The Sozo/Flatirons Construction Trip - Day 3

If you received my daily email updates you've seen most of it, but not all. Since my return I've added a few notes and comments which I've put in blue italic type so those of you who don't want to read it all again can pick out the "new stuff." <g> I've also added a couple photos from each day of the trip, which weren't always in the daily updates.

If you'd like to see more photos from the trip, follow the link to the left.  I took many of them, but the rest were taken by other team members Levi Dockendorf, Jeff English, Dave Harrison, Jordan Kejr, Micah Kirkwood, Michal Kmita, and David Pesek. Ron Barnes was there, too, but usually too busy keeping track of the rest of us to take photos. <g> If you'd like hi-rez copies of any of them just let me know.

Wednesday, June 25

After 33 hours of flying across 10.5 time zones, we arrived safely in Kabul and are settling into our rooms at the guest house. We will spend the rest of the day preparing for our first day of construction work on the school tomorrow at Barek Aub.

We're relieved to be here those of you who have flown here before know that just getting here is a feat in itself -- especially when one of your team members (who shall remain nameless for now) forgets that he has a steel cross the size of a license plate stashed in a hidden compartment of his carry-on luggage, which wasn't a big problem UNTIL a pre-boarding x-ray screening in Dubai. That was exciting for a while to say the least. The team member made it through, but the cross will spend eternity in Dubai. <g>

And then not 5 minutes later, Ron got "detained" by KamAir personnel because of some irregularity with his carry-on. The entire team had cleared passport control (the last checkpoint prior to heading to the gate for the flight to Kabul) when Ron, the last one through, suddenly disappeared. We waited about 10 minutes then I made the decision (being the great leader that I am) that we should leave him behind and all go to the gate then a couple of us would go back to look for him. Fortunately, just as we started to move Ron appeared again. No big deal they just insisted he check one of his carry-on bags and decided to take him into a back room to discuss it. Whew!

But now that we're here, our immediate goal is a very simple one: to try to stay awake this afternoon and crash at a "normal" bed time tonight in order to get our bodies adjusted to Kabul time as soon as possible. Staying awake isn't as easy as it sounds, as the photos below will show.

Even with the exhaustion brought on by extreme sleep-deprivation, the team chemistry is strong and everyone is eager to get to work tomorrow. I am really excited about this remarkable and wonderfully diverse team of guys who all want to go love on a village of people they don't even know.

We would ask for your prayer support in three specific areas: 1) for strength in dealing with the heat (forecast for mid- to upper-90's all week), 2) for wisdom for the Sozo staff as they reorganize the plans for our first few days here due to a communication problem, and 3) for team flexibility in dealing with these last minute changes.

We all thank you for being our prayer support it is critical to the work here.

More tomorrow hopefully with photos of the school!

--Bob Tunnell

Sleeeeep... just let me sleeeeeeeeep. Photos by... we're not sure... someone who was awake.