Here we go

I'm having issues with my blog, so I hope this works. We might have to stick to e-mail updates if not. Grr.
Anyways, I MADE IT TO BOLIVIA!! Wohoo! Thank you so much for your prayers, I made it to Santa Cruz Bolivia after an exhausting day of travel. However, the good news is that I was so happy and relieved to be here that I didn't even care (that it was such a long day)! It was a day of miracles. I think so at least...There were approximately 500 flights canceled out of O'Hare that day that I left. But mine wasn't!! The lady who took me to the airport kept saying, "if this flight goes out I'll be blown away!" (because we had so much snow the day and night before), but I just said, "yeah... BUT there are a lot of people out there praying for this flight to go out today". And it DID! I knew God would come through for us. Then I almost missed my flight out of Miami due to delays, but a lady let me cut in line and then they pulled me up to the front of the security line (there were like hundreds of people in line).
I arrived in Santa Cruz a little after 11. Immigration, customs and baggage claim went so much more smoothly then I feared. Karen and Neal and their 5 kids, Carl, Abi, Nathan, Tomas and Tessa met me at the airport. I'll be staying with them for about a week then I'll go on to Cochabamba to meet up with the Timmers and the ministry that I'll be helping with there. Karen's been a good friend for years, incidentally she used to babysit for me and my siblings, so I would say she knows me pretty well. She's kind of been one of my mentors ever since I started praying about doing missions work. She and her family have been in Bolivia for almost 6 years, I think. It's been very nice to be here with them, and they've been able to give me a pretty good briefing of Bolivia...it's a good foundation to work with at least.

Oh, and let me just say that the week of missionary training was GREAT! I learned a lot more about the organization International Teams- more in-depth of their core values and also about a lot of the ministries that they are doing around the world. It was so cool to see what God is doing through this organization. I also met a bunch of other people training to serve around the world. I had three great roommates, 2 of whom will join me in Bolivia during the summer. You can pray for them too as they fund-raise, apply for visas and all that fun stuff.Never had I met people who from the very beginning cared about me so much. I was very encouraged. One of the girls had been to Coch last summer so I even got to see pictures and hear stories about what we'll probably be doing.

Happy Superbowl Sunday! (We will be celebrating here, just in case you wondered!)
Love.
Kristen