Ready, set, go!

Fly home. Drive to Miami and back. Get visa in Chicago. Drive to Michigan and back. Create budget. Doctor. Vet. Oh yeah, and packing.

The past few weeks have been busy....and, yes, stressful.

This is a unique time in my life. The past three weeks I have had to figure out how to leave well or "uproot" from a place I have called home for most of my life. Saying good-byes, talking to my church, and deciding what to take with me for a year and a half of my life. I had no idea what to expect. Now that I'm here, I'll have to figure out how to start new or "plant" new roots in a country I have never been to before. As you can guess, this intense of a move has caused quite a bit of stress during this time of transition. 

But, I made it! After an hour delay on my flight due to having to remove the baggage of a passenger who was M.I.A., and four hours of air travel (including a beautiful view of Cuba on the way down), I arrived in Quito. The next step was to get through immigration (i.e. wait for 5 minutes while the official examined my visa), identify my bags (i.e. maneuver a cart through a pushy crowd and load those suitcases up), and find my way to the person who was here to meet me (I was expecting one person, but in reality there were 12). When I spotted the man holding a sign with my name and waved at him, I was immediately surrounded by people greeting me and handing me flowers. Who were all these people? I thought. It turned out that a group from the church where I will be working drove the 2 hours to the airport to meet me! What a sweet and welcoming group.

This weekend (and for the next few days) I am staying with a missionary couple who are based in Ecuador. They have graciously provided room for me and I feel at home already. This weekend I have spent time getting to know some of the people I'll be working with and seeing some of the sights of the city. More to come on this later!