Showing posts with label adventures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventures. Show all posts

Saturday, April 07, 2007

From the Road: Blackwell, OK

The snow finally stopped. It didn't stick but it was quite a sight. Our poor bodies are chapped from head to toe. I keep buying new moisturizers and chapstick, trying to find one that will do me some good. Everyone promises that it will be warmer by Monday but on Monday we are headed somewhere (theoretically) warmer. (Though at this point I have heard so many promises about weather that I'm not sure that I won't need my jacket.) We've now been to Oklahoma City and Stillwater. We've eaten at Ted's and Eskimo Joe's and too many other places to mention. In fact, tonight I had my first homecooked meal since we arrived.

I'm sitting in the church office in Blackwell using the secretary's computer (shhh...don't tell!) while my mother-in-law gets ready for Sunday School in the morning. I thought I'd take advantage of this opportunity to catch up on my email and fill everyone in on what is next. So here you go--the infamous schedule:

Monday, April 9--to Las Cruces, NM (sorry, Ginger, we're flying)

Thursday, April 12--to Dallas, TX for the Sponsoring Church Workshop

Saturday, April 14--to Athens, TX

Wednesday, April 25--to Denison, TX

Friday, April 27--to Myrtle Beach, SC (yes, we have supporters there, we're not just going on vacation!)

Monday, April 30--to Raleigh, NC

Wednesday, May 4--to Dallas, TX

Thursday, May 5--to Stillwater, OK for Russell's brother's graduation (those who know him will appreciate the significance of this event!)

Monday, May 7--to Branson, MO

Friday, May 11--to Winnipeg, Canada

Thursday, May 17--to Wichita, KS

Saturday, May 19--to Oklahoma City, OK

Saturday, June 2--back to Brazil!

(We're going to sneak up to Tulsa at some point, too, but we're not exactly sure when yet.)

Just typing that schedule exhausted me. As you can well imagine, we need your prayers to get through this marathon. Please pray for good health, lots of energy and safe travels. Pray that we get to see exactly who we need to see and that we say all that needs to be said. Please pray that we make the best use of all our resources, especially time and money. And finally, please join us in thanks to God that we get to make this trip. We already have had such wonderful time with our friends, family and supporters.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Go ahead, ask me about my day.

Today I've got a good story.

This afternoon we had to go to a meeting at Travis and Alicia's. They have offered to watch Samson while we're gone but they have two cats. Today seemed a perfect opportunity for the big meeting with the cats, too.

When we got there, Randy, Jenn, Matt and Mary were all in the lobby waiting for the elevator. It arrived after a minute or two and we all got in. It was a tight fit, with the dog crate and all, since the elevator is only about 4x6 at most. The door closed and then nothing. we made sure we'd pushed the button and tried pushing other buttons.

All of a sudden we went up. Just a little. Then the door opened and...there was a big concrete wall there.

At the very bottom you could see the door that goes to the lobby but only about a foot of it. And here in Brazil, there are generally doors on every floor of the elevator that are locked and only unlock when the elevator arrives on the floor. It just had some little holes in it.

So it was the six of us and Sam. None of the buttons worked. We tried pushing the alarm button and the button to call the doorman. Nothing.

Matt figured out that his cell phone worked so we called Alicia and told her to call downstairs. While he was on the phone, someone in the lobby opened the door to get on and discovered us.

In the minutes that followed there was all sorts of opening the door to check on us and passing messages on--we're calling the repair man, the repair man is coming, the repair man is stuck in traffic, etc.

We passed everyone's bags through to make more space and eventually Travis showed up and we gave him Sam. (The dog crate didn't fit through the hole so we just put it up on its size, effectively doubling the available floorspace.)

Eventually some genius downstairs figured out that it would be better if they left that door open so we could, you know, BREATHE! (There was a fan in the elevator, but after all, we were six people stuck in a tiny elevator. In the tropics.)

After even more time, one of the maintenance guys brought an electric fan and stood there holding it up for us. that helped a LOT.

Anyway, we were stuck in there over 50 minutes, all told. We had a can of Coke Zero which I sacrificed for the team, passing it around. (we also had our lunch: a frozen pizza that I had cooked but we hadn't had time to eat so we just brought it with us but the pizza was sausage and onions and didn't seem like a good thing to eat in the situation so we passed it with the bags.)

Finally we were freed...to get to walk the seven flights of stairs up to Travis and Alicia's!