I first wanted to start this blog off by giving a shout out
to my amazing family. Not only is today my mother’s birthday (happy birthday
Mommy! I love you!!!), but this weekend is also Father’s day. What makes them
so amazing? Well they are spending those
holiday moments helping me pack, running last minute errands, and reviewing countless
check lists with me. These people deserve some serious medals! It is really
starting to set in that I’m leaving, and seeing my family in action like this
forces me to take a serious look at just how blessed I really am; God is so
good to me, and has shown that undeniably to me every day this past week.
I have gotten a lot of questions about how I will be flying,
so here’s my flight itinerary for my long journey to the jungle. Tomorrow
morning I leave at 6:15am to arrive in Wichita for my first flight that departs
at 9:45am (less than 24 hours away!). I have one plane change in Las Vegas then
I land in LA at 1:30pm (there time). When I get off of the plane in LA one of
my awesome team members will be there to help me get my checked bag and head to
the terminal my international flight will leave out of. I will wait with them
as more team members arrive, and then we will all have dinner and a short
orientation before we start the customs and security business all over again. My
International flight leaves LA at 11pm (1 am here), and I have 14 lovely hours
to kill until I land in Brisbane, Australia (I’m actually very excited for the
long plane ride, I loooooove flying so this will be an awesome experience).
From Brisbane, my team will take another flight to Port Moresby, Papua New
Guinea (the capital of PNG), and after that we have one short flight from Port
Moresby to Wewak (I’m pretty sure it’s only 45 min. or so). Once in Wewak
people from the mission base will be there to greet us and load everything on
to vans to take us to the mission base where we will be staying! After almost
32 hours of straight travel we will have arrived!
It is still surreal to me that in a little over 2 days I
will be on the other side of the world living in a completely different
climate, society, and landscape. I’m not nervous yet, but I know if the “out of
my comfort zone gitters” make an appearance, God will grant me the peace to get
through everything and I will be just fine!
I just want to thank everybody for all their prayer support;
knowing I have countless amounts of people back in the States praying for me
makes everything about this trip more calming. Please continue to pray for me,
but especially that I get everything packed ok, and that my team has no trouble
getting through all the airports safely and efficiently. Even with all these
prayer requests I need to remember to praise God for getting me to this point
that I could afford this trip and am able to go! God is good all the time! All
the time God is good!
That’s it for now (I need to finish packing!). If any of you
lovely folks would like to email me while I’m being a jungle woman my email
address is lydia_newquist@ntm.org.pg
. Now keep in mind it is the jungle and I am 15 hours ahead of you guys, so if
I don’t answer the next day it’s probably the internet acting up.
Thanks again, and keep those prayers coming!
Lydia J
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