More Arrival Stories!

Hello everyone! As promised, here are more details on our travel and arrival here in Belo Horizonte. I will tell you right away that I am on a different keyboard so if I mess up my typing, I apologize. (Example: I am not sure where the apostrophe is, so I am using fewer contractions.)

Like I said earlier, yesterday was a complete mess. Because of fog, we did not land in Sao Paulo at 7:30. We went to Rio for a while to refuel and also ended up waiting there for two hours. We finally got to Sao Paulo around 1 PM, at which point we had been on the plane for 15 hours! We were so glad to get off. At that airport, we had to go through customs, which did not take too long, but then we were told to go to three or four different lines to get our tickets. Finally we did to make our flight into Belo Horizonte. Once we arrived, we were picked up by a different church that was hosting another LST team. Then we were dropped off at our host homes. Natasha is staying with one family. It is a husband and wife and their two boys. I cannot remember their names right now, but Natasha is already getting to know them and is really enjoying their company. Kavan and Chase are staying with Rick, the missionary here. Both of them are getting to know Rick and enjoying him as well. He is very kind and helpful.

Today we all met at the church at 10 AM. After that, we drove to a couple English schools in the area with Rick to recruit more readers. Once we came back, we walked around a bit with two of our new friends. One is Matheus, a fourteen-year-old here at the church. Another was Ariane (and I am pretty sure I am spelling her name wrong). She is nineteen. We have started to get to know them as their English is pretty good. They have been starting to teach us Portugese phrases, but the three of us are still struggling with the new language, but it is still fun. Then the six of us went to lunch at a local restaurant. We had a great mix of foods. I am not sure what they were, but it was very good! Then we did some more touring of the local neighborhoods and also hung out at the church, getting to know Matheus, Ariane, and more of their friends, Michelle, Jessica, and Marina. All of them are younger and learning English. We will be reading with many of them.

After all of that, we had a quick dinner and then came back to the church. We had a couple of meetings with readers and then we had a prayer service with the church. It was our first chance to meet lots of them. They are such kind, loving people! All three of us commented that we had never hugged so many strangers before in our life. It was a good experience, even though we could not speak with one another very much. After the service, we talked for a while more before heading back to our homes for the night.

All in all, it was a very different day than yesterday. Yesterday was filled with so much frustration and stress. Today was far more relaxed. It is amazing what one night of sleep can do. Yesterday can be seen as the first of our challenges. It tested our patience, but we had to continue to trust that God would get us where we needed to be. In the end, we got here and things are going very well.

That is about all there is time for at the moment. Hopefully we can get some pictures up in the near future. There is so much to see! Continue to keep us in your prayers. Have a great day!