Up Up and Away...

In our train cabin, we are excited for our new friend to take our pic

Our friend

Train station

We have made it safely to the Northern part of the country!! We went from seaside to mountainous. We began our journey at around 10 pm on Wednesday evening (our time of course, for those of you who are wondering it is plus 11 hours). We decided we would venture a train ride, with sleeper cabins. I will tell you that it was more than an experience. The train was OLD, and beautiful, with red carpets lining the walk way and cabins. I mentioned earlier that one of our friends went home, so we are just four now, which worked well for our train cabin, there were four bunks.

The adventure part of it, other than it took us 11 hours to get what would have taken 8 by car, is that there was NO air on the train. It wasn’t horribly hot at first, but over time it got really stuffy and EVERY ONE smokes. No air circulation and smoke combined is bad. The air was so thick that I was almost in a panic state. I had made the comment when we boarded the train that it reminded me of the description that Corey Tenboom gave of the rail ways during the Holocaust. We drew parallels in more ways than one. In the middle of the night I lay awake on the top bunk, rocking and rolling with the train’s movement, not being able to take in a deep breath, and sweating. I became very nervous and had to ask God to take the fear and panic away several times. I told Bry later, I felt like jumping off!! What I didn’t know is that Emily was experiencing the same thing on the other top bunk. She was battling with the same feelings and would recall scripture. Both of us compared what Corey and others experienced in those days and decided that this was not really suffering in comparison but could relate in a small way. I think that some of it was a S battle too.

Once morning came we all got up and awaited our journeys end! At one point we opened our cabin door and that was the ticket to communicating with all the nationals. Bry went out to take a picture of the train and met a group of guys in the hall way. I am so proud of how bold Bry is, it is amazing how many men draw to him, and they don’t even speak the same language. After a short time, Emily and I started drawing the attention of the ladies and we were on our way to making friends. In the city there are foreigners from all over the place, but in the country, we really stick out and people stare. Soon we had a little boy in our cabin and he just made himself at home, sat down and started talking in many languages. The little boy’s brother especially liked us and exchanged phone numbers with us.

Where we are now is extremely different than the city. We are at the base of these snowy mountains, in the country, complete with oxen and other animals crossing the road. We stopped in the country and checked out a little hotel, but decided to stay a couple of days in the small city in order to meet more people and hopefully be invited as a guest to the celebration of Novrus tomorrow. The funny thing is that we are in a really nice hotel in the middle of this little town. Once we checked in I headed straight for the shower. The rooms have marble floors, and beautiful bathroom, but the water was ICE cold. Ok, maybe a little warmer than ice, but we are at the base of the mountains. I braved the water and showered as quickly as I could, it was so cold it hurt. Then we were off to a nap. When Bry woke, he decided to go to the front desk and ask about the hot water…OH, they forgot to turn on the hot water heater!! Bry and the rest took hot showers, NICE!! I decided that I wasn’t going to take another shower as long as we were up north, but tomorrow, I will enjoy hot water. I will add that in the City I had another shower experience. When I took a shower, I turn it on and just some small drips came out. It is hard to rinse off soap when the water is just trickling, but I managed. Later I asked what the others thought about it. Apparently when I took my shower, is when the pumps are turned off, hence the trickle of the water, everyone else had normal ones.

Some one told me that I would probably loose weight on this trip. I want to say HA.. I LOVE the food, more then I like our own, especially the lamb kabobs (better lamb then I have ever had). There are really no deserts, so maybe I will drop a couple pounds there (wishful thinking).

So far the people are so sweet and welcoming. There are no English speakers up here, so we were pleasantly surprised when we were walking down the street tonight and said hello to someone in their language and they responded in ours. We have been looking for the person who would welcome us in, maybe we found him. He asked for our number and we hope to hear from him tomorrow!!

Thank you for your prayers, we can’t wait to share more with you once home.

To all of our little C~’s, I miss you SOO…OOO….OOO…much. I don’t like being away from you this long. Dad said that he was looking at the moon last night. Hugs and kisses to you. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Also, Papa, I miss you too. I know that my girl friends are taking such good care of you and our kids ( I am truly grateful for that). They make good sudo daughters! I love you and can’t wait to see you too.

Until we blog again!!