I will spend a few blog post journaling our time in Lebanon. I will also write at least one post on the meaning of our work and the work that is being done there. Here is post one of the journal.
Our family boarded a plane on March 9th headed to Lebanon. Thanks to our good friend, Michael, who dropped us off at the Atlanta airport and helped us carry our 5 large bags, 2 child-caring backpacks, 3 kids and 2 gait trainers into the airport. Another great perk is that Michael works for the airport so he was able to go with us all the way to our gate. We made it through security very easily...so glad everyone prayed for it because I was a little nervous about it. The 8 1/2 hour plane ride to London was great. All 3 kids did very well. Nathan and Owen slept most of the time and Logan enjoyed watching some movies. We had a 5 hour layover in London, which was a great amount of time to get everyone fed, some time to walk around and hang out with an elderly lady from Beirut. She heard we were traveling to Beirut and asked if she could stay with us. She did not walk well, so Preston pushed her around in the wheelchair. She absolutely loved Logan and he was so glad she was spending time with us too. She kept hugging him and blowing him kisses. She told us, "where you go, I will go".
We arrived around 9:30 at night. Our team leader Steve and fellow team member, Ryan waited up at the guest house to help us take everything to our room. We had two rooms next to each other. It worked really well. We all slept in one and made the other one our play room. When Nathan and Owen napped in the afternoon, Logan and I would play and do homework in the room next door.
We stayed on the campus of the Arabic Baptist Theological Seminary. We walked up the hill to the cafeteria for most of our meals. Everyone working for ABTS was so nice!! The cooks were seminary students who would take turns working in the cafeteria. There are people from all of the Middle East and Africa. It was really nice to be able to meet them and hear a few of their stories.
Our team was made up of a great group of people. Everyone had such a mission heart, so friendly, their to work hard and just a real joy and encouragement to be around. Logan was particularly fond of Judi, the landscape architect from NY. Every day he had to sit by her at every meal. He would ask throughout the day if we could play with her, but I had to remind him that she was working on the design of the new school. Judi was so great with Logan, always so encouraging and friendly to him...so they sat together at every meal. He loved everyone. He named our two team leaders, Beardface 1 and Beardface Google. He played lots of the time with Ryan and Raja. Everyone was so welcoming to everyone in the family. Our group was made up of people from every engineering discipline, 4 architects, 1 lady who was a retired special needs teacher/administrator and our family.
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