My next trip

For those who do not know by now, I'm heading on another missions trip. This time to Africa. I leave this Sunday, March 20th, and arrive the next day.

It's been over a year since I've left North America, so I'm very excited! A little sad that it means my chance of getting a car are pretty much gone, now, though since I've used the little bit of money I had tried to save up for the car for this trip. I still owe a bit for the trip, too, however, so any prayer and financial support would be greatly appreciated!

This is a trip of many firsts, too. First time in Burkina Faso. First time in the Brussels airport. First time to fly internationally by myself. First time in the Burkina Faso airport, too, of course. Although, technically, almost every trip I go on has "firsts", I guess what makes this one special is that I know the "firsts" before they come! LOL! That and I love adding more countries to my passport, so I get to mark off one more country on my list. As well as a new airport experience to my memory.

Originally I was going to to try and fly with Deb last Sunday, and fly into Accra (where we usually fly into West Africa). However, I could not get on her flight. Then it looked like I could not get the two required visa's back in enough time to leave even close to the beginning of this week (I needed Ghana and Burkina Faso). Then the idea came to us. They're over there, making their way up to Burkina Faso this week, traveling with a few meetings; what if I missed the traveling part? If flew in to meet them in Burkina Faso, instead, I would miss the long road trip and acquire another week to get my visa's. Since that seemed the only option, really, I booked my flight for next Sunday heading to Burkina Faso and then sent my passport off to the DC embassy for my first visa. Thankfully, I got my first visa (Burkina Faso) back on a Saturday and could have sent it off for the next one. But then it occurred to us of one more thing (and one less worry for me: will my passport get back in time to fly out next Sunday?) when I googled embassy's and found that there is an embassy over in Burkina Faso! And since we'll be there about a week, it'll be plenty of time to take it by hand and pick it up by hand a couple days later, all before heading to the next country! So I'm all ready to go now, just waiting till Sunday comes!

Does that mean I'm packed? Ha! Are you joking? I've got the suitcases, the carry-on, and my little backpack sitting in the middle of my floor. A pile of possibilities in the clothing department on my African hope-chest. A pile of bags with random objects of things I have to take for Deb & Fred (a couple Deb couldn't fit in her suitcases) sitting around the suitcases on the floor...but packed? NO! Just thinking. Mostly I've been doing work on my laptop, making sure everything I like or can't live without it backed up on my external hard-drive I'll leave at home. And everything I might need while I'm gone (like at some point I've got to work on PSE and make our usually mailing and other items for our Women's Conference coming up in May) is on my laptop, with room to create or do whatever on my laptop (since the hard-drive is apparently too small for everything!)...

My schedule...for this week:
Hopefully, tomorrow, I'll finish editing the last video of the Twelve Tribes. Pack. And fit church meeting in there somewhere...Thursday my Mom comes to hang out for a date, as she'll be in Buffalo for a few days, so that day is mostly taken up with that and seeing if I can employ her as a chauffeur to make a quick run to Walmart as well...Friday will be laundry and finish packing, as much as possible (there's always a few essentials that a person doesn't pack until just before they head out the door--like a toothbrush--unless they happen to own doubles of the items)

LOL! I know, y'all are probably wondering what my AFRICA schedule is, not this week...well, I'll be...so picky!

Anywhooos...give me a couple minutes to find what little bit of the Africa schedule I know...I wrote it down somewhere...la, la, la...Ok, can't find it. What's more, I haven't got Fred's Google Calendar yet, so I can't see the schedule again to remind me. So sorry, for building up all our hopes. Hopefully I'll get access to the Calendar later and have time to post the schedule then. Although, if I remember right, there should be a schedule for Fred's whole three-month trip on Davismission, which includes when I'll be there. For those who are wondering, I'll be flying to come home from Accra, Ghana, April 13th (on a different flight then Deb, again, though our planes will know of each other since it's all about the same time and places) and arrive a couple hours earlier then Deb in the Buffalo Airport that Thursday, April 14th, morning.

I also hope that my access to the Internet won't be to shaky during the whole trip so I might post occasional updates, but sometimes even just connecting long enough to send an e-mail gets interesting. So we'll just have to see what happens!

Keep me in your prayers throughout, and may God bless y'all abundantly!
<>< Hannah Joy