In Atlanta

Christy arrived in Atlanta at 1:46 pm our time. I know some of you are following the trip so I thought I would update you. I will be leaving with the kids when they are done with school and heading straight down to Columbus so there will not be any more posts until later tonight.

Getting Close

I just checked on the flight and Christy made it out of Germany on time this morning and is set to land in Atlanta at 1:45 Atlanta time. She will have a couple hour layover which will be good because she will have to go through customs and re-enter the country in Atlanta.

Her flight from Atlanta to Columbus leaves at 4:10 and she should be home by 5:45. I'm guessing it will be sooner than that assuming everything takes off on time. She is going to be on Delta flight 2254 for that portion of the trip if you are interested in following her.

Landed in Germany

Just a quick note to let you all know that she has landed in Germany. The website says she got there at 9:26 their time (3:26 ours). I'm sure she is exhausted. Pray for a good nights sleep in a real bed tonight at the Frankfurt hotel and that all of the connections will be made on time for tomorrow.

Left Paris

Well she left Paris about 2pm our time and is on her way to Germany. According to Air France's website, the flight should land about 3:30 our time - or 9:30 their time (assuming Germany and France are in the same time zone.) She will spend the night in Frankfurt at a hotel with the two other ladies that are with her and then head home starting about 3:45 am our time.

Flight Delayed

I just checked on the flight again. It is delayed and set to take off at 7:00 pm from France to Germany. They will then be set to land about 8:40 pm.

Landed in Paris

Well according to Air France's website, Christy's plane landed in Paris at 2:43 their time. She has roughly a 2 hour layover before flying to Frankfurt, Germany for the night. Still nothing is showing up as far as delays or cancellations for that flight yet. Thanks for praying.

Just checked the website again and her flight is now scheduled to leave Paris at 6:15 pm (12:15) our time. They are scheduled to land in Germany now at 7:41 German time.

Good morning everyone. I looked up all of Christy's flights and everything seems to be on schedule. She is in the air about ready to land in Paris. Many of you know that there has been snow in Paris that has caused major delays and cancellations of flights. Her flight is scheduled to land about 2:45 Paris time (6 hour difference), and her flight into Frankfurt, Germany has not been cancelled or delayed at this point in time. Other flights into Frankfurt have been, but hers has not. She is scheduled to leave Paris at 4:45 and fly into Germany. She will spend the night in Germany and then fly to Atlanta tomorrow and then onto Columbus. She should be home about 5:45 on Friday afternoon.

The kids are excited to see mom again and hear the stories and see the pictures that she has on the way home and over the next few days.

Thanks for praying

Wednesday

Today has been a really busy day. We had to drop off our luggage at Air France this morning at 8 am. We are not in Kansas! They only work in the morning - so even though our flight doesn't leave until tomorrow, we have to give them our luggage this morning.

Then we went to visit a Hand-in-Hand School. This is a school that is a distance away from the Orphan Center where travel would not be possible for the children. An African church partners with an American church to create a school for orphans in their little community. Up to 50 students go to school for 3 years and then the church helps them pay for their continuing education. We visited the school at Yembi today. It was a great surprise visit. To see the students and how excited they were to learn was refreshing. The fact that an American church can sponsor a school with 50 students for an entire school year and feed them lunch everyday for $4000 is amazing.

Then we went to the Seminary. This was one of the highlights of my trip. Jason was here last year for the groundbreaking of the new seminary location. To see how far the project has come in the last year was amazing. The office building is completed, the bathroom facilities and kitchen are in progress, and several dormatory buildings are finished, but they are currently using the living facilities as classroom space until the classroom buildings are finished. I was able to meet the students and Theodore, one of the professors who translated for Jason. They remembered Jason well and I was an honored guest as his wife. It was a very special moment.

Then we went back to the Center where I was able to meet Rodrigue, the orphan we sponsor, and Placidie, the orphan our church kid's sponsor with their VBS money. I was able to give them both gifts and spend a little time with them. Later in the afternoon, we went to Rodrigue's home and I was able to meet his grandma and aunt.

This evening we have been saying our goodbyes and getting ready to leave. The flight from Paris just arrived a little bit ago bringing Mark Simms from France and Jeff Gill from Winona Lake. They informed us that the Paris airport closed behind them because of snow. Please pray that our flights will go as planned and we will be able to get home on schedule.

Tuesday afternoon

Answered prayer: we were finally able to finish packing all the gifts. We had a great assembly line going this afternoon with several orphans helping us. We were the conveyor belt, and they were the arms. We would get a bag and walk down the line and they would put each item in the bag. It was really fun to do that with them. It has been humbling to see the kids peeking into the Conference room - so excited about their Christmas gifts. No high school kid that I know in America would be excited with these packages, yet these kids here can hardly contain themselves. One boy today was standing outside asking us for a can of sardines. Amazing. We have been given so much in the States, my prayer is that I can give back in proportion to what I have been blessed with.
I was also able to meet many of the orphans that people in our church sponsor and give them the gift that were sent. It is so nice to see their smiling faces when they receive a gift that is for them.
We arrived at the center during recess today and it was a mob scene. You could hardly walk becuase of the 50 kids who wanted to touch you and shake your hand. Later I was told by a group of teen age girls that I was the whitest person that they had ever seen :) It is fun to try to communicate with little langauge in common, but with smiles and hand gestures.
For supper we went to a French restraurant and had "El Capitan" which is fish caught in the river. It was very good - like a nice seafood dinner you would have in the states. They had live trumpet, sax, and guitar music and nice candles and ambiance. Then we drove out of the parking lot and saw a boy catching "kindagozo" - crickets! He was stringing them live on a piece of string. It is a highly desired food here that they fry in oil and eat. Some of the culture swings here are really hard to adjust to. We just laugh, because it is only way you can process some of the information.

Tuesday Morning

This morning Barb took Caitlin and Amy to the radio station to do an interview with the "True Love Waits" program. Brenda and I were supposed to visit a Hand-in-Hand school with Ginger Hock. She is feeling sick this morning and suspects it is malaria. (Most of the missionaries here have malaria, they just treat the symptoms when they occur.) So Brenda and I are working on making a list of the students who didn't get their pictures taken, so when we go to the center we can start some make-up photos. We really want to get the packing done today, so hopefully this afternoon things will go somewhat on schedule.
I still haven't been able to meet Rodrigue, the orphan we sponsor. He is supposed to be at the school today, so I am hopefully that we can finally meet.
Overall, I am feeling great, just tired. The sun rises here about 5:30 am, and that is when everyone starts their day, so it is difficult to sleep past 6:30 am.
I am getting spoiled on their freshly baked bread, rolls, and pastries. Everyday, either the ladies make some fresh bread, or we get some from the french cafe down the street. That is one area that Europeans really have it better than we do. Who ever thought white bread in slices in a bag was an acceptable substitute for fresh bread? It's not even the same food group. Last night we had a braided bread with sugar sprinkled on top. It was wonderful.
I tried a new fruit last night: palm citer (that is so not spelled correctly, but that is how it sounds :) The outside skin looks sort of like a potato - it is sort of shaped like a kiwi, but tastes very sweet and sour. The inside has spiky ribs, so you have to take small bites and eat around the large pit in the middle. Barb says it is the perfect fruit to describe Africa. Not something I would want to eat everyday, but it tasted ok.

Monday afternoon

Thanks for praying - we finally were able to get the money from the bank and buy the sugar that we need to complete the Christmas gifts. BUT...TIA. We were getting in the car to go to the center in the afternoon when we got a phone call that there was some "insecurity" and we were not supposed to come to the center until this morning. We heard rumors later that there was an incident with a police officer making an arrest. Who knows if it was a big deal or not, but we were not able to finish packing like we had hoped. So, we worked on finishing some photo labeling and putting the cards in number order and then went to the pool :)

Monday Morning

We are getting ready to go to the center. The hold up this morning is sugar. It's always something or another - TIA! We are still feeling the effects of the National Holiday on December 1st. We were not able to buy the amount of sugar that we needed last week, because everyone in the country was wanting sugar as part of their celebration for the holiday. Then, the mission was waiting for the month wire transfer of money for December. Because of the holiday they were not able to access the money, even though it should have been available. So, finally the transfer showed up at the bank on Friday, but we were not able to withdraw funds because it had not cleared. This morning we are waiting for the runner to come back from the bank to give us the money we need to go to the market to get the rest of the sugar. Pray that we will actually be able to get the quantity we need. We need about 400 packages of sugar which still may in shortage because of the holiday.
Also pray that we will be able to get the pictures of the orphans at Bercail (prounced ber-ki). We are on schedule, but starting to feel a little pressure to finish the process by tomorrow.

Sunday

This morning we went to the Grace Brethren Church of Ali. We went to the first service - the French service - which turned out to be in Sango anyway. Their pastor was preaching at another church, and the man that was filling in for him didn't know French, so he preached in Sango. He preached on getting ready for Christmas - and giving Jesus your heart. It was a nice reminder. Then the choir sang, accompanied by synthesizer, guitar, and drums. It sounded very similar to the church recordings that Jason brought home with him. Then we had the offering. They were having a special offering that day, and called up the people by the area of town that they lived in. We had arrived late and were sitting in the back, so many people did not know that there were 6 white ladies in attendance. We created quite a stir when we walked to the front to put in our offering. You could hear the buzzing of talking start as we walked from the back. Then we had to stand and Barb introduced us.
We closed the service singing, "How Great Thou Art". Which was really special. It was so cool to be able to sing along with them. It didn't matter that we were speaking 2 different languages, we were both worshipping one God.
This afternoon has been restful. The other group just left to go back to the center to finish the High School student's pictures. I am staying here because my church will be calling soon. PTL for Skype. I will be able to talk through the sound system at church so that everyone can hear our phone conversation. I'm not sure what I will say yet. It is hard to figure out how to share this whole experience in a few minutes. Barb was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find a quiet place at the center to talk on the phone, so I am by myself at the mission for this phone call. When they get back, we are hopefully going to the pool. :)

Food

I am sure that of you are wondering what I have been eating over here. No, I haven't eaten any gozo. I have actually eaten all normal American food - pizza, hamburgers, soup (nice on a 90 degree day!), mac and cheese, etc. Last night for dessert was had homemade ice cream. It's not as good as cold stone, but it tasted pretty good here. Today we had homemade cinnamon rolls. We have eaten lots of cucumbers and had a fresh papaya too. Overall, I won't be losing any weight while I am here unless I sweat it off.
This morning we walked to a French Cafe, Le Grand Cafe, and had breakfast. It is an internet cafe with some great pastries and air conditioning. We had a great breakfast - I had a ham and cheese croissant. It was great.
It is really hot here, which I expected. But it seems strange to see Christmas lights when it is so hot. This afternoon the power was off (actually the power is off every afternoon from about 3 pm until 9 pm.) So, we didn't have any hot water (the generator will run the lights, but not the hot water heater.) I took a freezing shower and it felt great! We were having leftovers for supper, so we had to turn off all the lights and unplug everything we could, so we could use the microwave to heat up our pizza. It's funny how things are so modern here, yet so antiquated at the same time.
Overall, things are going well. I love it here. I find it funny that my mind always translates what I want to say into Spanish - but that doesn't help either. Both languages I know are no help to me here :) Despite not being able to communicate in French or Sango, a smile really is the universal language.

MIRACLE!

We got a phone call this morning that our luggage had come in! But the African women who had helped us get through the airport, kept the paperwork we needed with our baggage tickets attached to it. At the time we thought it was a good idea because her phone number was on the form and she would probably go with us to pick up our luggage. Well...today she told us that we had the paperwork. So...we set off for the airport praying the whole way, knowing that it would be impossible to get our luggage without the paperwork, but we were going to try anyway. We heard stories of them sending luggage back to the States because people didn't have the paperwork they needed.
So we get to the airport and Barb gets us through the first gate! Then we make it through the second guarded gate. Then we get to the customs official and he takes our passports and shows us our luggage. We then have to go through customs, where they opened them and searched everything. Barb at that point had to go talk to a person behind a desk. He asked why he should give us our stuff. She explained that people in America were sending gifts to help orphans in this country have a good Christmas. And he let us go through! It was miracle after miracle! By the time we made it to the car we were so emotional - we basically did a back dive into water that we couldn't see, trusting that God would provide and He did! He is Amazing! Thanks for praying. This is just one more way that we have seen this week that God has provided for our needs and some of our wants too.
So now this afternoon we are going back to the center to take pictures of the High School students and hopefully be able to finish packing the rest of the presents.

Saturday Morning

Hey!
Barb finally figured out how to access the visitor email. I am reading it on her computer, so I still don't know how much access I will have to it, but at least I can send this one.

Slept pretty good last night - we were really tired from the long day. We made some mistakes that made the labeling process take a lot more time. All 5 of us were working on a computer to label the picture files and match the kids names with PHC numbers. Not an easy process actually.

This morning we are going out for breakfast and then this afternoon we will go back to the center to get the pictures of the high school students. It is hot here, but not completely unbearable. The conference room at the PHC center has a nice breeze with all the windows open. We have been to the pool both afternoons which is heaven! Barb loves to swim, so I imagine we will go most days right before supper.

I have asked to see the seminary so hopefully we will be able to drive out and see it. We also have plans to see a hand in hand school, the widow garden, etc. It sort of depends on if our luggage comes today and we can finish our jobs.

Friday

This morning we were at the PH & C center. We started the assembly line process and got 500 of the bags packed. Each backpack has a 2 lb bag of rice, a 2 lb bag of sugar, a can of sardines, a notebook, a box of crayons, a pack of coffee, a bracelet, and a ball. We had to stop because we ran out of crayons. So we are praying our missing luggage that has the crayons and some of the backpacks will arrive tomorrow on the cargo flight from Paris. Who knows if it will actually happen. As they say here - TIA. (This is Africa!)
The other part of the team, Brenda and Amy were taking pictures. They got the entire morning class finished. (Here in Africa, you only go to school for half day. All the kids eat lunch at the center, but either have classes in the morning or afternoon.) We are back at the mission residence now for lunch. The photo team is leaving soon to go back to take pictures of the afternoon classes. Caitlin and I are going to go through all the pictures that were taken this morning and change the file to the child's name. Lots to do.

Just wanted to let you know we are here. Every flight we had was delayed, so we waited a lot. In Paris, we actually went through the ticket counter and then walked down the jetway, down the stairs...to a bus that drove us out the parking lot on the other side of the airport where we waited more than an hour for the rest of the passengers. We finally landed about 8 pm yesterday. I was going on about 2 hours of sleep total. We were at the airport until 9:45 pm fighting the crowds to get through customs and get our luggage. The bad part is that only 2 out of our 4 bags arrived. One of my trunks and one of Brenda’s is still in Paris. God knew which ones we needed, though, because we got the suitcase that had the cards.

Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of the CAR - so it was a major holiday. The city is all decorated and they have had lots of parties and parades.

We had supper here after we got home about 10 pm – we were exhausted. So we basically got things unpacked and went to bed. I took some Tylenol pm, but I didn’t need it – I was asleep in about 20 seconds and slept all night.

We visited Project Hope and Charity – both the large campus and the smaller campus – this morning to hand out the thank you cards. The kids began to color them and tomorrow when we start to take pictures, we will write their photo number on their card, so it can be matched later when the pictures are printed. I will start the assembly process tomorrow with either Amy or Catilin. Brenda and the other one will start pictures.

When we got to the school this morning, we weren’t even out of the car, when Brenda’s orphan that she sponsors, Delphin, was there. He gave her a huge hug and was crying – he was so happy to see her again. It was so touching.

I feel a little like a rock star here. I have shaken more kids’ hands in the last several hours than I ever have. If you shake one hand, you have to shake them all! And they all want to touch us. Already I have seen several that I would bring home with me if I could. J

Anne and Rosalee (the guest house workers) send their greetings. We were introduced last night. This morning Barb told them I was Pastor Jason’s wife. They started to do the motions with their arms and feet and asked if he was that Pastor Jason. We said yes, and they ran and gave me big hugs and said welcome. Then they went and got our family picture that Jason had given them. It was really sweet.

This afternoon we had siesta and then went to the pool. I know ...the rough life of a missionary. It was wonderful! The pool was cold when we jumped in, but it felt great. We came home and had supper and then our team meeting. We had a great time of recapping the day and getting to know each other. These ladies are really fun. We have a great team relationship and are working well together so far. It is neat to see how a group of 4 generations of women can mesh together so well.

Pray that the details will continue to fall in place for the gift assembly starting tomorrow. We are still waiting for the coffee to be delieved and the rice is still in 50 lb. bags. Hopefully those things will fall in place and we will be able to get our jobs started tomorrow.

What She Should Be Doing

Well it is Thursday morning and I still haven't heard from Christy. I'm not worried at all, because they were supposed to hit the ground running today. Her flight was supposed to land about 1:10 in the afternoon on Wednesday our time (7:10 Africa time), and I figure that it probably took at least 2 hours to get through customs and get her luggage and back to the mission. By that time after a day and a half of flying almost 8000 miles I'm sure she was pretty tired.

I looked up her schedule on an email today and they were supposed to start to work on assembling the Christmas gift bags. They have well over 1000 to get packed and so I'm sure they were up early and at it. I do figure that sometime today I will get an email from her that I will post on the blog here to keep all of you who are following her trip updated on what is happening.

Thanks for continuing to pray!