We're off!!!!

"Get out of your country...to a land that I will show you." Gen 12:1

After much packing--including linens, pillows, hard hats, gloves, and trowels--we were on our way. We drove from home on Thursday, Dec 18th, wearing our Maranatha Chile t-shirts, to Atlanta. There we hopped on a big plane at about 6:30 pm for the first leg to Miami.

Upon arriving in Miami we made our way to the another gate for the overnight flight to Santiago, Chile. When we came off an elevator, we saw another family wearing Maranatha Chile t-shirts. I'll always remember one of their girls' excitement at seeing us in our shirts. Madelyn was especially glad to see some girls her age.

(Sleepily waiting in the Miami airport.)

As we waited for our flight we got to know the Kretschmar family better--Joe and Jeannie and their kids Julie (who is at Georgia-Cumberland Academy), Brian, Melissa, and Tori (11 year old triplets). Joe is the son of Juanita Kretschmar, one of the greatest Christians that we've ever met. Of course the kids had no problem at all jumping right into new friendships. Eventually Jim and Ruth Smith, a sweet older couple from Oregon, appeared at our gate. It seems funny how shy we felt toward those whom we now consider family. I plan to make it a priority to not let this happen next time, but rather to consider them family right of the bat.

We managed to sleep some during the overnight flight, which ended up getting in to Santiago an hour late. After dragging through customs it was a relief to walk out of the airport into the bright sunshine and see Dick and Brenda Duerksen there waiting for members of the team. Brenda even cheered when she saw us. It was so sweet! Dick is the host of Maranatha Mission Stories on TV, so we felt like we knew him already.

We boarded two tour buses where most of the group was already waiting for what turned out to be about a 12 hour ride to Freire. It actually gave us a lot of time to get acquainted and get some extra sleep. The kids didn't sleep at all, however. They were far too excited, especially as several more 11 and 12 year old girls joined the group, including Courtney and Kindsey Calvert from Alaska, with their parents John and Sandi.

(It usually looked far more crowded and active in the girls section!)

The country side reminded us of California: arid with cactus, eucalyptus trees, hills, and mountains in the distance with snow, including a couple of volcanoes.

(The Andes Mountains in the distance.)

There was one stop for a bathroom break at a neat row of fruit and souvenir stands. We all enjoyed the opportunity to get out and stretch our legs, use the bathroom, and buy a drink. Although the fruit looked tempting, we didn't buy any. We were scared straight by all of Maranatha's warnings about Montezuma's Revenge (the local water causing gastro-intestinal distress to Northerners).

(Madelyn, not touching the fruit.)

At the rest stop we met a wonderful family from Sweden who were riding in the other bus, Andre and Anette Frank and their kids Joel (11) and Lina (12). There were a lot of eleven and twelve year-olds on this trip.

We stopped to eat supper at the Adventist University where I encountered my first Chilean bathroom. What?!? No toilet seats, one roll of tissue for 3 or 4 stalls, trash cans in the stalls to put the paper in (don't flush it!), no hand towels? I could deal with most of that except for the lack of toilet seats! Fortunately this was not the case with other bathrooms we encountered. Whew! However, we were constantly struggling to remember not to flush the paper.

The campus was beautiful and expansive, and the supper was very good. We had some really interesting local salads with heart of palm and with lemon wedges for dressing. Lemon and onion are very widely used for flavoring food in Chile.

The girls got us all started singing Christmas carols that evening back on the bus. We're used to Christmas not being very wintery at home in Alabama, but it was even stranger in the summer in Chile.

We arrived at a local school dormitory in Freire around midnight to Steve Yeagley's smiling face. He was the project leader, and he has done about 20 of these trips before. He was ready to help settle us in and saw to our every need. He had even given the big hot water heater an extra burn (they normally just heat it once per day) so that we could take hot showers.

There were several wings of bunk-bed cubicles in the boarding school. These were small three-sided rooms with two bunk beds each. If you climbed on the top bunk, you could look over each cubicle all the way to the bathroom at the end of the hall. We did have a plastic sheet over the door to provide some privacy, but there was no way to talk without being overheard. Those who need their solitude had a tough time on this trip. We were fortunate to be given two rooms, so we did have enough room to spread out our luggage.

Once we made our beds, we were out like a light. We were glad that it was Sabbath so that we could rest the next day! The Sabbath rest never looked so good!