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.