WE ARE HERE SAFE AND SOUND!!!

I know its late there....but I thought you might want to know that we are here SAFE AND SOUND in Davao City!  It's 3:04 PM Wednesday.....strange cause it's 2:04 AM there! 

WHAT A JOURNEY! HOLY TOLETO!!!!  

Let's see if i can recap through the fog of jet lag...First, I broke my phone trying to get off the plane in snowy Detroit, I shattered the screen thus, i couldn't see if Colin, (the VVMI Executive Director that organized the trip) was texting me because he was missing in action, plus I couldn't look at my contacts to call out, (I did get to call Mom and Carrie on speed dial), Jared and I had a 6 hour lay over in Detroit, Colin missed his flight in Peoria, had to catch another flight an hour and a half from where he was originally, and showed up right before we bordered the 747 to head to Japan, we got on the plane, taxied out on the run way, and had to go back to the terminal for "maintenance issues" we sat there another 4 hours while they de-iced the plane several times while working on "who knows what else",  the 4 hour delay put us SUPER late to Japan, which in turn put us SUPER late to our connect in Manila...we met Darwin (the VVM Director on the ground) with the equipment with ten minutes to get to the domestic airport which was longer than 10 minutes away,  we split up the equipment, got to the airport and had to wait 4 hours to catch our flight to Davao City...But God is GOOD and there are as many God stories as there were speed bumps.  

The God Stories...my camera bag was to large to fit in the over head in the smaller jet going to Detroit, but as God would have it, I was the only one on the whole plane that didn't have someone sitting next to me...so i was able CRAM it under the seat next to me:)...I have dropped my phone a million times but never hurt it until i NEEDED it to try and figure out where in the world Colin was...(my phone still works, even though i couldn't see my contacts...so I was able to contact carrie, mom, and colin's wife (cause carrie looked up his contact info back at home, which in turn, at least gave us info about Colin's where a bouts,...we got stopped by customs in Manila, they made us open boxes which we were supposed to have paper work on that we didn't have (a new president's in charge so new rules)...but they let us go with out paying extra money that we should have had to pay...(THIS WAS A HUGE GOD THING)...we got $50 "rebate" coupons from Delta because of the inconvenience of the late flight...which interesting enough, was the EXACT amount it cost to change the tickets to a new flight to Davao,  plus i didn't have to pay extra for the 40 lbs carry on that was only suppose to weigh 15lbs.  (in fact, they weighed every bit of the ...luggage, bags, etc,...but didn't weigh mine.......INTERESTING DONT YOU THINK????!!!!  ANYWAY, GOD HAS BEEN WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY IN PLANE VIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm TRULY convinced we were delayed because of even LARGER speed bumps that were avoided due to the delay....and for that I'm thankful!!!

So i love you ALL........we are in good hands!!!!!  KEEP PRAYING!!!!!!! 

In His Grip,

Deric Cook