Monday 1st July

We've arrived! Having started our journey at Birmingham airport at 0400 hrs we flew first to Brussels and then on to Kigal.

Getting through the gate to security requires some dexterity as you have to hold your hand baggage whilst getting the bar code on your boarding pass to register on the scanner so that the gate opens to let you through. This is not as easy as it sounds, especially if you either try to use the luggage identification bar code or have stowed your boarding pass away in your hand baggage and have to go searching for it whilst a queue builds up behind you. Once the right bar code has been located, it seems that the scanner can be a little temperamental and refuse to recognise your bar code. So you twist the bar code throught 90 degrees and wait. Still no response. So if you do this four times you end up where you started. After a while, with or without external help, once the scnner decides that you have been embarrassed enough, the gate opens and, in fear that it may suddenly close, you stumble through as quickly as possible.

After a few slight delays, we all got through and joined the flight to Brussels. Following a two hour stop-over we were told that the next plane to Kigali, had been changed and all our pre-chosen seats had been reassigned. Thankfully we were still booked in as a three and a two, and whilst on opposite sides of the plane, we could at least wave to one another.

An otherwise uneventful flight saw us land at Kigali to be met by Clemant and a mini-bus. The journey to Byumba went smoothly and after an evening drink we all had a (relatively) early night.

Tomorrow we'll be doing some planning and sorting out of the week ahead. Please pray for the Lord to provide the right transport for us as we will be relying on local taxis, which can be expensive.