The Adventure Begins.

Hello, prayer warriors!
We are especially grateful for you and all your prayers this morning, as I am writing from the business center of a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.  You may notice... this is NOT Pucallpa, Peru, which is where we are supposed to be this morning.
After a long, tiring, frustrating, and confusing day, we think we have things figured out, and should arrive in Lima tonight around 11.

We got to the airport in Detroit yesterday at 10, and got Marilyn on her flight.  We were still about an hour early for ours, so not worried at all... YET.  Soon the attendant came on and said the plane had been grounded for maintenance, and we would be informed at 3 as to whether or not we could leave (we were supposed to leave at 1:30. The flight to Atlanta is 2 hours long, and our connection was leaving at 5:05.) 

After visiting rebooking, issuing a call to Atlanta to ask them to hold the plane, and sitting in the airport praying furiously, we finally boarded the plane at 4.  We taxied out towards the runway, and suddenly the brakes began making a horrendous grinding sound and literally shaking the ENTIRE plane.
The pilot wasn't comfortable flying the plane with those problems (neither were we!), so we went BACK to the gate for "a 30-minute fix."  40 minutes later, we were told that we might as well get off the plane, weather in Atlanta wouldn't allow us to leave yet anyway, and they had no idea when the brakes would be fixed.  Another hour or two at rebooking got us on the "7:30" flight to Atlanta, and gave us hotel and meal vouchers.

By 12:45 AM, we had FINALLY left the Detroit airport (after OVER 12 hours there.)  We got to Atlanta around 2, spent two entire hours in LINE for customer service, and then dealt with them for another hour or so.  To make a long, frustrating story shorter and slightly less frustrating, suffice it to say that we ended up paying for our own hotel (which we finally collapsed in at 6:15 am), and are set to fly to Lima in business class (!!!) at 5:05 tonight.  We will then spend the day in Lima, unfortunately, before flying to Pucallpa TOMORROW night at 5 pm. Our travel agent friend in Lima is trying her best to pull strings and get us on the 11 am flight tomorrow, but it's not looking good. Please pray.

We don't know why this happened.  We have lost two entire days with our precious friends in Peru, two days of ministry. We've lost a substantial amount of money for the tickets that had to be repurchased IN Peru.  We don't know what's going on, or why. We have no answers.  Thankfully, God does. He's got this. He knows EXACTLY why we stayed extra time in Detroit and Atlanta.  We may never know, but He does.  And He will be glorified, and that's all that matters.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We love you all.
-Alyssa

ps: Marilyn is (if everything went as planned) in Pucallpa as I type this.