On September 20, 2011, I embarked on a four week trip of a lifetime to the other side of the world. I flew to Washington DC where I met up with 11 other folks traveling with me. We flew 13 hours nonstop on Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa, then another six hours south to Lusaka, Zambia. After being up for almost three days with very little sleep we were all quite exhausted!

 I was privileged to visit Riverside Farms near Lusaka, a very special institution since my good friends Dan & Ellen Butler helped to pioneer it well over 30 years ago. What a different world Africa is—a land of contrasts! A land of grass huts with nice cars in the driveway and satellite dishes on the roof, and a land of great natural beauty!  After a few days at Riverside, we rode the bus down to Livingstone. We toured the famous Victoria Falls on both the Zambia & Zimbabwe sides, and visited Chobe National Park in Botswana briefly as well. After another long bus ride, we arrived at our final destination in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Here I spent the next two weeks with a group of around fifty others conducting city-wide outreach efforts. It was inspiring to get to know some of the local people personally and work with them.

 At the end of our time, thirty two of us drove up to Harare, the capital city and flew home again along the same route. I was very excited to be able to fly with Ethiopian as we send hundreds of folks each year with them. Their service and flights were excellent, definitely a highly recommended way to travel to Africa.