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 =)