I have luggage!

My luggage came on Thursday. The man at the front desk called up and said cargo had come for Heath James - I assumed that would be me. Liv and I went down to grab it but then had to come back up to my room to get $50 to pay for the delivery. Yup, I got to pay $50 for the airline to lose my luggage and then bring it to me. The gratitude for having it somewhat helped overshadow the frustration. But truly, overall I'm so grateful to have Liv's and my clothing and toiletries.

Our first (almost) week here has gone well. Liv has been sleeping through the night... I have not. I've slept 2 full nights with the help of Benedryl. The others I've woken up for hours. Hopefully I'll get straightened out soon. I'd rather be the one awake at night rather than Liv.

The students have been adjusting pretty well. And I'm learning to navigate around our neighborhood a bit. It's been fun to see that even in the first week, students are making connections and having GREAT conversations with students here. The Lord continues to lead, guide, and open doors.

My computer battery is about to die, but I wanted to at least post that my luggage has come (!) and we're doing well. Much love from the Joneses :)

More Adventures

Well, I'm certainly NOT going to win any awards for consistent posting this school year. The last couple months have been crazy and especially the last few weeks. We're currently on our summer project with the students back in the Middle East where we were last summer (the source of some of the craziness trying to get packed and ready to leave). We just got in early, early this morning our time here after a long day of travel and misadventures. We literally took just about every form of transportation. We took the metro train in Minneapolis to the airport where we were 5 minutes from missing the deadline to check in for a flight due to a large group in front of us. We made it to our gate, loaded the plan and then sat there for 2 hours before we took off due to a few minor issues. Because of that we missed our connecting flight in Amersterdam. So we got to wait there an extra 5 hours (could have been better, but also could have been worse - so grateful it wasn't worse). Then we took off there to land in country where ALL of our luggage managed to be rerouted EXCEPT for 2 of our 3 suitcases which had all of my and Liv's clothes and toiletries. I'm praying to have them by this weekend (welcome to international travel, not as speedy). Then we got on a bus for the 3 hour ride to our city which included a 1 hour ferry ride - see, all the transportation covered.

So right now I'm borrowing Aaron's clothes to sleep in and washing the clothes on my back in the washer. Our living situation here is great. We have bedrooms, a washer, and air conditioning! The weather is absolutely perfect now, but it'll quickly get pretty hot. So we're really grateful to have air this summer. It just got so hot last summer.

This summer we have 15 students and 6 staff. A quieter group than last summer, but so far so good. I think it'll be fun. I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. I will hopefully do a better job updating. I'll try to give you a peak into this summer's adventures.