This was my last moment in my hotel room in Atlanta before heading to the airport. This is my “I’m so excited, but what in the world am I doing look?!?!” Haha
Nah- saying goodbye to my parents and my family was really hard but I know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. I have had a tremendous amount of peace throughout this whole situation and it seriously is because of my amazing support system. Everyone who has encouraged, prayed and supported me financially- I couldn’t do it without you!
BTW- I am $400 away from being FULLY FUNDED! P.T.L.! (Praise the Lord)
We had to check out of the hotel by 10 am and our flight wasn’t until 10:25pm that night so we had lots of time to hang out in the airport. At 7pm we headed to the international terminal and got all checked in. Our flight was then delayed until 12:25. Honestly, it didn’t feel like that long. We hung out, played games and relaxed. Finally we boarded our 10.5 hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey. This is a picture of us flying into Istanbul over the Black Sea. So pretty!!! They actually delayed the connecting flight for us and so we only had like a 20 minute layover until we boarded our second flight to Lviv, Ukraine.
We arrived in Lviv, Ukraine and stayed in a hostel for the night until we could meet up with our hosts the next day. We had a little balcony and this was the view. Our logistics leaders on the squad did a great job booking this!
We got up the next morning and our host wasn’t meeting us until the afternoon, so we got to explore Lviv (coffee capital of Ukraine). It was so cute! So many neat buildings and the weather was beautiful! We went and got some coffee and some breakfast sandwiches and just walked around. Pictures don’t do it justice!
Sidenote: got lost, well not really lost but we thought we were leaving the city center to head back to the hostel and 20 minutes were back at the city center. No idea how we did that! Lol No worries we figured it out.
We had about a 4-hour drive from Lviv to Uzhhorod, Ukraine. We stopped along the way for this photo op. It was so beautiful. This is a picture of the Carpathian Mountains. To get to our ministry location we had to drive over them.
This is my amazing team and one of our amazing squad leaders (Carson).
From left to right: Caroline, Morgan, Megan, Emily, Brie, Me, and Carson.
I am so excited to do life with them for the next 11 months. To share experiences, our highs and lows, our likes and dislikes, our silly sides and our serious sides- to know they will be there beside me, now and after the race, gives me so much comfort.
TEAM SUBMERGE!
Also- we have been helping at a day camp called Nehemiah House teaching English this past week. Our last day there will be this Friday. Next week I will post an update with more details as to what that looks like!
Thanks for taking the time to read this- until next time 🙂
Charla or Charlota (what they call me here)
