Long before sunrise, my alarm went off this morning.  As I stared blurry-eyed at the big, red numbers on my clock, I wondered if it could already be 4am.  Then I remembered. 

    
This is the day my FYM team arrives! 

Withing seconds, I bounced out of bed, threw some clothes on and went to see if my co-leaders, Holly and Shannon, had woken up yet.  The three of us then spent some individual time with the Lord before coming together to pray for the safe arrival of our team. 

We expected to have all five of them with us by 1pm, but we knew they might have a difficult time with immigration.  Even as we were praying, two of our girls were talking with immigration officials at the London-Gatwick airport.  When the officials finally let them enter, Melissa and Marilyn had to run to their connecting flight.  They made it with just minutes to spare!

Meanwhile, Shannon, Holly and I began the long journey to the airport.  As we walked, we saw the sun rise and thanked the Lord for the beautiful morning.

Once we arrived at the airport, we soon met Katie, the first to arrive.  Brenda and Kim showed up an hour later, and Marilyn and Melissa joined us within the hour.  Much to our surprise and delight, our entire team made it through immigration (though it took a while) and arrived almost three hours early!!  What an amazing God we serve!

Lord, thank you for bringing all of our girls to us safely and even ahead of schedule.  Thank you for bringing everyone through immigration without too much trouble.  Please begin to unite us and show us your plans for this semester.  We praise you, and we love you, and we look forward to great things!