Anapolis - Days 1 & 2

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for the prayers. By the way, Auny...dinner and a movie...we flew TAM, which is Brazilian. Not sure if other international flights do that. I kind of assume they would though, since you are traveling so long in some cases, but maybe not. Did Brock have that sort of thing when he traveled overseas to do the Discovery Channel show?

Anyhow...update on us...we arrived in Brasilia around 7AM yesterday morning and were picked up by Steve, our main contact here. He drove us to Anapolis where we grabbed a bite to eat for breakfast (cheesy bread...Joel said that there are lots of pastries here) and then went shopping. We then went to Steve and Kristin's house for lunch and then for a tour of Asas de Socorro's offices, hangar, and flight school. We had a small break where we were able to take about an hour nap before we went back to Steve and Kristin's for supper. There we met Rezindes and Edna, Haidi, Brian and Shirlee, and Josemil and Drucilla. Rezindes is the president of Asas de Socorro. They are all SUPER great people...and, a big plus, they are also REALLY fun.

After supper and some socializing, we came back and crashed...after getting about 2-3 hours of sleep at the most on our flights down. By the way, the place we are staying is great. It is a little "suite" on the side of a house...they are retired Asas people. They now work doing other things ministry-wise here in Anapolis. But, we have a room with a sink, little fridge, and microwave, and a bathroom all to ourselves.

Today we woke up and Joel went flying and got checked out doing several things in the air. I went and did a little "devotional" with Kristin, Edna, and Drucilla. Then we went to Brian and Shirlee's for lunch. Joel then had a maintenance test and I watched a video about Asas and learned some more about the bases they have along the Amazon. After Joel's test, Kristin and I drove him to have part of his psychological evaluation done (I will have that too...I think tomorrow) and then we ran some errands. We picked him up and then went for some Brazilian ice cream...not quite the same as my wonderful Baskin Robbins, but still good. Now we are back in our room resting for about 30 minutes before we have to go to supper.

2 pieces of fun news:
1. We have access to wireless internet on our laptop here in our room. We thought we'd just try it, but didn't really expect to get it. Well, I guess either the couple we are staying with has it, or someone really nearby, but we can email in our room now, even though we are hardly ever here.
2. Our bags should be getting here around 7PM...a huge answered prayer. Thanks so much for praying for that.

Anyway, that's about it for the update. Oh, and our kids are doing great. They are enjoying their gifts each day that we left for them and their time with Grandpa, Grandma, and extended family there in Boston. Joel's mom said that once yesterday they asked about us, but she just got the book that I wrote for them (I wrote a little book "illustrated" with stickers explaining that we were taking a trip and what they would be doing, etc....we read it for a few days before we left, just to prepare them) and read it and they were fine...didn't ask anything else about us.

Better go. We have about 10 minutes to walk to where we are having supper.

I'll update more tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers. We are having a great time.