Tuesday Night, North Across Africa

It is nighttime over Africa, but the continent is not at its darkest right now. The land below is lit through the scattered clouds by an almost-full moon as KLM carries me north over the forests and valleys and deserts towards Amsterdam. We are cruising at something over seven miles high, so I can see little on the ground but an occasional shining pin-prick of light.


For a while, over Kenya, I watched a glorious lightshow as we passed a series of huge thunderstorms, but then we moved beyond them, and one knows the dry season still has a firm hold on the land below. A little later, I could see, far away, the long, red-orange line of a bushfire.


This flight is almost completely full, but I ended up with two seats to myself, so I can spread out a little. I was at first sitting by a couple from the Africa Inland Mission staff (and she an MK also), but when the stewardess pointed out that I could move to have two seats to myself, it did not take long to make a decision.


I have mixed feelings as I leave Africa. I look forward to home and family, and I have a clear and satisfying awareness that my particular assignment has been completed – at least for now. But I also carry an equally clear awareness that there is so much more to do on this continent I love so.


In many ways, especially after my experience of the previous nineteen days, Kenya has seemed to be a bright spot in this continent of dark challenges. Yet even that country has so many problems, from uncertain weather and overpopulation to uneven economic development and the still-unconquered tropical diseases like malaria. And the list of troubles never seems to end.

But then, I see the bright, Jesus-filled faces of people like Japhet and Japheth, of John and Esther and Deborah, who helped me today – or I remember the light in Abraham’s eyes in Akot, and I know that there can yet be a bright future.

So I have hope for Africa. May “Ethiopia” quickly stretch out her hands to God! [Psalm 68:31]

I am making my way to the United States for now, but I’ll be back.

I try to sleep, but in my exhaustion, sleep is elusive. Eventually, I contort my frame into the two available seats and slide fitfully into that not-so-restful-but-better-than-being-awake form of sleep that leaves one only a little less weary than before.

When I come out from under the anesthetic of total weariness, we are over the Mediterranean. That moon is now a silvery stream glistening back at me from the water.


Soon, we cut the heel coast of Italy, then a little further and we are back over water and are following northward along the eastern coast. Lights are piled together in clusters or strung out in undulating lines like so many tiny yellowed pearls. The sky is remarkably clear as we fly ever northward. We are about an hour short of landing in Holland.