It's a couple of days since our last post, and we have crossed a couple more time zones (thanks to Frontier Airlines) and arrived in Kansas City, Missouri (MO). We were met there by our host Eric Johnson who is my partner in the leadership exchange. Having spent a night in LA, we weren't completely jet-lagged when we arrived, and we are so glad we made the decision to spend the night before flying on to MO.
Eric showed us some of the sights of Kansas City on the drive home. It turns out that running a City is great training for being a tour guide. The Greater Kansas City Metropolitan area has a population of around 2M people or roughly half the population of New Zealand, so its a bit of an eye-opener compared to Oamaru.
We arrrived at the "Johnson Inn" as Eric calls it and met Sonja, Eric's wife. You could not wish to meet two more hospitable people, they are so friendly and welcoming. They have a lovely family home and we will meet the rest of their family when we get back from our trip to Branson.
That evening, Eric took Christine and I to visit "The Wall That Heals". This is a travelling replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC. Eric, his Mayor Carson Ross, and Eric's team have been working for 18 months to bring this to Blue Springs. We arrived on the last night of the event, which had seen over thirty thousand people visit over three days.
The memorial features the names of every one of the 58,000 US servicemen and women who lost their lives during the Vietnam War. The event is not simply to commemorate those who served (although that would be a worthy reason in its own right), it helps communities to connect with servicemen in their midst and helps the younger generations understand a part of their country's history. The picture above shows us in front of the memorial.
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