Around the World in 365 Days . . or 730??!?

Earlier this week, I received a package from home - filled with goodies from my church: taco sauce, spaghetti sauce mix, poppy seeds . . . it was a wonderful treat!! As I read the bookmark, I realized that I had received package 2 - [not so] mysteriously, package 1 never arrived. Grateful for package 2, I checked the mailing time - and discovered that it had been mailed in April - yes: 3.5 months later, I received my package.

On occasion, mail arrives in a record time of 2 weeks, typically it takes 6 weeks and sometimes it feels as if our mail travels around the world to get here - as is the case with my 3.5 month package!!

However, today, my teammates and I were in for a wonderful surprise - we all received mail!! Personal mail from family and friends - always more exciting than a magazine or school documents. We excitedly stood in the office to open our mail together and one person noted that her letter was dated April. Upon further inspection though, Lisa noticed it said April 2008. Thinking the writer had made an error, we all looked at the post office stamp. Indeed - this Easter card was mailed April 2008!!

Well, then, we all started looking at each envelope we held. It appears that the Niamey post office has discovered bags of mail back in the mysterious cave-like environs of their office!! My letter was from March 2009 (thanks Uncle Dennis & Aunt Verna!). In fact, my letter was the most recent of the bunch - my teammates all received Easter, birthday and Christmas greetings from 2008 - six letters in total.

Makes me think of our mail travelling around the world - but this time in 730 days (and counting) instead of the 365!!

So, to all the packages I know are missing, and some perhaps which are unknown to me, there is still hope.

Hope for the Christmas package Rob & Amber sent November 2008. Hope for my parent's birthday card which went missing last year. And hope for package number 1 that preceeded my 3.5 month delivery package number 2!!!