we have arrived here in Niamey! Praise the Lord! We know so many have been praying for
this to happen for so long and many of you literally prayed us here during the actual
flight. We thank God for so many people who have helped send us here to Sahel Academy.
The trip over here was rather long, but thankfully, uneventful. The children did
wonderful as we found our way through JFK airport, the Casablanca Airport and then here
in Niamey. Mikaylah really wanted to go ride the belt that took the luggage back to the
handlers, but of course, wasn't allowed:) Both kids did quite a bit of sleeping which was
super for us. On the second leg of the trip to Casablanca, we were given the bulkhead
seats, which allowed us to put Jayson on the floor, and he slept for almost the whole
flight. Mikaylah played her leapster and then slept for a few hours. The kids were great
when we had to wake them up to move. Mikaylah was fantastic in taking her own carry-on as
well.
Some more things to praise God for are that all of our luggage arrived with us. AND, the
customs agent only looked into one bag full of Jayson's toys and sheets and waved us
ahead. As we understand it, the customs agent usually likes to get some cash for big
loads, so this was a huge relief to not have to pay anything. We finally got to bed about
4 in the morning on Saturday and had a few hours sleep. Of course, the kids woke up
earlier than Janice and I because they had all that good sleep on the plane. Today is
Friday and all of us had a normal nights sleep last night, which is fantastic. Hopefully,
we are all on African time already.
Now we have the task of unpacking some of our things. Since we are in temporary housing,
we won't unpack everything until we move into the dorm. We did have a great reunion with
friends here at Sahel. There were so many things were waiting here for us. From a
beautiful sign that the Totman kids hung on the outside wall of our house to welcome us
to the campus, to toys and fresh flowers in every room, "princess sheets" on Mikaylah's bed and
the case of cokes that the Bliss’s left for us in our house.
Tim is out with Dave Totman, our field director right now getting a lesson on driving in Niamey. I am
home with the kids as Jayson is having his noon rest and Mikaylah is doing a puzzle. The kids love
being outside and already feel at home here!
We had a long squishy flight from Indianapolis to Niamey. This picture was taken on the last and most squishy of the flights. Thankfully it was only three hours long and Jayson slept the whole time!
Mikaylah loves having a playground she can walk to. It is conveniently located just outside the front door of the dorm. The day students play here while waiting for their parents to pick them up.
Jayson is just happy to be outside! He doesn't have to be doing anything special just being outside is enough for him! He has already figured out how to open the doors so we have to keep them locked in order to keep our little boy inside! Both our kids have adjusted to the new time zone and Jayson enjoys his nap during "sieste" our noon rest from 1-3pm the hottest part of the day.
