We Have Arrived!

We arrived safely at New Hope in Picote about 9:30 a.m. Thursday. After unloading all the luggage, some walked around getting acquainted with our surroundings, some laid out on the trampoline and rested and some tossed a football around for a while. After lunch most took showers and naps!
I, for one, felt the power of prayer throughout our long day and night of travel! Josiah thought Jaegers should allow 1/2 hour Wednesday morning for me to hobble from my house to their vehicle but it didn't take near that long for me to got out and in and settled!
I had purchased LOTS of travel packs of kleenex to bring as I was using them by the bunches at home. I haven't had to use any of them! This has been good for me , but Devan, on the other hand, has already used over half of my total supply. Poor guy, he seemed to be troubled by some allergy or other and was miserable before we reached Minneapolis. He was a little better this morning but is not doing so well this afternoon and evening. Please keep him in your prayers.
I was allowed to use my TENS machine in airports and on the plane so never got tense and never had a headache. PTL!
The flight from Atlanta to Fortaleza was not full so there was plenty of room that the team members who wished to could move and have a whole row of seats to themselves. Because I am short this allowed me to lay down and sleep several hours of that 8 hour flight!
Immigration and customs went smoothly for everyone but Luke and Josiah. The flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta was so full that the powers that be decided the larger carry ons should be checked and assured us that they would arrive at our final destination with us. Not so! Josiah's bag contained all of his clothes. Other team members have been nice enough to share some of their clean clothes with him. However, he declined to accept the use of the articles of clothing I offered to share!
The journey from the airport to New Hope in Picote was anything but uneventful! Al had planned for Ron to drive one car with some of the team members. Ron thought he was okay with that, after all, all he had to do was follow Al, right? The car I was in had 3 team members and 2 Brazilians. At the last minute it was decided that one of the Brazilians should exchange places with Ron. Long before we reached New Hope, Ron realized what a tremendous blessing it was to be a passenger rather than a driver!
The roads were narrow and very busy with all kinds of motor vehicles, motor bikes weaving in and out following their own set of rules if any rules at all, lots of foot traffic on the very edge of the road and various small home-grown businesses on the very edge of the road. The closer we got to New Hope, the road got narrower, steeper and more winding and eventually they became something I am not sure you could truthfully call roads.
Al was driving an old pick up with most of our luggage in the back and 2 team members in with him. One driver had and old SUV with the rest of the luggage and several team members. Then there were 3 small cars with the rest of the team. Al had preplanned that I would ride with Ricardo. Ricardo is a tax attorney in Fortaleza and had the newest, nicest car complete with air-conditioning. He had bottles of cold water and snacks waiting for each of us in his car to make our 2 1/2 hour ride to New Hope more enjoyable. He was also the only driver besides Al that spoke any English so we also had our own private tour guide. No doubt about it the Lord has been treating me very special! I wish all the team members could have rode up with Ricardo.
Ricardo had only been to New Hope once before and that was with Al driving. So as we, and the driver behind us, who had never been to New Hope lagged behind and got separted from the group it was kind of like the blind leading the blind. A wrong turn necessitated backing down a VERY steep non-road. The other driver ended up backing off the road and into a tree but with no significant damage to people, car or tree. Ricardo kept apologizing to us. Ron, Luke, Carinna and I kept telling him it was no big deal. After the car/tree incident I told Ricardo maybe he should apologize to the other driver but for the rest of us it was all part of the adventure!
New Hope is definetely a construction site, but it is surrounded by beautiful vegetation and colorful flowers. It is much quieter and a lot less hot and humid than in Fortaleza. Just before lunch Al had a Brazilain chop down a bunch of bananas and some of us were privileged to eat tree ripened bananas.
The story so far from Linda's point of view!!

Thank you for your prayers and please remember to say a special prayer for Devan!!!