Back in America!!

Our leaders, Beckie and Andreas, rewarded us for being such a great team by taking us to a resort at the beach in India for a few days. We went on Sunday (21st) afternoon and left before lunch on Tuesday. It was really nice and we loved the beach and the pool! On Monday most of us laid out for a long time and got burned. Bad decision on our parts! Tuesday afternoon, we cleaned where we had been staying and then in the afternoon we went to Little Lights to say goodbye. We did an improv skit about Joshua and the Wall of Jericho and performed our dance for them. We thought they were going to do their program that day too, but they had surprised us on Saturday. I wish we had known they were going to do it then and we would have done ours then because it really hurts to dance with fried legs!! Anyway, they always liked the Bible story skits we did and they said our dance was “super!” We felt like we were supposed to pray for a verse for each child and also their Original Design. Original Design is just asking God for specific things He put in us. In the lecture phase in Orlando, we all got our Original Designs prayed for by the staff. It was pretty cool and really encouraging. So we did that for the kids and got encouraging verses for each of them. Tessa had taken photos of each child, then she put their verse on their picture and we got them printed and framed. We also had a new Little Lights banner made with all the pictures of the kids on it. Tessa did a very good job putting it together. So Tuesday evening, we gave each child their framed photo and Original Design. They loved it and proudly showed each other their photos. We played with them for a while then Beckie and Andreas said it was time to leave. It was really hard to leave! Not only had we gotten close to the kids, but also to the 8 or so girls that staff there. They are great young women that love God so much and have sacrificed a lot to be obedient to him and work with these children for a season. Like I said, it was really hard to leave them, but we were finally torn away.
Wednesday we all repacked our stuff and joyfully threw things away that we didn’t need to make our backpacks lighter. Then I realized with all the stuff I had accumulated over the two months we were there didn’t make my bag that much lighter. But I finally got it all in there. Once we had all gotten everything packed and cleaned we were really ready to go. I was sad to leave India, but I was really excited to go home at the same time. We said goodbye to the staff, some of us tearfully, and left for the airport around 10pm. We made it ok through security and everything and our flight left with no problems around 2 am Thursday morning. There were several good movies on the flight, so that was nice, especially since I don’t sleep well on planes. We had a 10 hour flight to Frankfurt and had about a 6 hour layover. Then on to an 8 hour 45 minute flight to Washington D.C. where we had enough time to get through customs and find our gate, then our new gate, and relax a little bit before we departed. Oh, I forgot to mention that I lost my boarding pass somehow going through customs. I realized it after we had gone upstairs and were heading for our gate. I started freaking out a little bit and searched through all my stuff, but it was nowhere to be found. Beckie, Jackie and Avalon were with me and Andreas came back and said someone had “called it in.” I don’t know how or where he heard it, but he went back downstairs with me and when we asked they said to just have them reprint me one. So all that freaking out for no reason! It was a short and sweet flight just under 2 hours. And we arrived on time at 7:35 pm on the 25th. Beckie had told us that there were going to be staff at the church to greet us so we couldn’t run off to our phones til afterwards. We pulled up to Evangel where we had had classes and were going to be staying and there was no one there. We all joked about how ready we were to see people. They eventually started showing up and that was really nice.
Friday (26th) we had a Wal-mart run and got to see people, including the new students and our staff friends. We also repacked for Mobile team. The team I am on went to Livingston, TX, Wichita, KS and we’re leaving tomorrow for Springdale, AR. We did the youth service at Tori’s church, then the youth service at my church, and I don’t know what we’re doing in AR yet. It’s been great to be back in the good old US of A!! We’ve done a ton of traveling in the last week though. Continue to pray for me and my team for clarity on what to do next, especially for me!