Making history: the first ORU team in the Middle East!

After a wonderful Team Dubai family reunion in Tulsa, we had two days for band practices, team fun, last minute errands and preparation.

We flew out from Tulsa at 3:30pm on July 1st and arrived at Dubai International Airport around 8:10pm on July 2nd. Just like we prayed, everything went smoothly. Our first flight from Tulsa to Atlanta was short & sweet and our layover gave us plenty of time to eat and call our families before leaving the country. Our flight from Atlanta to Dubai was very long (a little more than 13 hours) but very smooth, comfortable and equipped with plenty of free movies, music, games and TV shows to keep us entertained whenever we weren't sleeping. Once in Dubai, customs went fabulously (because it's a Muslim country where Christian proselytizing is illegal and we are a missions team, we were worried about getting questioned) we didn't have to have visas, we were reunited with our ninth team member, Jonathan, who met us after his flight from Bahrain & all of our luggage was intact and accounted for.

The house we're staying in is well air conditioned and has three rooms for the nine of us, so we're pretty well spaced out...but only one shower, so we're on three minute shower rules.

The humidity is SHOCKING. Even late at night.

It's 3:15am here (we are 10 hours ahead of Tulsa)...we are showering and hitting the sack because we are going to two church services in the morning...an Evangelical at 10am and then a Filipino from 1-3pm. The Filipino service is one that we will be ministering in next week, so we want to get a feel for it before then. We are excited for what the Lord has in store.

Team Dubai sends our love to the states!