Por fin, We're in Venezuela

So, we are here in Venezuela! Things are going great! We got in late on Tuesday night and spent the night in an IMB apartment in Caracas. The next morning we did some orientation stuff with our orientation leaders Martha and Richard Beal. We arrived in Valencia on Wednesday night. The city is great! Debbie and I are staying with our supervisor, Lorri, for the first few weeks together.
We have spent the first few days here running errands and getting acclimated to the city. Lorri has done a great job showing us around and explaining how things work around here. We got our Venezuelan cell phones, ordered our medical certificate so that we can drive, traveled to the mall and exchanged some money and did some other fun, necessary errands…so, basically, we are officially Venezuelans now! Ha!
Neither Debbie nor I knew how to drive stick so Lorri took us out to practice the other day. Debbie did great…me…not so much. I had a lot of Venezuelans honking and making fun of me on the streets. Good thing I don’t understand everything in Spanish yet because I don’t think they were yelling out sweet words of encouragement. Oh well, we are going to keep on trying till we get it. Luckily we have two cars here: one is automatic, and one is manual. While we are getting used to driving around the city, we will be using the automatic. Tomorrow will be our first attempt at finding our way around by ourselves and trying not to get in an accident. The driving is pretty crazy around here…the roads are like a big free-for-all. Pray for us.
The students here threw Debbie and I a big welcoming party and it was so sweet. They had a band come and they stayed here at the house till like 1:30am. They even made us a cake that had the Venezuelan flag on it and it said “Bienvenidos Debbie y Morgan.” The students are so much fun! It was great.
Debbie starts her job on Monday. My job doesn’t start for another two weeks; next week I will spend most of my time getting acclimated to the city, hanging out with people and learning more Spanish. Our Spanish classes start next week; we will be working twice a week with a private tutor for three hours.
Next week Debbie and I are going to go to the beach with a group of our students for a Beach Reach project. It is called LIGHTHOUSE. The University ministry has been doing it for a couple years now. We stay in a beach house that the IMB has and then we do games and sports, show movies on the beach and share with the students on the beach. We are really excited about being a part of this exciting week.

Love always,
Morgan

Hey friends! I am Morgan has done a good job explaining how our first couple of days have gone. They have indeed been great! I had a bit of a scare as one of my bags didn't arrive until today. But it arrived and that's all that matters. It is SO great to be back here finally. It has been easy so far for me to jump back in with my friends here... I'm thankful for that. The welcome party was great because I got to see many of the people I know here on the same night.
I met my boss on Friday and I will start work on Monday. I will be teaching two to three English classes everyday. My classes are in different offices of different businesses. Thankfully most of them are in the same building. I have to admit that I'm more nervous about driving to the classes than anything but for this first week Morgan and I are driving to them together. I am so thankful that I have a partner and that she happens to be the best partner in the world.
I will be teaching for a week and then I get to go to the Lighthouse thing that Morgan talked about. I'm excited to finally get to go to Lighthouse as I have always heard all about it from my friends here. Plus it will be a nice break after an intense first week of work. Ha!

We hope to hear from you all soon. Thanks for checking out our blog!

Debbie D =)

Waiting

Bienvenidos a Morgan and Debbie's blog! I hope that this blog will be useful to all of our family and friends as we serve for two years in Venezuela. Morgan and I will be trying to keep this updated with stories and pictures of what God is doing in and through our lives in Venezuela. Right now, Morgan and I are at our parents homes in Acworth, GA and Warner Robins, GA respectively. We got back from our two month orientation just a couple of days before Christmas. Our time there was fun, inspiring and informative. We were with over 200 others that are going to all parts of the world. We learned everything imaginable from doctrine, discipleship strategies, to everyday business matters. Morgan and I were both blessed with great friends that in many ways felt like a second family. While at training we all lived in quads which is basically a building with about four apartments that share a common room. Morgan and I shared an apartment in the best quad on campus!

Although we were very busy at orientation, some of the weekends afforded some time for some extra fun. Morgan and I, being adventorous girls, went on two road trips with some of our friends at orientation, one to DC where I visited my sister, bro-in-law and my new nephew and she visited a friend. The second one was to New York City. Both trips were short but fun, I look forward to many more adventures with Morgan in the next two years! Orientation was excellent, I am very thankful for all the support that made orientation such a special and important part of our preparation to go. You can enjoy a slideshow of some of our fun at orientation below.

We are eagerly anticipating our departure date of January 22. We had orginally planned to leave at the beginning of the month however, due to circumstances beyond our control i.e. unavailable tickets, we are leaving later. I, more so than Morgan, was frustrated by the later departure date because I have been anticipating it for so long. But as I learn more and more everyday God is the God of time and not me. He tells us in Isaiah 64:4 that "Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him." I really do not know all that God has in mind for us in the time that we wait and I may never know but I WILL wait on his timing! Now, Morgan and I are taking advantage of (or as the say in Venezuela "aprovecha") the time we have at home by spending time with friends and family as well as building stronger connections with our supporting churches. If we haven't already, maybe we'll see you!



Chaito pues!



Debbie D =)