It had been a long hard year, and we hadn’t seen JT as a family for 12 months. So we were thrilled that he was able to come for Christmas, and we arranged to go to the coast the morning he arrived for five days on the beach.  JT was a typically exhausted college kid just done with finals, so we had a nice relaxing time in Mombasa.

We were flying back to Nairobi on the 22nd, and I started to feel bad as we went to the airport. It is a short flight but the drive is over 8 hours over some of the worst roads in the world, so we were glad to fly and I thought I could easily handle the 50 minutes in the air.

About ten minutes into the flight, I started feeling really, really sick. Nancy started to look for an airsick bag, and I started flopping around like a beached whale. I passed out, which started an interesting chain of events.

The flight attendant didn’t have a clue of what to do, but in front of me was a dive instructor from Australia, and behind me was an Indian herbalogist from Kenya. They both assumed it was a heart attack, and so they went to loosen my shirt and pants. When I came to, the first thing I noticed was that my pants were undone, which is about as disturbing as you might imagine it would be.

I felt better pretty fast, but they were determined to get me some oxygen. The problem was the flight attendant had no clue about that either, but the dive instructor figured it out. There was a big hole in the mask, so Nancy had to hold the hole in order to prevent the oxygen from escaping. I knew I needed to say something to comfort her, so I told her that if something happened to me, I wanted her to inform Tim Cook, our superintendent, that my last wish was that the whole staff would listen to the Neil Diamond boxed set in its entirety.

There always seems to be a Peifer moment for me, and it happened next. I was stable, and the herbalogist looked at me and said, “You are too fat.” He then let me know that he could prescribe pills that would help me lose weight that were all natural and had no side effects, which was very comforting.

I got off the plane, and they had arranged an ambulance to meet me. You have never seen an ambulance as SPARSE as this one. They took my pulse and told me I was free to go. Nancy talked to one of the doctors in Kijabe, and he said my heart needed to be checked, so he encouraged us to go to a hospital in Nairobi that had more sophicated equipment than our local hospital has.
We had to make arrangements to get the kids home, and then got a ride to the hospital. They put me in a room on a bed with a drape pulled across where my feet were. The problem was that the room was too small, and so every time someone would walk by, they would hit my feet, which got funnier as time went by.

They did a series of tests and discovered that there was nothing wrong with my heart. I was dehydrated, which happens at the coast. They wanted me to stay one night, so they were going to move me to the private wing. The nurse’s name was Perpetual, and she assured me that it happened all the time. And yes, that was her real name.

And I waited three and a half hours for someone to move me. Finally, Nancy and I just walked over, and I was in the nicest hospital room you could imagine. What I couldn’t imagine is where I would be if I didn’t happen to have insurance.

Anyway, all is fine but I do leave you with one piece of advice:  NEVER pass out on a Kenyan plane.

It was so nice to come home and have Christmas with all of us, and my favorite memory of the holiday was Katie holding her American Girl doll in her lap while she destroyed me in Wii Brawl.

We had a wonderful visit with JT, but the hardest part of missionary life is saying goodbye to your children. He flew out yesterday, and as he got into the van to take him to the airport, one of the other college kids who were traveling with him started crying and just said “Oh Momma,” which got to all of us.

JT is going to be studying in New Zealand for the term. Wake Forest has been a good fit for him, and we are very grateful, but it is so so hard to not see one of your kids for months at a time.

We have delivered much of the food for the term. The last two crops have failed due to near drought conditions; it is getting pretty close to the edge.  Your food has never been intended to be emergency food, but many terms it has become just that.

A friend of mine has a son at Texas A&M, and he started a program of sitting in front of the cafeteria, and offering to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for students. He then requests a donation with the money they would have used in the cafeteria.  It has brought in enough money to feed a school for a year, and in this harsh economic climate, I love that a young man with a creative thought can make such a difference to so many kids.

It is that kind of news I’m trying to focus on in 2009.

Your pal,
Steve