"See you in 1 week!"

Well today is the day that Michael flies back to Atlanta. We would probably feel a lot sadder than we do but we will be together in 1 week, so that makes it a lot easier. Oh yeah, a really cool thing happened to us yesterday (besides the bacon cheesebuger and fries). We were asked by the US Embassy in Rio if a local television station could come and do an interview with our family when we are there next week. They heard about our family and they wanted to do a story on us. I told them we would if they would help us out with our visas ...LOL! I don't know if they will but we're going to do the interview anyway. This will be a good opportunity to testify about the goodness of our God and hopefully raise awareness of the huge orphan problem in our world today. Anyway, we were excited find that out. Back to Michael... he is only a few hours of leaving us to fly back home. We thought it would be a good idea to let him blog today since you haven't heard from him yet. So, heeeeerre's Michael!

So, I was informed this morning that I was going to have to post today before I left for the airport tonight. I was like, "Dad, are you sure you want people to read what I think?" He laughed and said yes. So, here it goes.

Originally I was supposed to come for two weeks, then it got changed to a week, and then for a little while there it was a possibility that I wasn't going to come at all. Mostly because I just straight up had no desire at all to be here. I mean seriously, after reading my dad's blog, could you really blame me? The few times I read it(which I'll admit wasn't very often), it just made me not want to be here more and more. I was like, this is my spring break of my senior year and I am not going to spend it being miserable. Well in the end I talked to my mom and dad and knew that they really wanted me to be here and be a part of this. I would of felt like I was abandoning them or something if I didn't come at all so I made the decision to come for one week.

My journey started at 4:30am on a Friday morning. I had to get up early in order to catch an 8am flight out of Atlanta to Miami. It was a short easy flight that didn't give me any problems, but then I got to Miami. That is where the fun of the trip really began. And yes, for those of you who don't know me, I am being sarcastic. I got to Miami and it already felt like I was in another country. You literally have to look for someone who speaks English. And thanks to the wonderful skills of whoever made my tickets for me ( thanks dad! ), I had like an 11 hour layover in this place. The TAM Airlines desk didn't even open untill after 5pm and it was 10am in the morning so I couldn't check my bags or anything. Time had never gone by so slow. I am pretty sure I did everything there is to do at the Miami airport. I went to 2 different restaurants, walked around, watched 4 episodes of The Office, took a nap, went to Starbucks, and then finally, after what seemed like an eternity, got to check my bags and get my ticket. Waiting there at the gate I realized something. I was going to be the only American on the plane. It was literally me and a bunch of Brazilians. Then I started thinking to myself, "what the are all these Brazilians doing in America?" Well, as I was getting on the plane a youth group from Tampa got on so it turned out that I was going to have some fellow English speaking people with me, which was nice. It was a long flight to Sao Paulo but I was able to sleep most of the way. When I got there it was evident that I was a long way from Atlanta. In case you ever go to the Sao Paulo airport, just an FYI, nobody speaks English, and the signs are in Portuguese. It took me awhile, but I ended up finding my plane ok. After one more flight I was finally in Curitiba. My Dad, Matthew, and one of my new brothers Marlon, were all there waiting for me. It was nice seeing all my family again and meeting the new ones didn't feel as different as I thought it would. My whole opinion on everything changed drastically that first afternoon I was here. So much has happened since my arrival. I know that I have already typed a lot so I will keep the rest of this short. The new kids, although aggravating and annoying at times, really are great kids. They have so much potential. Raising them is by no means going to be easy, but it is what God has called my parents to do, and this is their ministry. For me personally, seeing my parents, and seeing what they are having to go through has really mininstered to me in the sense that even though it may not be the easy thing, or the most convenient thing to do, you still have to obey what God calls you to do and just have faith that he will work everything else out. I guess that is what I can say that I got out of this whole trip this week. It has been a fun week with its ups and downs but needless to say, I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to going home tonight. I am scheduled to be in Atlanta just in time to eat some real food for lunch. You know what I mean if you have been reading the blog. I hope you guys enjoyed reading a story from a diffrent point of view. It was nice to be able to share a little bit with you guys. Thanks for reading.

Michael