Packing It Up
Spent this morning packing up the trucks. I have three trunks that are nearly packed full. I always bring lots of stuff, but worry that people think that its my focus for the trip. I have several goals planned for the trip and these are just the necessary tools to get the job done. The coolest feeling is leaving DFW with 150 pounds of gear, knowing that I will return in a couple of weeks with only the clothes on my back…and hopefully my camera pack. Here’s what’s going:
Photo Studio
Thanks to a few incredibly generous donors, I am getting to deliver a complete photo studio for the MITS students to learn to use. We have a brand new HP Laptop, Canon Photo Printer, Canon 30D, Canon XT, three Canon lenses, Canon 430ex Speedlight, 3 Canon Point and Shoot cameras, 12 2G comact flash cards, 6 4G SD Cards, 10 4G flash drives, 2 card readers, and plenty of batteries & chargers for everything. We also have enough printer ink and photo paper to print over 400 photos. 
In addition to these items, I am bringing about 300 4x6 prints of photos I have taken in Kenya over my last three trips. The goal is to use these photos for critique in class and then deliver them to the people who are in the photos, so they can have a photo of themselves. Many photos were taken in Mathare and Eastleigh, so I am hoping that we can track the people down and hand deliver the photo to them. I want the MITS students to be able to see faces LIGHT UP when they get to hand the photo to its new owner. That will be something special.
Song Books
I have been working closely with Charles and Darlene to get new songbooks printed. The students use will use these in morning chapel and for Sunday Worship. The school and church are in desperate need of new songbooks and I am honored to get to deliver these to them. I wish everyone back at home could hear the singing first hand. It is a preview of what heaven will be like. 
One of the big projects we have lined up is to do some commercially viable audio recordings of the MITS students singing some of the songs they love. We’d like to be able to publish a CD of their singing and sell them as a fundraising activity here in the states.
The song books are much heavier than I anticipated and account for well over half of the 150 pounds of baggage I am allowed. I am not sure how many clothes I am going to be able to fit in my cases. I have to balance between taking gifts for the students or packing extra underwear. It’ll be a fun challenge and I know I’ll be holding my breath at the airport as they weigh each case at check-in.
My Backpack
My carry-on bag is my camera backpack. It carries about 26 pounds of my personal gear. There’s a Canon 7D w 70-200 2.8L, Canon 50D w 24-70 2.8L, Tokina 12-24 4.0, and Zoom H4N Digital Audio Recorder. I have 6 8G CF Cards, 6 8G SD cards and a 500G portable hard drive. I’ve filled up all the nooks and crannies with extra gadgets like my iPod Nano and a Kindle for reading on the plane. For the record, I hope to return with all this, but most of it is insured in case I don’t.
Enough about the stuff. I am a week out and am done worrying about things. I can now concentrate on the more important matters. More about that coming soon.
Looking forward to a fun week of summer with the family before I leave on June 6.
