journey,

Pam Parish

Click here to read Day 2