Safe and Sound Arrival

Praise the Lord for a safe arrival to South Africa. The past week has been a whirlwind of activity. Beau and I flew home on Jan 3 to do wedding planning with Mom and then we flew back to College Station the afternoon of the 8th. January 9th was my friend Kellie Williamson's wedding near Bastrop. Somewhere in there, with the help of Beau, I was able to do laundry, pack, and shop for some necessities for the Ulrich's. Did I mention that we got an e-mail 2 days before we left stating we had to register to take Texas State Boards by Feb 19--one day before I get back to the states! Crazy time.
Sunday morning I had breakfast with some of my friends and then Beau took me to the airport in Houston. I had checked to make sure I was allowed 2 carry-on bags on-line, but upon check-in they told me I could only have 1. Praise God for His favor, the lady checked it as a "courtesy luggage" and so I did not have to pay $200 for a third bag. Saying goodbye to Beau was much harder than I imagined. I know though that the Lord will use this time to grow us closer to Himself and to each other. It took me over an hour to get through security--just in time to run up the escalator, down the terminal, hand them my boarding pass and walk onto the plane.
The first leg of my flight went from Houston to Amsterdam. I sat between a lady from India and a man from Russia. I visited with the Russian man who works for an oil/gas company in the states for about half of the flight. He was very nice. Towards the end of the flight the woman next to me woke up and I visited with her for a while. She has lived in Houston for 8 years and was flying home to suprise her mom who has been sick. Max, the Russian, was very nice and hung out with me during our short lay-0ver in Amsterdam. He flies through there often and was very helpful in navigating the airport. He even bought me a coffee (which are TINY compared to Starbucks in America!).
The second leg of my flight was from Amsterdam to Jo-burg. We were required to go through security again before boarding the plane, which caused us to be 1.5 hours behind schedule. They are trying to crack down on security after the incident that happened over Christmas. During this leg, I sat between a German man and a man from the Netherlands. They were very nice, but I was so exhausted I slept for about 80% of the flight. At one point the stewardess woke me up for ice cream. I just dazily looked at her and shook my head that I didn't want any, and the German guy said, "I'll take yours if you don't want it!". Once we landed in Jo-burg, I met a young lady from Zimbabwe who is in school at Univ. of Penn. She is a believer and we had some great conversation when waiting in line for our Visa's. She has never been to Texas and really is wanting some real "sports". I told her I could probably help with that!
All of my luggage arrived (PRAISE THE LORD). I had strategically distributed all articles of clothing evenly so that in the unfortunate event of a lost bag, I would not be without any "essentials"! They waved me through customs and I had no problems meeting up with the Ulrich's. They were decked out in their Kansas State purple so they were kind of hard to miss! We stayed in a guest house overnight in Jo-burg and the kids (Logan 15, Rebecca 14, and Micah 11) did some post-Christmas shopping. We arrived tonight, Jan 12, in Mmabatho around 7:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. central time).
Well, I am off to bed. Going to go help my body recover from the jetlag. Thank you all for your prayers. I will keep you updated and know I am praying for you! In Christ alone!