Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Flight to India

World Race update:

Amber's squad left Atlanta GA yesterday, and flew to JFK. After a short layover they boarded Air India for their 13 hour flight to New Dehli India. LONG flight!!!

I was doing "ok". Until I pulled up the flight aware app, and saw her plane leaving the 'safety' of the US and flying across the ocean. Tears of joy and pride, and sadness, and lonliness, and wonderment fell. And then I realized I was at work and had to get back to bagging candy.

Emergency Landing
I was laying in bed and as I was drifting off to sleep, my phone chimed that I had a message. AMBER!! What this was way to early, they don't land for another 4 hours, what happened? OH no, they crashed....she got sick..... so many thots flying around in my head. "Just check the message Debby!!"

They had an emergency stop in Oslo for a heart problem, (noone on her team)

The layover ended up being 5 more hours.They sat on the plane and extra 5 hours. 

They finally landed in New Dehli, but missed their connecting flight to Bangalore. SO.... they were put up in a gorgeous hotel for the night. Going from this to squattie potties. 
Tonight they fly from New Dehli to Bangalore.

How wonderful it is that God is in control. Even when things dont go our way, He is in control. and, even tho I feel in control I AM NOT!!

Here's Clarence the Elephant. Amber's best friend Maria gave her a miniature elephant to take with her on her journey. This is Clarence saying goodbye to Harold (Marias elephant)

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Counting down the days

Counting down the days until Amber leaves on her World Race.

When Amber left for college, we found Buddy. He traveled  with her everywhere she went. He went to Bible College.  Buddy went to Spain on Ambers cross cultural trip. He went with her to college to for her Bachelors. Buddy is fuzzy and a bit big to take on trip where ounces can count against you.
Buddy needed to stay home. (He was actually passed on to Branden, Ambers youngest brother)


Meet Clarence.
Ambers best friend has an elephant on her dashboard to go with her on her daily travels. She wanted Amber to have a 'friend' with her the next 11 months. Each post about Ambers race, I will include a picture of Clarence's adventures.






I also ordered a map of Asia off of Amazon.  I wanted to be able to visually see where she was sleeping, eating, missionarying, loving, working.

I ordered a poster of Amber from Walmart.
We will take this with us when we have special moments. It will go with us when Branden goes to college. At Thanksgiving she will have a place at the table. At Christmas she will enjoy pizza with us.

I wanted something visual to carry with me every day to remind me to pray for Amber. She made me a bracelet and an anklet. The bracelet was her choice of colors, her favorites.
The anklet symbolizes three special people. The orange (leukemia) is for a dear friend, purple (seizures) for Amber, black (melanoma) for my husband.