Niger Here We Come!

Fly from Edmonton to Montreal, from Montreal to Paris, from Paris to Niamey, Niger, WEST AFRICA! AHHH. (equals TWO days of flying.) Eat your Malaria pills, don't drink their water, watch out for dogs with rabies, wear sunscreen, wear a hat, dont step on thorns or rusty nails, don't get sun stroke, dress modestly, only shake hands when first asked, sleep with a mosquito net-NOTE TO SELF!!!
Well its official, its only a number of hours before we leave. I am getting SUPER excited, and a little anxious. Can you tell?!!!! This past week has been a VERY busy one for us. We had our last 5 hour Africa meeting on Sunday, and all we did was plan, plan, plan. All I am doing tonight is pack pack packing (and I managed to fit a hair appointment in too! haha) I cant have the Africans see my roots. I am such a girl, I apologize. haha But it has been over half a year I think, so it is desperately needed!
So just wanted to let ya'll know if you want to get updates from us while we are gone you can email projectniger@gmail.com and you will be added to the list. I mentioned briefly what we will be doing in Africa before, but here is a tiny update. We are travelling to 2 different villages in the time we are there. The main city we will be in is Niamey, the capital of Niger. We will be teaching University students basic and intermediate English. Spending time in an orphanage, AIDS/HIV prevention and education to children and youth, kids clubs, distribution of solar lights to villages with no electricity, food distribution, prayer walks, and visiting with some military something rather (I don't really know). I am getting so excited to see what God is going to do through us. On the way home we will be stopping in Paris for 2 days to debrief, and muffle some of our jet-lag. I am REALLY excited for that too, although I have a feeling it will be major culture shock. I don't think I'll be able to post until we get back, so I apologize for the boring-ness of this blog until then. Thank you for those who will be praying while we are gone, and for those who have been already! We really, truly appreciate it so much. I don't like to fly very much!!!! Well talk to you all in April!

Pictures from the WINDY CITY

Well here are some photos from our trip to Chicago. Due to the early mornings, Danny I would drive ourselves to get Starbucks so that we could function normally. MMM Caramel Macchiatos...

These first two pics are of Willow Creek Community Church, where the Youth Leadership Conference was held. They made a really cool set for the conference giving the stage an urban youthy feel. I could NOT get over how big this place was.

A few nights into our trip I was fortunate enough to have a good visit with my friend Charisa from Capernwray in New Zealand! She took me to one of the largest Starbucks' I have ever seen, so I was a happy camper. She lives in the Chicago area, so it was nice to be with someone who knew their way around.

On our travels we were able to eat at a handful of different restaurants. One of the more exciting ones was the Rainforest Cafe. This place is literally a "mock" rainforest, that has life-like animals everywhere that move or make noise every 10 minutes, and misty "rain" that falls from the ceiling every once and a while too.
The food was relatively good too, which is always a bonus. :)

What a nice little lion.

We spent all of our last day there in downtown Chicago, shopping, and seeing the city. It was fun because there was so much to see, but holy smokes was it ever windy and chilly! The boys went crazy over the Apple store, checking out all the latest tech stuff. The architecture inside the store itself was really cool too.

Here I am outside Tiffany's the jewellery store. I was REALLY happy as you can tell, because I love looking at diamonds...and this was my first time at the store. Very pretty, but much too pricey.

Eventually we made it to the John Hancock building that was so high up, at times it was almost too scary to even look out the window. But it was right on the lake, that I am still convinced is actually an ocean. We even got the chance to clean their windows. haha

It was absolutely beautiful up there as the sun was setting, to see all the lights of the city. It really was breathtaking.

On our last night we went out to this delicious restaurant called the Macaroni Grill. The name kind of throws you off, but it was actually quite fancy inside. It was suprising however, because they gave us crayons to color on the crisp white paper table cloths. Hey I'm not going to argue if someone wants me to color! Bring it on!

And here we are waiting for our FIRST ariplane. But of course, if you read my previous blog, you would know that we ended up getting off that plane, and were put up in the HILTON instead, for the night...Not too shabby. I'm just glad I didn't run into Paris Hilton there. YIKES!

WE'RE BAAAAAACK

Well I know you are all just anxiously waiting to hear how our trip went. Eagerly sitting at your computer to catch my latest blog...so here it is! However, there is some bad news along with this. The pictures will have to wait until tomorrow. Except for this one taken at the top of the John Hancock building downtown Chicago. It was SO gorgeous up there! But I will get more pictures up soon, I promise! Okay, so now where to start? Well overall, the trip was AWESOME. The flight there wasn't too bad, although at one point I thought for sure I was going to die because we are on some tiny United plane, and we dropped I swear like 200 feet. Which is probably a HUGE exaggeration, but it was the biggest drop I or anyone else had ever done on a plane. I was actually floating. Okay, I am exaggerating again. haha Oh, and Danny had food poinsoning, so he was puking in the loo. How nice. Anyways, we arrived in Chicago late Tuesday night, and drove to South Barrington, missing one exit, and adding an extra hour to a 30 minute drive. Good times. We had rented 2 vehicles, both stinkin nice and brand new, WITH heated seats-which I LOVE. I think every person should be so fortunate to drive with heated seats. Anyways, the weather was nippy there, same as Edmo...cold and a little snow. We went to the conference Wednesday to Friday, which was SO GREAT. I wish it could have been longer, but there was a lot of info to digest so it was probably a good thing that it ended when it did. Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors was the highlight speaker for me. He was very humble and easy to listen to while at the same time being extremely subtly funny. If you haven't read his book "Blue Like Jazz" that is a MUST read book in my opinion. Anywho, the conference had some great speakers from across America, some who really did "preach it" and others that simply taught. The worship bands were good, and the church was seriously HUGE. I think in a regular week they have about 25 000 people attend at least one of their services. Crazy hey? It was really neat for us to see how they do their programs and run their church. Overall, the conference was great, I feel like I want to implement some good things we learned sooner than later. The shopping in South Barrington was fun too, did a lot of that. I didn't buy that much, but it was fun to see all the shops, and eat at different restaurants. I was fortunate enough to get to see my friend Charisa from Capernwray too! We went to the largest Starbucks ever, I wish I would have taken a picture of it. Very nice to catch up.

On our "last" night there, our crew went to see the sights and shop the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. I went into Tiffany's for the first time, which was so great. I love diamonds-HOLLA! And there was so much shopping, it was nuts. I didn't buy anything though because it is all high-end, and well let's be honest here, I'm not a millionaire.

Our adventure on the way home was, well exactly that, an adventure. We are sitting on our plane at 8:30 pm waiting for take off for nearly 45 minutes. Eventually a voice comes up on the speakers saying that they needed to add more fuel to the plane because they weren't sure they would be able to land in Edmonton, so they would maybe have to go to Calgary as an alternate root, therefore they needed more fuel to get there. I'm thinking, okay... now let's go. But nooooo. Because of the extra weight of the fuel, they asked that 13 people would get off the plane, and they would give you travel vouchers and your luggage. 13 people! There was only maybe 70 of us on the plane in the first place, so that is a LOT of people to kick off. So, Danny and I decided that we were sick of waiting, and got off the plane, along with Rod Stewart's band and their groupies. haha, yeah I guess Rod Stewart's band was on the plane with us. But then once we got off the airline told us we couldn't have our luggage anymore....there was a mistake. So I was a little frustrated to say the least. Rod Stewart's band then got back on the plane because they needed their hair gel. ha I don't know. Anyways, then the airline had to go back on the plane to start begging that 3 more people would get off. Eventually Chet and Dee, a couple that we were with came off the plane, and this other dude. So the plane didn't leave until 10pm, and they arrived back in Edmonton around 1:30 at night! We were put in a HILTON hotel at the airport that was quite nice, and they gave us travel vouchers. But I was so worked up from everything taking so long, and bothered that I had to wash my face with a bar of soap and sleep in my clothes, that I didn't sleep that well. We got home in the afternoon yesterday and I went straight to work. We were exhausted. Not exactly the best way to end a trip, but hey we got $800 American towards a flight to any destination of our choice, so I can't really complain!