Leaving LA behind. May 29th 2009

Well today started with us getting up at hmmmmm 5AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leaving LA behind to head off on the next stage of our adventure today. Our flight leaves LAX at 7:40am for Miami.

We will be staying in Miami for just the night and then head off for New York Saturday morning.

The flight was just under 5hrs and on arrival we had to find the public phones to call the Hotel we are staying at. This we did only to call the wrong hotel. Apparently there are heaps and heaps of Marriott hotels in Miami and we had called the wrong one. They were very helpful though and told us where to go and what our shuttle would look like. We found it no problem at all.

We were whisked off to our hotel on a very balmy morning by a chatter box of an American.

On the horizon to our left we could only see huge black skies looming. To our right the sky was blue. Our driver told us that with in two hours the entire city would be covered by those huge black clouds and that a storm would hit. We were kind of excited about that, but then he said that they must be due for a massive hurricane as they havent had one for a few years!!! Hmmm, now, not so excited! Well no storm hit at all and there was nothing to worry about after all.

Oh yeah, we just heard that a massive earthquake hit just off the coast of Belize and Hondurus, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. Aftershocks of between 3 and 4 are being felt across Central America. We spoke with our brothers there, and they are all fine. No major damage but everyone is very shaken up, literally! The brother I spoke to said "it was huge, we felt it BIG TIME". So we are pleased that they are all in one piece and are well! Lets hope that, thats all over by the time we get there.

Anyway, we get to our Hotel and have a seamless check in. We go up to our room and it is beautiful.

Now for the tale of how we got this Hotel room. While in NZ, we were making plans for our stay in the US. We were given the contact details of a brother who loves to help arrange travel plans for the brothers from around the world. We still have not met this brother, but are extremely thankful for all his help. Anyway, he had a friend who knew a friend in Miami who emailed us in NZ (we also have never met this sister). She tried to find us somewhere to stay but due to deaths in her family and in the congregation it became difficult for her. What she did do for us though, is worth a million dollars to us. We had told her that we would be in Miami for one night before flying to NY and that we were concerned about having to take 6 suitcases into NYC and standing out like the tourists we are. This is not a wise idea in NY! Out of the blue we received and email from our dear sister saying that she had arranged for us to stay at the Marriott Hotel at no cost to us! She wanted to thank us for our efforts going to serve where the need is greater and she wanted us to enjoy a good nights sleep! We were blown away and literally did not know what to say. Not only that but she then added that she had arranged for a pioneer brother and his wife to meet us at the Hotel, they would take the bulk of our suitcases so we wouldnt have to worry about taking them to NY!!!! Well by this point we were both speechless, I know its hard to believe, but its true! I think I cried! What an incredible example of Jehovah providing again! We are soooooooo thankful to Fay (our sister) for all her kindness!

We got up to our room and rang Manny and his wife who came straight away and picked up our big bags so we only had carry on bags to take to NY. (Lets hope they really are brothers and sisters or we might never see those bags again!) What a delight they were. You could feel the love even though we were meeting them for only the first time. Again we cannot believe how much Jehovah has done for us!

We are truly blessed to be part of Jehovahs organisation, where else would you rather be! So far we have had a seamless trip, no delays with flight, no problems with bags going missing, meeting our rides at the airports with no hiccups. Awesome!!

We have made so many wonderful friends so far and we have only been in the country for a week! I dont really know what I was expecting, but this far anything I could have imagined!

I hope someday, everyone gets to feel the unity and love on the scale we have.

Our stay at the Marriott was great and we wll leave tomorrow morning for NY. Get this. we have to get up at 4AM this time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See ya.