On the Ground in Africa!

Below is a brief travel summary that eventually lands me in West Africa.

Even though we planned a lot of cushion time, I was a little stressed out by this rough start: packing difficulties (everything was too heavy), left late for the airport, snowstorm, terrible roads, forgetful me caused a 1 hour delay, more terrible roads, slight glitches checking in at airport, long lines at airport checkpoints, but I made it to my gate with around an hour to spare! Thank you Lord for Your amazing timing and faithfulness.

Once on the plane I got comfy and fell asleep, when I awoke from my nap I realized we were still on the ground. That delay meant that after our 8 hour flight, I was a little late getting into Paris where originally I’d only had a 2 hour layover, now I had less than an hour and a half. Again, God guided me through Charles de Gaulle airport with ease to my gate and to a Pioneer Bible Translator (PBT) family also flying into West Africa with me.

We boarded this flight on time, but again the takeoff was delayed as we waited for more people to arrive. We had an uneventful ride, but of course we landed a tad late. God was present the entire trip; however, it was even more evident as we passed through immigration, retrieved our luggage (all of our baggage arrived intact!), passed through customs with no problems-they only opened one bag, found our ride, and made the trip to the guest house. Driving through the town at night, I was surprised to realize how similar to Haiti the smells, sights and sounds were. Because of the relatively familiar surroundings and reuniting with PBT missionaries, I don’t know if it has really dawned on me that I really am in Arica.

I have orientation here in the capitol through Saturday and then leave on the 11 hour drive to our village on Sunday. As I experience the market/shopping and get fun/interesting stories, I will (hopefully) be putting them on the blog. Thank you for all of your prayers and support! It has been an amazing, faith-building journey to even come to this point and to think that now this adventure truly gets to begin is incredible.

God willing, I will have relatively consistent email access, so please keep me up-to-date with your lives. Thank you again for all of the love and support you have shown and continue to show me. May God continue to reveal Himself to you and pour out His blessings.

Indebted to Christ and His Will,
Julie

PS- It’s nice and hot here… definitely no snow! Love it!