After a few days full of meetings and a few outings, we all repacked and got ourselves ready to fly to our islands.  while my principal, Mr. Sanchez, was finishing off our last meeting before leaving, I was surprised by everyone singing happy birthday, and handed a lovely cake with fruit on top.  It was so sweet of them!  (Especially Melissa, who found the cake.)  I never expected something like that, and it made me feel special.  After that we went to the airport.  There was a hang-up when the weather near Guam looked dangerous, and we wondered if we would have to stay in Hawaii or Guam for the night.  The crew called for 34 people to volunteer to get off the plane.  But then they sent us to another gate, and they got us a better plane with more room.  Meanwhile, Mr. Sanchez was trying to work things out for one of the girls in our group, who had been going to Saipan but joined the Palau group at the last minute.  Because her ticket was for Saipan, there was no seat for her on the flight to Guam.  So during hour-plus delay, the Sanchezes were working hard to get a spot for this girl so she wouldn't end up who-knows-where and be separated from the group.  Eventually the flight crew called for people going to the Philippines to get off the plan and go to a different one, and it freed up a lot of extra space--which was just what we needed.  In fact, Mr. Sanchez later said that the storm in Guam was providential, because otherwise there might not have been enough time or enough space to get the girl on our flight.  So God can work even through storms.... 

Finally the weather began to clear up, and the plane was ready to go.  Of course, we were delayed quite a bit, which was worrying because the delay was about the length of our original layover in Guam, so we might not be able to catch the flight to Palau.  But then, after a 7 hour flight, we learned that the plane to Palau was waiting for us after our delay, so we were able to get on the right flight after all!  I'm sure a lot of us had been praying about it, so it was wonderful to see how God worked things out so we were safe and could get to Palau that night (which was actually Thursday night since we crossed the dateline).  We got on the smaller plane (which had a free meal and TV screens on the seats, unlike the bigger plane we had gotten off of--and the staff was very friendly), and after a little while we found ourselves screeching to a halt in the little (but beautiful) Palau airport.  Our Palauan "parents" were there to greet us.  My "mom" introduced herself as "Bilung".  we were given leis and bags of food, and were welcomed warmly to the island.  It was a long day, but God got us through in spite of all the difficulties, and we're here!  Can't wait to start exploring and meeting the people of Palau.  Praise God for getting us here safe and sound!