We flew, and flew, and flew...

Hi!!! I'm excited about writing my first official blog from Sudan!! Isn't it amazing that this is even an option? God is good! Okay, so a few days have gone by, so bear with me on this post. I'll start off from the beginning and hopefully catch you up to tonight! If I don't get all the way through tonight it's because I simply can't keep my eyes open. Ya know, it was an act of God to get me to go to bed before midnight back home and I'm coming to realize that 9 p.m. comes here and I'm pooped....like ready to hit the sack, plum tired. Of course the fact that I just flew in from Texas probably has a lot to do with that don't ya think? :) Okay, okay...one more thing before I reverse time and start from the beginning...I slept through a funeral last night!! That's right...apparently I was one of the only ones that DIDN'T wake up to the literal wailing and drums at about 1:30 a.m. as a funeral went by. Did you know that they do funerals like that? Well, you and I both learned something! (It makes me think of the story in the Bible..i don't remember where it is...when Jesus joins in the funeral as they are walking...with professional mourners...)

So, I'm here! We got to Kaya's compound about 2:3o p.m. yesterday. (5:30 a.m. your time) Let me give you some highlights! It was hard saying goodbye. Really hard. I tried holding it together but when time came for me to say goodbye to my dad, the tears simply couldn't be held back. I was able to hang out for a bit longer with Mom and Jenn and then through security I went. Of course I cried with them, too. (Also, thank you Yannig and Gabe for coming to send me off...it meant more than you know.) I knew within 5 minutes of going through security that i was gonig to be a looong journey with my carry on's. They were WAY too heavy for my own good, but by golly mom, jenn, and I sucessfully fit every last thing we could in them! So, at the gate I met up with LaNelle, a lady from Ft. Worth that is one the short term team that was flying out of DFW with me and we chatted until it was time to board. I was spoiled on the flight to London by having my own row and getting to sprawl out and lay down and actually get a good 4 or 5 hours of sleep! Praise God! So, LaNelle and I had plans to head to Heathrow Express and join up with two ladies from Birmingham that are on the short term trip too to then take a hop on hop off tour of London. LONDON IS CRAZY. Plain and simple. First, it was freezing and raining. Not a big deal right? Well, it can be if you wait more than an hour in it for a bus that we find out no longer stops wehre we were told to go and hasn't sincebefore we even bought our tickets! Yep, that's right. Long story short, after walking around a while, taking a number of local buses and got to the actual tour bus we had about 30 minutes to ride around without getting off before we had to make the journey back to the airport. It is an interesting thing to be completely cluess in a country that speaks your own language! Anyways, no complaining here in spite of it all. It's the most I've seen London, so I'm grateful even for a chaotic number of hours!

(Insert: I'm sitting on my bed under the mosquito net right now...it's pretty warm in here to say the least and I have my door open with the curtain just covering the doorway and i can hear that it has started raining. That mixed with the sounnds of KuKu being spoken softly outside is beautiful. Of course, the smell of the rain is ALWAYS something I love...)

Okay, so I get on the next flight to Nairobi and I am literally praying over and over and over that the flight attendants won't notice that my backpack WON'T FIT UNDER THE SEAT. The overhead luggage was full and I just begged God to let it slide while also somewhat laughing to myself because of how mom and I literally JAMMED everything into the backpack. It went without notice until literally take off and the flight attendant, a sweet lady, saw it was sitting in the seat and askedi f it was mine so I told her it was and said okay let's just put it under the seat ( my heart sank) and then proceeded to be extremely nice and went to do it for me and grabbled it and goes "Oh, God..what is IN there?!" kind of to herself but loud enough for me to hear. I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. I then managed to do my best to stuff it on the floor in front of the seat and she motioned that was good enough.

I met Ben on that flight. Please be praying for him. He's from Ghana and lives right outside of London. He was headed to Zambia for business and will be gone from his wife and 2 boys for 10 weeks. It was very apparant that he was going to miss them terribly as he got his camera out and showed me the 133 pictures on it ...explaining almost every one of them to me. :) It was encouraging to hear an African man brag about and dote on his family. Lord knows I wasn't about to stop him!

The flight to Nairobi was pretty uncomfy. Want to guess why? Of course, the infamous backpack again. I was in the middle seat...and that baby on the floor where my feet should go and had my pillow (stuffed with my rainjacket and sweatshirt) in between my legs. Needless to say the men on either side of me didn't seem too happy. Oh, well.

We got to the Entebbe airport and a flood of emotions came over me. It's amazing the memories I have here in Africa already, even there at the airport. Joy, gratefullness, sadness, a bit of homesickness...you name it, I felt it. Over and over I kept repeating in my head, "I AM LIVING IN AFRICA!" Wow. This is my life. This is His life through me! It is only God that could have planned this...truly. I was sitting on the lfight to Entebbe and talking to God (lots and lots of this has been happening) and asking Him why He sent me here. Not because I don't want to be because I most definately do, but a genuine why here?...why now? His response to me...."Look around." So, I look around me on the plane and I feel Him say that most on the plane don't know Him and that for this time and in this palce He wants to suse me to change that one by one...for His glory. I really feel like He said it could be anywhere, anytime, but the time is now, for right here, for me. All I could to is to say, "Here I am. I surrender again...and again...and again..." I would be lying if I told you I wasn't a little overwhelmed, but then again I think I'd have to be cerazy not to be a little bit!

So, we got to Entebbe ...dealt with some minor things with passports, visas, luggage...I ended up having to transfer a ton of stuff into the checked in stuff that was going on the van since the MAF flight had weight restrictions. That was a mad frenzy for a few minutes, but I got it figured out. It's always encouraging to be weighed on this HUGE scale and be told if your are good or not. haha Kaya wasn't able to make it last night so we got all of our luggage this morning safe and sound, thank God! That is how I am able to write now since it had my laptop in it! Please pray for J, a gal on the short term team...her luggage never made it. That's always a bummer and inconvenient.

Aaaand the MAF flight was SO NEAT. Having never flown on such a tiny plane, it was a fun experience for me! It's definately not for those that get motion sickness easily though. If you're good with that, then it's enjoyable! Hopefully I'll be able to upload some pics and video soon!

Okay, so I think I'm going to call it a night. I'll update about today sometime tomorrow!

Additonal things to pray for:

I am going out with the team as I did today for the next few days to different villages providing medical care and of course, the Gospel. Please pray for softened hearts, for a clear message, and for many to come to know the Lord!!

Please pray that I will continue to adjust and that as time goes on I will grow more confident (dependant on God) with all that He is calling me to do.

Please pray that as I am asking over and over and over again how you say certain things that it will stick and that I will gain a pretty good grasp on most of the main main words and phrases. It's really fun...especially to see the reactions of the KuKu when I bust out with a word, two, or three when they least expect it! :)

Love. Love. Love.

Jess