ghana or bust *we made it*

it is currently 9:00pm and 84 degrees in ghana.
we left our house in california at 5:00am on march 7 (thanks for the ride, papa!), traveled 5 hours to DC, a 8 hours redeye flight to frankfurt, and a final 7 hour flight over the mediterranean sea and sahara desert to land safely in accra, ghana at 7:00pm on march 8.
and God went before us every step of the way!
*whew*
we are exhausted, but we have all our luggage and the a/c is cranked in our nice little hotel room.

some highlights:
during our layover in DC, we had lunch at chiptole (score!). ben wore his ghana flag shirt today and the young man serving us saw it and said, "rasta!!!" ben heard, "pasta!" and thought, "no thank you. carnitas burrito please!" HA! turns out this young man was from ghana! when i (ashley) told him we were traveling to ghana, he asked me, "are you ghanaian, ya?"
not gonna lie. made my day. with my red hair, i totally look ghanaian. *fist pump*

all our flights were on time. amazing. that's the power of prayer.

the immigration officer did not like my passport for some reason. he went off on a heated speech for about a minute...none of which we understood...so we stood there and smiled. no harm done. picture taken, fingerprints scanned, on we went.

waltzed through customs with nothing to declare and our oh SO lovely social worker, ida, was standing waiting for us with a welcome sign. and samuel, our expert driver, had the car all ready and waiting!

ben's first impressions of ghana:
no matter how much you're prepped, and know that everything is going to be different....you can never really be prepared for the onslaught of new sights and smells.
everything is different...the stairs coming down the plane, the feel of the air, the fact that the temperature inside is exactly the same as the temperature outside, and an overwhelming gratitude that samuel is driving.

ashley's recap:
as soon as i smelled the ghanaian air, a FLOOD of memories from the 2001 trip hit me. amazing how smell triggers memories and emotions you had forgotten! i am always impressed with the friendliness of the ghanaian people....such large smiles! i can already tell that we will LOVE ida. she has proved invaluable to us so far just with settling into our hotel room. what a blessing.

three more important notes:
1. we have a cell phone for local calls during our stay. thanks, bethany team!!
2. we anticipate internet access throughout the week and will update as we are able.
3. solomon is currently about 5 miles from where we are right now. we get to meet him tomorrow around 10:00am ghana time. *biggest grin of all living times*

praise God for His faithfulness and for your fervent prayers on our behalf. keep 'em coming!!!