A New Day- by Lisa

You know, every day is truly a new day, a new beginning, a chance to start things off in a new direction. And for some of us, that is usually a good thing, and a relief. The past 48 hours have been loaded with ups and downs, well, more downs than ups, but that happens to the best of us. We got off to a rough start Thursday evening when we were about an hour late departing for Pittsburgh. We planned to go a little different route, not realizing that most of the road signs and exits now have different numbers. Bottom line is, we missed the exit and wound up in Ohio, then had to wind our way back to try to find Rt 60. When we finally got to the hotel, 3 1/2 hours of travel, we discovered that Robin's reservation was all messed up, and apparently, the hotel staff there has no idea what customer service or customer satisfaction means. We had to make the best of things, and go with the flow. Then upon check-in, the Kellers went to their room only to find other people already staying there. Ooops. So, new room, not a huge deal. We all got up early to get the shuttle. We needed to take 2 shuttles because this wonderful amount of donatons we are all carrying. We moved the Keller's car to unload the suitcases, and when we tried to return the car to the parking area, it would not start. And the window was down. And it is 4:00 AM. And you have to hit the first shuttle at 4:30. So a quick decision to send Lisa and the girls with as many of the large suitcases as possible to the airport. Rick and Rod made a quick run to find anything that would help fix the car, and got it started enough to at least put up the window and lock the doors. We will deal with that on our return home. We can't worry about that now, we have more important things to do!

I think that is about when our prayer partners got busy, because everything, I mean everything from that point began to look up. From smooth flights, to flawless landings, to early landings. They look for volunteers just like us, to target, and search and confiscate. They like to do that. Luckily for us, there were MANY volunteers ahead of us who got stopped and searched, so we slipped by while they were busy with the other groups. Pays to look like tourists!

Today we are going to Santa Maria de Jesus to scope out the VBS area, and to meet with the town council. We are so thankful for this opportunity to get our work underway. A decent night's rest, and a brand new day seems to make the stresses in the past 48 hours fade away. We are lucky to have that relationship with our God, who is always willing to give us a new start.