First Update from Joanna

Hey Everyone!

So after about 30 combined hours of flying and waiting in airports we arrived in Adelaide!  We made a few delirious videos on the flight which we will be proudly posting to facebook in a few days!  I wanted to send out a short note to let everyone know that we have made it here.  The base is huge and wonderful.  It reminds me a lot of a spanish hacienda.  Most of the staff live right here on base so the base is comprised of several apartments.  Becca and I are staying in a large room shared with the other girls participating in the DTS.  The DTS is much smaller then we originally thought it would be.  Most of the people who were going to be on our DTS had issues with visas and had to drop out.  So it looks like there will be a total of about 7 of us.  It’s a small team but there are a lot of advantages of that.  There are about 30 people who staff the base with various ministries.  I believe about 5 of them will be heading up our DTS.  Everyone has been very friendly. 

The flight was long and I got sick.  Not really a good time to be sick but never the less.  We arrived and it was roughly 80 degrees in Sydney.  Adelaide is much hotter with temperatures in the 100s!  I love it!  They took us around the base where we met Darby, a really young great dane who I instantly fell in love with.  I think Darby is leaving with his family soon.  There is also a resident cranky goat that were told to keep our distance from.  We also were told about all the poisonous snakes and spiders to be aware of.  After our tour Becca and I engaged in the challenge of staying up to try to get used to the time difference.  It’s about 15.5 hours difference between us and most of you back home.  We made it to 9 PM and it was over.  I think we stopped making sense at about 3.

I will try to send out updates as interesting things happen.  I’m on Skype if you wish to chat or have give me a call my user name is joannageiger.  I’ve attached a few photos.  Two are the view from our balcony and one is Becca and I after way too many hours of flying!  Hope you all are well!

Cheers!

Joanna and Rebecca