Every mission trip should start off on an exciting note right? Well ours started off with snow in Texas and Arkansas and Canada that meant delayed flights for both Jon and Dad and strep throat for yours truly. If that's not exciting I don't know what is!
Jon, Ellane, and I were supposed to all fly out of Dallas together on Dec 26th but Jon was not able to get to Dallas in time so Ellane and I left on our own.
We made it to Canada right as a snow storm was hitting and managed to fly out before it got too bad. My dad was not so lucky. We went to Frankfurt Germany for about 10 hours and got really familiar with that airport and then finally made it to Delhi where we sat in the airport for about an hour trying to find Joel, who was supposed to be picking us up. Little did I know, you can't get into the airport without a plane ticket so he was waiting for us outside the whole time.
If you ever wonder what people did before cell phones, I can tell you, they waited for no reason in airports to be picked up when their ride was outside the whole time.
But we did finally make it to our hotel and got to sleep.
The rest of the team made it just in time for us to fly to Bagdogra.
One of the biggest highlights of the whole trip for me was meeting these two ladies.
Moneema and Sanju are two of the strongest wisest women I've ever met. They were such a huge encouragement to me.
Our first place of ministry was Mungpoo. We got there just in time for their New Years Eve Watch Service and then had a bonfire at midnight.
It was really cold there!
We got to be a part of 3 different youth conferences in 3 different locations. The next few days in Mungpoo consisted of lots of speaking, praying for people, and tea:)
And tea, lots of tea:-)
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Over all, the trip was amazing. We have been getting reports back that the people are very encouraged and doing very well. It was such a huge blessing to be able to go and speak to them and in return be more encouraged and blessed than we could have ever hoped to bless and encourage them. I was sick the whole trip but that did not keep me from enjoying every minute I could. I learned so much from theses people and I'm excited to hopefully go back next year.
God did some really cool things in our team and I hope He did the same in the people we came in contact with.
Getting back home was a very very long process that would be a very long story so I'll shorten it as much as I can.
January 8th at the Bagdogra airport to fly back to Delhi all flights got cancelled due to fog for the next 2 days.
So, we took a taxi through the night to Calcutta that took about 13 hours and flew from there to Delhi. But by the time we got to Delhi we had already missed our flights so we had to get new ones which resulted in Ellane and I flying out of Delhi on the 9th at like 9pm to Tokyo (that's in Japan....in the opposite direction from how we got there, in case your geography is a little rusty)
Now here's the part that took me a while to understand. We left Japan at 12pm on the 10th and got into Dallas at 8:30am on the 10th. Yep that's right, we went back in time.
From there, Ellane flew home to Kansas and I flew to New York City to help my good friend Nati move to Arkansas.
We started driving at about 11am on the 12th and after lots of driving through rain and road construction and several states, we reached Conway Arkansas around 2pm on the 13th.
We were a little tired.
Now that Nati is finally here, the search is on for an apartment for us to live in. It's been quite a long process that is still not over but we are praying and believing that we will find a place soon that we can afford. We would appreciate all the prayers you can muster for that situation and I'll be sure to update again when we are moved in!
That's all folks! Thank you to everyone who prayed and supported this trip and made it possible!
Jon, Ellane, and I were supposed to all fly out of Dallas together on Dec 26th but Jon was not able to get to Dallas in time so Ellane and I left on our own.
We made it to Canada right as a snow storm was hitting and managed to fly out before it got too bad. My dad was not so lucky. We went to Frankfurt Germany for about 10 hours and got really familiar with that airport and then finally made it to Delhi where we sat in the airport for about an hour trying to find Joel, who was supposed to be picking us up. Little did I know, you can't get into the airport without a plane ticket so he was waiting for us outside the whole time.
If you ever wonder what people did before cell phones, I can tell you, they waited for no reason in airports to be picked up when their ride was outside the whole time.
But we did finally make it to our hotel and got to sleep.
The rest of the team made it just in time for us to fly to Bagdogra.
One of the biggest highlights of the whole trip for me was meeting these two ladies.
Our first place of ministry was Mungpoo. We got there just in time for their New Years Eve Watch Service and then had a bonfire at midnight.
It was really cold there!
We got to be a part of 3 different youth conferences in 3 different locations. The next few days in Mungpoo consisted of lots of speaking, praying for people, and tea:)
And tea, lots of tea:-)
.jpg)
Over all, the trip was amazing. We have been getting reports back that the people are very encouraged and doing very well. It was such a huge blessing to be able to go and speak to them and in return be more encouraged and blessed than we could have ever hoped to bless and encourage them. I was sick the whole trip but that did not keep me from enjoying every minute I could. I learned so much from theses people and I'm excited to hopefully go back next year.
God did some really cool things in our team and I hope He did the same in the people we came in contact with.
Getting back home was a very very long process that would be a very long story so I'll shorten it as much as I can.
January 8th at the Bagdogra airport to fly back to Delhi all flights got cancelled due to fog for the next 2 days.
So, we took a taxi through the night to Calcutta that took about 13 hours and flew from there to Delhi. But by the time we got to Delhi we had already missed our flights so we had to get new ones which resulted in Ellane and I flying out of Delhi on the 9th at like 9pm to Tokyo (that's in Japan....in the opposite direction from how we got there, in case your geography is a little rusty)
Now here's the part that took me a while to understand. We left Japan at 12pm on the 10th and got into Dallas at 8:30am on the 10th. Yep that's right, we went back in time.
From there, Ellane flew home to Kansas and I flew to New York City to help my good friend Nati move to Arkansas.
We started driving at about 11am on the 12th and after lots of driving through rain and road construction and several states, we reached Conway Arkansas around 2pm on the 13th.
We were a little tired.
Now that Nati is finally here, the search is on for an apartment for us to live in. It's been quite a long process that is still not over but we are praying and believing that we will find a place soon that we can afford. We would appreciate all the prayers you can muster for that situation and I'll be sure to update again when we are moved in!
That's all folks! Thank you to everyone who prayed and supported this trip and made it possible!
