7 Hours at the Border!

Our last two planned clinics ended up getting canceled :( This meant that we got to spend Friday exploring the city, shopping, and spending time with our friends before we all started our journeys home. I got a beautiful hand-embroidered sunflower shirt (because of course I found one with sunflowers on it!) that I will likely wear way too often!

We carried all of the packed medications down to the local nova-poshta (probably not how you spell it, but that’s how it sounds!) which is their wicked-fast postal service! These were big old boxes too so that was an exciting workout! These boxes will be shipped to soldiers and hospitals on the front lines as well as to our doctor’s clinic so that the donations can continue to serve the refugee population long after we leave.

Kirk got on a train to begin his journey home Friday evening and there were a few tearful goodbyes at the train station before the rest of us headed back to the hostel. We wrapped up our time together watching Princess Diaries on an iPad in the conference room (I know, classic mission trip stuff ;))

Finally, on Saturday, Mallory and I began our long journey home. Because we moved up our departure date, there were no more train tickets so we decided to take a bus. Theoretically, we should have been on the bus for a shorter time than all the trains would have taken, but we ended up sitting on the bus for 27 HOURS! Really, the only problem was we were stopped at the border for 7 hours straight!

It was a crazy maze of getting everyone out of the bus, unloading all luggage, going through passport control, scanning luggage, reloading all the luggage back onto the bus, reloading people onto the bus, and then driving to the Polish border to do the whole thing again! And it was pouring rain the whole time, of course ;)

But after all of that, Mallory and I made it to Poland with just enough time to grab a bite to eat, explore the Old Town, and buy some Polish Pottery before we got five delicious hours of horizontal sleep. Then we made our way to the airport where we flew to Frankfurt, parted ways, and took the last legs of our trips home. My final flight home happened to be with a pilot who was doing his retirement flight, so we were greeted at DIA with firetrucks blasting water on our plane as we taxied in - what a way to end this trip!

Initially, I was sad that we had to cancel our last two days of clinics, and frustrated that we had to take a bus instead of getting to sleep on the train, but after we made it back to the United States, we received word that the train station we would have been leaving out of and the entire nation’s railway system had been attacked and targeted by missiles and drones! It’s almost like God knew what He was doing!

There was a lot of time for reflection on the bus (because I get carsick so I did not have my highly anticipated reading material), which was good I think. This trip has been like no other. The friendships made will last a lifetime, and the patients we saw will stick with me forever.

While there is a lot more reflecting to be done, at this point, I think the conclusion of the trip is that war is terrible and sickening. But God is still good. And He cares for His people. My brothers and sisters in Christ who are still dealing with the horrors of war are so strong, but only because they rely on their ultimate strength in Christ. I also don’t think I will ever be able to look at another sunflower again without thinking of these people :)

As we hugged goodbye at the bus station and wiped tears from our eyes, the only words that I could get out were “may God bless you and keep you safe” and “I can’t wait to see you again.”