visa was renewed

how is everybody? im still tired(i dont think ill ever get over that :-) but am doing well.

ryan and i went to the federal police office to check on the visa renewal. i was able to get a 90 day renewal. im not sure if im happy or sad! we will see what happens. not much else has happened. rachel is still awaiting approval for her surgery supplies. please keep this in your prayers!!!

i am going to put some more pictures on. please let me know what you think.

thanks for everything, prayers and support!

love to all,
kelly

pictures-enjoy!!

these are some of the pictures of my trip there. they kinda go up from the bottom. it took me about 3 hours to get them on here, so i dont feel like moving them all around! :-)


this is the airport in manaus. its pretty small.

these next 3 pictures are of the screen in front of me. on the back of every seat was a tv screen. you could watch movies, listen to music, watch tv shows, or watch the progress of the trip. these are of the plane over brasil.

this is my trip up from sao paulo to manaus. a very stressful trip!

you can see miami. i flew from miami to sao paulo which is the big diamond. it was an overnight trip.

this is about an hour or so from sao paulo. its about 4 in the morning. needless to say i didnt sleep very well. :-/

this is what the plane looked like from my seat. there were blankets and pillows on your seats, as well as headphones for the movies. they even had foot rests for you!

tam airlines is....

'oh no! we are going to crash!!' not really, but funny story. we were on this plane, waiting to taxi to the runway and the power goes out. they said they just lost their ground power and they would be up and running soon (in about 30 seconds). after my first flight from new york being cancelled because of equipment failure, i was a little uneasy! but we were fine, i just had to pray really hard the whole time.

we are banking to come back to the miami airport.

this is the view of some water reserves. i guess they have them for public use...or so i was told.

this is only a small part of miami. i didnt realize how big it was until i flew over it!

this is the edge of miami as we are flying into. interesting how part of it is islands.

this is a cruise ship. we flew over the atlantic ocean part of the way to miami. pretty scary!!

hey look! its coshocton! :-D not really of course!

this is what i saw most of the way to miami..we followed the coastline.

pretty impressive road system.. the two branches are going out over water.

i dont have any pictures of sao paulo or manaus. i was over sao paulo in the middle of the night, and when we flew over manaus, i wasnt allowed to use the camera. all electronic equipment has to be turned off. :-/ maybe i can get some pictures of manaus when i leave.

these are all i can post for now. it takes an extreme amount of time to upload because of the dialup. we are hoping to get high speed friday so pray for that!!!! :-)

hope you enjoyed!

an update

As you all know, ive been here for about a week and a half. Its been pretty crazy. Wednesday was happy amazonas statehood day and Friday was happy independence day for brasil. So its been a very long holiday weekend with pretty much nothing ging on except rest and relaxation…. Haha. rest is hard with 3 kids running around with super hyperactivity. :-) its cool today with temperatures only being around 80 degrees compared to 111.4 on tuesday.

not much has happened really since ive gotten here. ive been playing with the kids, helping with whatever i can, and trying to drink lots of water. i cant tell yo uhow many mosquito bites ive gotten...i just pray that they were all clean!!

rachel is scheduled to have her surgery on wednesday morning, so she will be admitted tuesday night. she will then be in the hospital for 2 days, then on light bedrest for about a month. i will be staying here with the kids while ryan stays with rachel and works. there are some missionary ladies who will bring food and such for us the first few days. please pray for rachel to be calm, that the doctors hands would be guided, and for the procedure to be successful. rachel has had some numbness in her one leg, so we are praying that it wont get worse as the next step is losing feeling. so, Lord willing, the surgery will take care of that and the excruciating pain.

i have some pictures that i will post later today. the joy's house, the kids, and some misc. pictures that i thought would give a general picture of where i am and the things around me. ive taken about 2500 pictures since i left columbus, so i cant post them all. :-)

may the Lord be with you and guide you in everything you do.

i miss you all!

FINALLY!!!!

i just wanted to let you all know that i am finally in brazil!!! i had a long trip(33 or so hours) and i am completely exhausted..

my flight out of new york was cancelled, so i had to get a later flight to miami. that flight was late, so i didnt make my flight from miami to manaus. i had to get a flight south to sao paulo which was an 8 hour flight(overnight) then go straight to my flight back up 4 hours to manaus(the longest flight i have ever had!!), which was 2 hours late! customs went smoothly, and i didnt have any problems with any of my luggage. so praise God for that!!

i am now at ryan and rachels house, which is pretty nice for the location. you can definately tell its a third world country. its really run down and kinda 'dirty', but not as much as i thought it would be. i have pictures of a ton of things, but ill post them at a later date.

please continue to pray for me as i recuperate from lack of sleep, food, and energy. as soon as i got here the kids really wanted to play, so im going about 40 hours with only 6-7 hours of sleep.

also, rachel has a doctors appt tomorrow, so we are all praying it goes well. she is on hold to get the surgery for a couple weeks, awaiting approval.

thanks for all your prayers and thoughts. i will update again as soon as i can, but until then, seek God and He will be with you!

I give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.

So. . . Round 2?

i leave for Brasil tomorrow, which im excited about but sad and extremely nervous about at the same time! i want to stay in my comfort zone, but i know it will be good when i get there. i just pray the travel will be safe and not too exhausting!

i ask that you pray for me. i am better than i was a couple days ago, but i really just want this waiting to be over! i want to get there and be ready to start all the things i will be doing. but Gods timing is perfect, and i need to trust He knows what Hes doing... *sigh*

I pray that you will see the Lord working in your life, as i have seen His hand in mine over the past couple months. and if any of you dont have a relationship with Him, that is my first desire for you. most of you know of my relationship with Christ, and i will tell you it is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. and it will continue to be the best. even compared to my wedding day [which for those who know my romantic heart, will be pretty amazing! :-) ]. i pray for you all, that you will find the peace and joy i have found that only comes through Jesus Christ.

God Is So Faithful!

i finally got the visa!! this wait has been killing me.. but God is faithful and has 'pulled through'. sad news is, that it is only for 30 days and not 90 like i had originally thought. theres a possibility of extension, but its not guaranteed. im not positive yet, but it looks like 30 days is all the longer i will be needed there.

so i leave on the 28th of august which is this coming tuesday.

God is so faithful!

no brazil in site.........yet anyway

its amazing how quickly things can change..or at least the information you have.

today i got a call from the visa agency. dad gave me the number to call them back, but i had to leave a message. as soon as i hung up, i had this awful feeling in my stomach. like someone had just punched me. hard. when i got the call back, the first thing he said was, "kelly? unfortunately, i have some bad news for you." and i knew what it was. dont you just hate that? when you know exactly what they are going to say but they have to say it anyhow?

my visa wasnt approved. apparently the first time they tried, the consulate didnt even look at it. and i think its because im staying with missionaries. which is totally not fair. i know, i know, life isnt fair, but i was told a couple times that they have never had this much trouble with a visa application before. they couldnt understand why it was so difficult or what the matter was.

theres only one answer to all of this. i am a Christian. theres a man called Satan. he hates us Christians. and hes always looking for a way to hinder us. but it wont work with me. i trust my Lord, and i know He has a plan for my life. if He has opened this door to Brazil, He will get me there. and if things totally turn around, and im not supposed to go now, i will trust Him. why? because He is in control. theres nothing that can take me from His hand. not even death. thats what makes Him so amazing.