Randy's email from Friday

Dear
I’m here in Medan. We had a long trip. We arrived yesterday (Friday) at 2pm. When we finally got to our hotel (at about 5:30pm) we found out that we didn’t have reservations. There were no hotel rooms in the entire city. Heather Mercer and I went all over the city for about hours, and finally ended up with 2 rooms at a really cheap hotel. After securing those rooms we stopped by one more place. Heather said “We will take any room you have, big or small.” The lady smiled really big and said, “I have a BIG room for you. It’s the presidential suite.” It had 3 rooms in it, and would sleep the whole group. She said it would cost 9 million rupia. Heather, not yet sure about how to convert money, said, “We’ll take it.” I pulled out my calculator, then showed her the amount which was about $1000. We changed our minds and decided to stick with our two $15 rooms. We did go up and look at the presidential suite just for fun. It would have been really nice. After we talked to the lady we found out it was the only 5 star hotel in Medan. I ended up staying with Helmut and Tina—German/Canadian missionaries here in Medan. They are wonderful. No air conditioning, but I was thrilled to have a bed to sleep on.

Pray that we will be able to get to the village. We went last night to where the American military is based, and they didn’t give us much hope of getting transported to the villages. They said when we get to Banda Ache we will find that there are hundreds of NGOs wandering around in the mud just waiting for transportation. Apparently if you don’t go by military helicopter it is very difficult and dangerous to get anywhere, especially since we have fourteen 70 pound crates going with us. Heather and I met a military ambassador named Monte. He is trying to get us connected with the guys here that decide who gets transported where. They meet at 9:30 every morning at a hotel here in Medan to make decisions. Heather is probably going to stay behind and go to that meeting so she can try to work it out from this end. Pray for God’s favor on us as we interact with the people making all these decisions.

I’m having a great time. It feels just like Thailand: hot, smelly, but just right. Pray for God’s grace on me to have joy, humility, and physical energy and strength. I really want to get to a place where we can start helping people as quickly as possible. I wish I could talk to you or at least send a longer note. Others are waiting for the computer here at Helmut and Tina’s house. It is almost 7am here. We have tickets to fly to Banda Ache this morning at 9:30. Tell my kids I love them. Tell them to work as a team, love each other, and pray hard for us.

You are beautiful. I’ll see you in about 10 days.

Love,
Randy



There are no new updates so I'm assuming they got into a village somewhere. Hoping to get some sort of update today from Antioch, but there is nothing yet.

I am so impressed with the Brown family for getting my mom on a snow mobile and my dad on skis!! Your trip looked like it was so much fun! Alan, you're hilarious - well said!

Please keep praying for us - I've really felt the grace of the Lord, but we're all missing RB a lot. Luke is the one who seems to be missing him the most! Life is a little lonely without our Daddy!

Love y'all
Anda