I Made It!

Well. I made it! It's been a week since I've been here. 

The flights here were way easy, besides a guy who refused to let me put my seat back to sleep! But overall, it didn't feel as if I had just traveled for 24 hours. 

We had a crazy experience in Germany! Our first plane from San Francisco got in a little bit late, so when we landed in Germany, we had 5 minutes til boarding on our next plane! Well, if you have ever been to the Frankfurt airport, you'll know it's not small. At all. We ran for 40 straight minutes, took a train, and barely made the flight! We were the very last ones on the plane. Nickoli put it in good words saying "It felt like we were on the amazing race!" He was right. I saw Levi get a look from a guy giving him dinner when Levi pointed out who all was with him. "FIVE kids!?" It was too funny.

Jet lag stinks. My new sleeping hours are 8pm- 4am. And no matter how hard I try, I can't stay up past 8 and I can't sleep past 4. But at least I'm getting 8 hours of sleep, yeah? 

Wednesday morning we went and met the moms of all the forever family houses. And then on Friday I got to meet the 13 kids in the intake center! My heart melted as little Nati grabbed my hand and walked me downstairs, and as I played peek-a-boo with a little girl, Kalkidan. 

We've gone to lunch and dinner with American friends, and I must say, it was nice to be able to understand them! (Levi said that I can take Amharic classes if I want...yes PLEASE!) 

And we went to a NGO Bizarre, a place for forenges(sp?)(foreigners) to go and mingle and shop. I saw a woman who looked like Angela Porras, and I almost cried right there. (Miss you Angela!) 

Sunday we went to church. Jessie stayed home to finish unpacking and such and I got tapped on the shoulder twice with people saying "Jessie! You're back!" As Ruth would say, I said "I'm not Jessie!" and they responded "Well then who are you!?" That's not exactly how it went, but close enough! 

Yesterday, Monday, I went over to the office to get information about all the sponsorship kids. The stories I heard broke my heart. Mother, father, or both parents dead from HIV. The kids diagnosed with HIV. Paralyzed. Vision problems. The list goes on and on, and my heart just broke and broke. Seeing pictures with the names and stories made it even worse. And in two weeks I get to meet these kids! I'm excited to meet the sponsorship families, and the kids in the forever families. 

Today, I woke up at 3:30, sick to my stomach! It's not pleasant. Moving hurts. No food will stay down. And the fetal position is my new favorite position. Not a fun day. 

Well there's my first week! I'm hoping in this next week I can get a little bit more normal sleeping hours! 

Thank you Jesus for allowing me to go on this amazing adventure! Use me to be Your light to everyone I encounter! 

For understanding of more of the technical terms (forever families, sponsorship families, intake center, etc.) head on over to bringlove.in and browse around and it will all be explained to you!