Okay, so what day is it?!! It is hard to believe that as this is being written, we are 15 minutes away from it turning to another day! That means it will be Sunday. Don't know how we lost 3 days already. It actually took exactly 24 hours to get from Portland to Nairobi. Then add the 10 hours time difference. Needless to say, our time clocks are completely out of whack.

Now we have safely made it to Khartoum and are settling down into our hotel - the Acropole. Except for a couple of delays, there were no hitches with our flights; we made all the transfers and our luggage made it here with us. We were not stopped at any of the custom checks, so all the Bibles, puppets, tee shirts, booklets and bracelets made it. Yea God! We only had to wait an hour at the Sudan custom versus the three hours that Micheal had to wait last year.

This afternoon we had a wonderful time with Rosemary (who coordinates these trips from Nairobi and travels with us to Khartoum) and her daughter, Prudence. Prudence made us an amazing authentic African lunch with many of the local spices. Rosemary shared with us how the Lord has gripped her heart for the Sudanese people, especially the children. She recognizes that it will be very difficult to change mindsets and the bitterness of the adults caused by the tragedies from the many years of warfare. But it can be different with the children - learning to live lives that follow after Jesus. Her desire for this week is that the participants will be able to go deeper and gather more skills in their ability to reach and teach the children.

Tomorrow we will be going to church where Vergil will be teaching and then off to meet with the various pastors who will be participating in this weeks conference. There is nothing like worshipping with the Africans!

Okay, the clock has officially struck midnight and this chariot is turning into a pumpkin. Good night from Khartoum!

ps: For those of you who have logged on from Sports Outreach, Gary was able to talk with Franklin this morning and will be meeting with him and 12 of his staff members next Sunday for a few hours of continuous education in puppetry. It was great to talk with him and amazing to think that we were actually in the same city.