Bye bye Antarctica!

Flying out on a C-130 "Hercules"

Yesterday I flew out of Antarctica in a C-130 (see photo), to Christchurch, New Zealand.  It was an 8 hour flight, and very loud!

Coffee House - Wine Bar

My last night there we had a get together - send off at McMurdo Station's little "Coffee House - Wine Bar".  It is (was) my favorite place to go and relax and socialize during my tour.  It is very cozy, and was actually the old Navy Officer's Club in a quanset / Jamesway hut originally built in the 1950s when the US Navy built McMurdo Station.  The place has sleds and other Antarctica memorabilia hanging on the walls and rounded ceilings.  This was the place where I was pinned / promoted to Lt Col when I first arrived here in September.   Many people stopped in to say goodbye.   It was a really nice send off.

I never did make it to the South Pole, really bad weather canceled all flights this last week, and that was that. 

It has been a most incredible tour, great ministry, amazing people...but I was there only a short time really.  I was able to visit... and experience a world and culture (yes McMurdo has a culture all its own!) that is just so different than any place in the world.  It is absolutely unique.  

See the photo (below) I snapped before I boarded the C-130.  We were on the ice runway, on the frozen ocean!  I am looking at Mt Erebus, an active volcano, not too far from McMurdo Station.  When I first saw it, it had smoke coming out of the top!  It is the word's most southern active volcano, and is over 12,000 ft high.

Mt. Erebus from the Ice runway

Notice how white, frozen and desolate the place looks.  BUT...as we know, things are never the way they may first appear.   It may look like frozen wasteland devoid of life...but  In Antarctica all the life, (well 99% of it anyway) is beneath the ice.  Vivid colors, plants, animals are under the Ice.  Things and time seems to move in slow motion because it is so cold...but it is moving.  Ice burgs slowly melt into the frozen sea, glaciers slowly move down valleys...even waves, frozen in time do move.   Starfish move so very slowly, but they do move.  Even the seals and penguins...their food and thus life, is under the ice.

Interesting spiritual thoughts to reflect upon in our own lives.....What life lies 'beneath'?   What is in, or going on in our own lives...but we may not be seeing?  First appearances can be deceiving....

Many people touched my life there in McMurdo.  One man said to me as we talked, telling me of the reactions people gave him back in his home town when he told them he was going to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for 6 months to work.  That "what?" look (you know, that sort of annoyed look people give when they don't understand) and say "Why?"  or "There's nothing down there!"

Oh yes there is!

I had similar responses too.  One response I got was, "What?  People don't go to Antarctica!!

Oh yes they do!!

Yes, I will be processing this experience for many months and many years to come!

Bye bye Antarctica!