Brazil rocks; Day 1

As many of you know, I'm in Brazil now for about 10 days. I have limited net access but will post things as I can. Look for bursts of traffic. Since I have enough to say and only spotty posting ability, I'll try to limit my usual. personal ramblings.

Day 1- 24 hours of plane heaven
-----

It's about 1am and I'm midway on my flight to Rio from Miami; all seems well so far but it's in the hands of God regardless.

Knowing the will of God isn't a matter ot getting some special insight into the plan of God. Only by being conformed to His image do we come to value the things He values, love the things He loves, and hate the things He hates. I don't know His will by a mystical revelation, I know it by having my character conformed to His. The more my character is conformed to His, the more our wills will be in sync.

As I've said before, it's easy to trust that God is working things out when said things go as expected. Put simply, it requires no faith. Faith is the substance of things _not_ seen.

If only my reading light worked... I'd be reading Ryle. Ah well.

"The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth away." -- PotC:CotBP

According to The Italian Job, "fine" stands for "Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional".
------
...Later that day ... err 6am the next morning
------
Well, we are still flying. After arriving at Miami a slightly late 8:30pm, we had a litle less than the expected 3 hours layover. Flying out around 11 or so, we had a largely uneventfull flight to Rio on a 767 wiht DC power available. I didn't sleep much myself though there were many that did. I think we eended up flying until around 8am local time in Rio,which is about 1 hour ahead of us in Raleigh [they don't use DST]. We met Victor, our tour guide, shortly after we arrved in Rio; He speaks fluent English and he seems like a pretty cool guy. We wiated around until about 2:30 local time to fly out yet again, this time to Salvador. It's 4:12 right now, and I think we're just starting to decend... for the last time! It's been a long day, and is draining me slowly but surely. In a perverse way, it's a blessing that I keep such weird hours because it also makes it very easy for meto travel.

I have high hopes for this weke, having spend about 3000 dollars for it [upfront, plus other expenses] and it's the first I've been out of the country since going to England in 2003 and my first time ouside the Northern hemisphere. Throw in another language that I've never heard, another currency [thankfully better rates than the Pound], some jungles, and you've got a pretty cool trip.

God has kept us safe thus far, with the only casualty having been the luggage containing the programs [which an be regained, as Nancy has the original in her possession]. I don't know how much of a sense I'm going to get on this trip of the darkness of this Cathocism-darkened country that I'm going to see, but from what I've read it's pretty intense. I was speaking to Don earlier [a music minister from Greensboro] and he had talked about sending kids on mission trips to Mexico and how much it opened their eyes to the conditions that others in the world live with, which could be said even more in the spiritual realm. I've been given a pretty filled up storehousee of knowledge which puts quite the responsibility on my head. I don't feel it as much as I surely should, but perhaps this trip will put that a little more in focus. Oh look, it's landing time.