Getting to Jos

a snowy landing in JFK

For those of you wondering how the trip from Charlotte to Jos was…..

It was very smooth. Didn't really run into any complications. There were no close calls where I almost missed a flight. Not really anything major. I had a significant amount of leg room on the 7 hour flight from JFK to Paris. Somehow, even though I took two Benadryl, I wasn't able to sleep. I saw next to a man who seemed to speak French and English. We didn't really talk. He slept and watched movies most of the way. I was looking forward to watching a movie but there wasn't anything interesting. I tried to sleep and I read. After landing in Paris I had to go through security again but the airport was so empty it was a cinch. I ended up going through security at every airport. I had about 5 hours in the Paris airport yet couldn't sleep. I read a good bit of Les Miserables. The airport was exactly how I remembered it from the last time I traveled to Nigeria. It's definitely not as fun traveling by yourself. I slept the whole flight from Paris to Abuja. It was off and on but it was good. At one point, the flight attendant woke me up and I remember having a conversation along the lines of…..

him: "Do you want something to drink?"

me: "no"

him: "Do you want something to eat?"

me: "no"

him: "Do you want to sleep?"

me: "yes"

I guess it was pretty obvious that I was tired. We landed in Abuja around 5. I didn't have any trouble at immigration, baggage, or customs. The airport officials were all very friendly. Danjuma (one of SIM's drivers) picked me up from the airport and we drove to the Baptist Guest House in Jos for the night. It was difficult sleep that night. The next morning we left around 8 for Jos. We stopped roughly 15 times because of military checkpoints and car registration stops. At one of the checkpoints one of the guards said he wanted to follow me back to America. He gave me his phone number. We made it to the Challenge compound at noon. Gay Lynn, one of the SIM missionaries living at Challenge, showed me to my apartment and told me about some of the quirks in my room. The main quirk about mine is that the toilet doesn't flush very well. My apartment is facing the street so it's pretty loud. Sleeping right near a busy street with honking cars is going to take some getting used to. That night I had dinner with the other missionaries living at Challenge. It was a goodbye dinner to a couple who are leaving in a week. 

2 Corinthians 4:6

Psalm 25