today really is the day!!!

10:52 am Wichita..I hate good byes. I love you Mom and Dad!!  LOTS.


4:19 pm Atlanta.. we’re sitting in the airport at our gate. After Steph and I landed we went to the train and rode it to our terminal. We had full bladders and empty stomachs so we took care of those issues right away! We decided that we have altogether too much stuff!! I think we walked about a mile and a half and I’m pretty sure I had more than half my body weight on my back. It was a comical sight- 2 small girls hauling huge shoulder bags, a backpack, a guitar, water bottles and Finn (my teddy bear) :) And the other funny thing is, as soon as we got to the gate I felt out of place. I’m a tall, leggy, blonde, white girl amongst a breed of lovely, short Peruvians. Guess I’d better get used to that. Haha :) I have my three magazines to equip me for the 7 hour flight ahead of us- I have to catch up on my celebrity gossip and fashion ya know. :)

I honestly don’t know how I feel right now. It’s all a bit surreal. I can’t believe we are really doing this.

12:53 am.. FINALLY in Lima, sitting at a table right near Starbucks. What a relief. The flight wasn’t too bad- we got to watch 2 movies for free, enjoy an interesting vegetarian meal, and discuss the reasons we decided to do this. :) There were a billion people on the plane and after we all got off everyone goes through immigrations where the line is about 3 miles long. Not kidding. Poor Steph had to stretch her bladder while we waited in line.. We got through and even asked for the right number of days for our visa :) Next stop was getting our luggage.. Easier said than done, trust me. Two little girls with four 50 pound bags, plus all our carry on stuff. It was quite the sight! Thankfully the luggage carts are free so we each pushed one of those through the sea of Peruvians at the airport. I, of course, got many odd looks as I was walking. I mean, it’s crazy to see such small person with that much luggage at home, so I’m sure to these people it was just hilarious. :) Well, we had to clear customs as well and the deal is there is a line and you have to push a button and the light will turn red or green. If it’s green you’re good to go and you don’t have to stop. If it turns red you have to go unload ALL your stuff and put it thru the machines to make sure you don’t have bombs and such. WELL… guess what happens to the two lovely little student missionaries??? You guessed it-BOTH of us got red lights!!! Soooo.. we had to unload the billion pounds of luggage we had and put it on the machines. AND the people running the xray machine obviously didn’t understand that our luggage is super heavy and it takes a second for us to get it on the carts.. they just let the belt run and our luggage piled on top of each other, and the next ladies piled on top of that. I can’t really even describe the situation like I want to, but if you can get sort of a vibe of what happened you should be giggling right now. :) surprisingly we did get our stuff back on the cart and we did get our bags checked to Pucallpa and we did find Starbucks. :) Not such a bad ending..

Everything is so unknown, unfamiliar, and a bit overwhelming at this point. We don’t really know who is going to pick us up, or where we will be living, or what exactly we’ll be doing. I suppose this is where the advice of “be flexible and adaptable” comes in handy. Don’t get me wrong, it is exciting. I’m going to be doing a lot of praying and I know it will all work out :)