fefe (Title from Elia)

Well, its been a busy last couple days! A good number of our donations didn't come in like we expected so a few of us had to stay back and make 5,000,000,000 phone calls to dentist offices, hotels, and the airlines while the rest of the team got to go on a hike. Mikayla, Maria and I were making phone calls, and although we got tired of all the rejections, we did get some good donations!
But it was strange and not very fun to be separated from the rest of the team. Over the past few months we have grown to be such a family and its just strange when we aren't all together. :) It's amazing how much closer we have come together in just the few days in Colorado.

Our next trial: Getting everything in our checked bags and not being overweight!!!!

Praise God though! We got 3 huge $300 basketball hoops donated! Also some very nice basketballs and an airpump with needles. All from the same guy!

But the bad thing about this is the basketball hoops are oversize and overweight, so we have been trying to get either a discount or not be charged at all for oversize. Jessie was on the phone with the airlines for hours trying to work this out, but because we leave on Monday, they said they couldn't do anything. So that is depressing, which means that we have to pay at least $150 each hoop for being oversize. That is at least $450 extra that we have to come up with again. Also, our craft idea got shot down so I quickly had to come up with a new idea. So we decided to do tie-dye bandanas. I was able to get us some fabric for a discount, and Mikayla and Maria got some tie-dye kits for a discount. So that is exciting, but that is also an extra cost to us because we had to buy our crafts. We were going to do t-shirts, so I called Church Artworks, in Salem, Or, to see about getting us some more shirts. And we were just going to fly Maria home real quick since she flies for free with her dad being a pilot. It was funny, because they were looking up flights as I was on the phone. But that didn't work out, so Maria is still here :)

Today, (that all happened yesterday, on Thursday) We had some more things to pick up that got donated, plus a huge checklist of things to get done. So some of us stayed back to repack our sports bags and others went to stores and banks.
Erin and I cut fabric for about 3-4 hours. We are so sick of looking at fabric!!!!
Katrina, Elia, Kristy, and Maria all packed the bags of our equipment and other stuff.
It was a crazy busy morning, and afternoon!

We still have so much to get done before we leave on Monday, so you can be praying about that, too

I am just so excited to see how God is going to continue to bless us and work things out in miraculous ways on this trip. We have such a testimony to God's amazing providence!!! And I am so glad that you get to share in this too.

Something else exciting! Thursday was Erin's birthday!!!! Jessie and I had a "special task" for Jennie in the morning, which was to make birthday cakes upstairs so no one knew :) Then in the evening, we sent some people to play soccer in the park across the street while others stayed back to decorate the upstairs kitchen patio where we ordered Thai curry and ate together. Once Erin cam eup, we sand Happy Birthday for her and she was actually surprised! It was so cute. She opened her present that we bought her and she loved it. There was a soccer ball pillow, a Color Explosion kit (very cool), and some pretty pens to write in her new journal her sister bought her before she left :) It was really fun, and we laughed alot, like always. Then we played 2 Truths and a Lie. And that was fun to here all the interesting facts about everyone. Although I got in trouble about my "relationship" with a Ugandan :)

Anyways, God is awesome and amazing, and we still need some more major prayers, but we contintue to praise our Almighty God!

Some prayer requests:
-Some team members are sick, so pray they will be better before we get into Uganda
-God will miraculously lighten the weight of our luggage and we won't get charged extra for our suitcases that are right at 50 lbs according to our scale
-God will soften the hearts of the airport people and we won't have to pay a huge fee for our basketball hoops
-last minute details before we leave

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Tiffany