Day One

Wednesday afternoon, about an hour before we headed to the St. Louis airport, we were at Bethel, our home church in St. Peters, Missouri. Bill was working on some last-minute repairs to the RV. Our truck and RV have been for sale for a couple of months. A couple drove up to look at the truck and within 15 minutes of their arrival, we had a check in hand and they had keys to our truck! I was a little sad to see it sell. It had over 315,000 miles and each of those miles represents almost 15 years of our history. From California to Maine and Utah to Florida, our Dodge 2500 was an important part of our lives and memories. I admit to being a little sentimental. But it was time to sell it and perhaps purchase something newer when we return to the States.

We flew from St. Louis to Chicago, where we had a five-hour layover in the International Terminal. The 12-hour flight from Chicago to Amman, Jordan was smooth and quiet. (There were only a few children on the plane and they were surprisingly quiet and well behaved.) We received our visas at the beautiful, brand new Queen Alia airport. While waiting in line we met a young man who had been away from home for eight years, living in Texas. He was back in the Middle East to surprise his family with a visit. He gave us his phone number and invited us to his home. That a complete stranger would invite us into his home is an honor but not uncommon. Jordanians – for the most part – are extraordinarily hospitable and friendly toward us.

After going through customs, we transferred our trunks and suitcases to the Reeds’ cars and promptly headed to the recently-built Western-style Taj Mall to eat salads at TGIFridays and frozen yogurt at a place Brother Reed likes. It was Thursday night and the mall was noisy and crowded, mostly with young people. (In Jordan, Thursday night is equivalent to Friday night in the United States.) The Reeds filled us in on changes that have occurred since our last visit to Jordan in 2009-2010 and briefed us on some of our upcoming responsibilities.

After a couple of hours of conversation, we drove through congested traffic to the Fellowship House in Amman, where we will stay for a few weeks before we move to a northern city in Jordan. The Fellowship House is located in a medical and business district. It is a world apart from Marka, where we stayed during our last visit to Jordan. Marka began years ago as a Palestinian Refugee Camp. Although it is no longer a tent-village, it is a poorer, less orderly and less clean, section of Amman. 

At the Fellowship House, we met Nancy – a worker also from the United States – who we will share the house with. Shanas, a sweet Sri Lankan girls that translated for us during our last visit, was there with her husband of three years, who is now Pastor of the Sri Lankan church of Jordan. After getting a little acquainted with the house, we unpacked a few of our things, showered off the travel grime, and promptly fell asleep!