Chapter One - The Longest Day Ever

There are some things that can't be understood until they're experienced. One of those things is traveling west across the International Date Line. (Well, either direction, really. Both are strange.) I can never decide if I've lived the longest day of my life, or two of the shortest days back to back. Those of you have made a similar trip are nodding your heads with that I know exactly what you mean look on your faces. The rest of you are confused. Let me explain.

I left my house for the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport as the sun was rising on Monday morning. I arrived in the Tokyo/Narita airport as it was setting on Tuesday night.... with no nightfall in between. I'm not sure this was so good for my mental health or general well being. Daylight is, of course, delightful. But twenty-some consecutive hours of daylight, seen only through airport glass and those tiny plane windows, can be a fearsome thing. I guess we did have sort of a man-made night about midway through the Portland-Tokyo flight (the flight attendants closed all the windows and turned off the lights for three hours), but that just made the experience even eerier.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. At the very beginning of The Day That Wouldn't End, I was just a Minnesota girl at home with 120 lbs. of luggage waiting by the front door. After stuffing it into my mom's trunk, we stopped to pick up my friend and fellow Vietnam-bound traveler (who had more like 150 lbs. of luggage, plus carry-on) and were ready to meet the team and check in before 7 AM. When bags were weighed, checked, and taken away from us, I turned to say good-bye to my mom. In some ways I consider myself a "seasoned traveler," having been on 7 overseas adventures. So the sudden tremor of nervous energy that surged through me as took my leave was surprising. I remember thinking, I feel like I'm leaving for the other side of the world. It momentarily occurred to me with some unwarranted shock that that's exactly what I was doing. I hugged her and smiled, but my mouth felt all trembly and funny, and I knew if I stayed one more second I would burst into tears. "Bye!" I said cheerfully, and I picked up my backpack and went.

The nervous excitement that took up residence in my little tummy was short-lived. Long or multiple flights have a way of stripping me of just about every normal human feeling. And this day's flights were both multiple and long. So the anticipation and anxiety that rattled around inside had settled to a barely-registering low by the time we landed in Portland. After a four-hour layover there, it was at zero. By the time the nine-hour-flight to Tokyo, the excitement level had plunged into the sub-zeros and I actually think I had some sort of negative tally. We had another three hours there, and all I could do was breathe. Not eat, not talk, not laugh, not enjoy a book or a CD... just breathe. And walk, I guess. I had the vague notion that if I didn't move, I might cease to exist, that's how non-human I felt. So I walked with a friend (the same friend of the heavy-luggage reputation.)

But as those few hours drew to an end, I felt a surge of... something. Not really energy, but at least happiness in some measure. Tokyo to Bangkok was our last flight of The Day, and we were about to board. Now, I'm not sure where we got this idea, but our entire team was under the impression that this final flight was going to be the shortest. I mean, heck, we're already in Asia. What can the airtime be between two Asian cities? An hour or two at most, right? Then the news was broken - this was a 6-7 hour flight, depending on tail winds. My heart sunk and that excitement level plunged even deeper in the hole. I'm not sure what I would have done if I hadn't noticed a mother of four children struggling to wake her little ones so they could board.

Instinctively, I approached and asked if I could help. She spoke fairly good English, and accepted my offer thankfully. Her youngest, a little girl of two at the most, was sleeping on a blanket, and would not wake up, not even to the hearty shaking from her older brother. I scooped her up gently and led the troops to the front of the line, where we were allowed to board first. As we walked down the walkway toward the plane, the little girl suddenly picked her head up and looked at me with wide eyes. After solemnly surveying my face for a few seconds, she carefully put her head back on my shoulder and went back to sleep. It was precious. As the mother thanked me, I felt gratitude fill my own heart. For just a few moments, I was lifted out of my emotionless, sub-human state and given something to do. It was a lifesaver.

We landed in Bangkok, Thailand and arrived at our hotel just before midnight and just after we all decided it might be better to just lay down and die. After 3 or 4 shuttle trips, all our luggage was accounted for and we headed up to our rooms. Stifling heat greeted us, but the AC cooled things down pretty quickly. As my head rested on a pillow, and my body was stretched out all the way (both of these are luxuries, as you realize after that much traveling), I felt as though I had not only left my home years ago, but also become someone else entirely in the process. No longer did I care about the Bread, the camp, or the upcoming training in Vietnam - all I wanted was sleep. And I got it.

Besides, I knew everything would look differently in the morning!