And a Great Trip It Was!

It seemed rather useless to fly out of Hartford to DC and then, on our way to Brussels, fly over Hartford and Boston.  If only they could have stopped to pick us up it would have been a much shorter flight!  However, it was well worth it;  I have never before been on such a beautiful night flight.  The sky was crystal-clear so the view was incredible, with Manhattan standing out very clearly.  What was even more amazing to me was that the sky was also clear over Ireland and England.  Absolutely beautiful!!!
We had about a 5 hour layover in Brussels and, even though we slept some on the plane, we were rather tired.  As in most terminals, all the seats have armrests on them, making reclining an impossibility.  The area we were in was almost deserted, so we picked some seats and sat down.  Only then did we realize that directly across from us were 3 seats with no arm rests between them.  Thank you, Lord!  Guess what we did!!!  Yup!  Darrell tried to be nice to me, but I insisted that he sleep first since I slept more on the plane that he did.  He finally gave in!  When it was my turn, I put in ear plugs, took out my pillow, and slept very well for well over an hour.  There still were very few people around, so we weren't pigging seats.
The daytime flight to Liberia was mostly clear, so we had a good view of the Pyrenees, the coast of Spain, Algeria, and the Sahara.  Then the harmatan, haze caused by dust from the desert, took over and mostly blocked our view.  (The harmatan even makes its way to Liberia in the dry season, so we can see it here, though I'm sure it will get much hazier as we get further into the dry season.)
The only hitches in the whole trip were the missing carry-ons (which hopefully will arrive on tonight's flight and be retrieved from the airline office here in Monrovia tomorrow) and a broken screen on my laptop.  We think the damage was done when the laptop was in a small carry-on which was looped onto the handle of the larger carry-on and they both fell over. Ouch!  The computer is still usable; in fact, I'm typing on it right now!
The trip from our home to the Mark and Nancy's home here in Liberia lasted a total of 29.5 hours, but we arrived feeling way more refreshed than we should have.  Of course we were tired, but I know I slept better on the plane than I ever have on any trip and I'm sure adrenaline was kicking in, too.  But I also know many people were praying for us. 
Yesterday morning I got up feeling as if I had been hit by a Mack truck!  Ah, the reality of jet lag!  We're making a good adjustment and are now looking forward to getting on with the work here.
God is so good!