Safe at last

Posted by Ali

I honestly can't remember the last time I felt as panicked and helpless as I did yesterday. Nothing I tried to do to help my parents so they in turn could help Bryn seemed to work. There I was, sitting safely in a little office in peaceful, uneventful northern Tanzania, trying to imagine what was going through my sister's brain as she tried figure out the best option to take. When I heard she had left for the airport I was happy some action was being taken, but scared because I knew she'd be traveling through the city and that anything I tried to do to help from then on wouldn't make any difference (not that anything I'd done before had helped either). When I heard of her at-the-last-second glimpse of a Canadian flag, of her meet-up with the Canadian evacuation crew, of her trek to get to the airplane and of her worries that the plane wouldn't actually take off, I did the only thing I could do: type the updates on my blog and pray. Thank you all sooo much for thinking and praying for Bryn and others who were in the same situation. She made it onto the first Canadian evacuation flight out of Cairo, got to Frankfurt safely, slept in an airport hotel that night and got on a flight home via Calgary the next afternoon. Now she's safe and back in BC. And we're all very relieved the crisis is over...at least it's over for us. But there are others, millions of people in Cairo and the rest of Egypt, who are still living in fear each day. My prayers for Bryn's safety have turned to prayers of thanks for her safe evacuation, prayers for the safety of those whose lives are still turned upside down by the riots, and most of all, prayers for a quick resolution to the conflict.

Bryn's reunion with Gramps
Photo credit: expressionsbyglendq

To read the local newspaper stories about Bryn's experiences, click here for the initial story or here for the follow-up. To read the Southern Accent's story, click here.