Saturday/Sunday July 17/18 2010

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A l-o-n-g day in the airplane!
I was not ready to leave Tanzania, but once we actually left, I couldn't wait to get home!
Wish I had Aladdin's magic carpet! 😊
We arrived in Amsterdam, Holland, at 10 AM Saturday morning. It was an 11 hour flight from Kilimanjaro to there! No joke! (We had to stop at Dar Es Salaam before heading on). While in the airport, we bought some Belgium chocolate. Ummm....delectable!! 😊 Lexi got detained once again at security. She DID have a pocket knife in her backpack that she had forgotten about. Thankfully, all they did was confiscate the knife, and let her on the airplane.
It took 9 hours to fly from Amsterdam to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Talk about torture! That seemed like the longest 9 hours of my life.

Oh, and a little scare....Before every flight, I prayed (and I'm sure everyone else did, too) that God would get us home safely. We were standing up to leave the airplane at Minneapolis, when the speaker told us to sit back down; there had been a problem with customs. Custom agents boarded the plane....and escorted several Middle Eastern men off the plane. It could have been nothing. I, unfortunately, have a very active imagination 😉, and sent up a prayer of thanksgiving that God took care of us on that plane ride.

It took nearly an hour for our team to get through customs. We had a 9 hour lay-over. Very inconsiderate of the air lines, I thought. Here we are, been gone for two weeks, ready to get home, and we have a 9 hour wait! Just down the road from the airport was the Mall of America, which is the biggest mall in the USA. So, our team all went down there. I couldn't believe how many people were in that mall--thousands, and that is no exaggeration. I abhor shopping, so I spent the afternoon in Barnes & Noble, reading. Perfect activity in the mall.

We finally boarded our plane for good ol' Oklahoma, but the flight was delayed an hour because of some storms.
At 12:18 AM, Sunday morning, our plane touched the runway of Oklahoma City. We were all so glad to be on terra firma for good! 😊

As soon as we were all together, we stood in a big circle, said a prayer, then sang:

"Our God,
Is an awesome God,
He reigns,
From Heaven above,
With Wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God."

Then we rushed in to greet our family waiting for us! My family arrived home at 3:38 AM--it was so wonderful!
The trip was phenomenal; I think everyone would agree that our trip was one of those trips that
"come seldom into any life, but leaves a rich heritage of memories in their going."
Thank you all for your prayers, and to God be the glory!

Hallie Milner

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