We made it to Honduras right at noon today. Precisely at noon the plane taxied to the terminal. We left the Mitchell Church of Christ parking lot at 3 a.m. The rain was pouring down! Warren and Darrin met me there, and the three of us traveled to Quince’s house to pick him up. He graciously agreed to be our driver.
Our driver then took us to Dan’s house. It was there that we picked him up, along with Steve. We had 11 bags, so we were packed tightly in Steve’s Suburban. Most of the stuff will be distributed to the poor in Honduras. We got pretty wet jamming it all in.
The rain continue to pour as we made our way north. The conversation was good for the 3 a.m. hour. In the course of the conversation Warren mentioned that his passport expired in 3 months and that he decided to wait until we got home to renew it. Steve listened and then calmly said, “I don’t think you can go.” To Honduras. Today.
We arrived at the airport at about 4.45. The ticket counter was open and not busy. Good. We sent Warren the counter first to see what would happen. Sure enough, he was not allowed to go. Honduras has a rule that your passport must be good for 6 months more than today’s date. It’s hard to express the disappointment we all felt. We had Quince wait. Once we knew the situation Quince pulled around and picked Warren up. It was sad to see him walk back out the door.
The four of us got checked in and cleared security. No problems. While we were waiting at the gate, one of the employees of Continental came over to us and asked our names. We gave them without asking why. A few minutes later he came back and said, “I have new boarding passes for you.” I said, “Why do we need new boarding passes.” He smiled and said, “I can take them back if you want.” About that time I looked at mine and realized that we had been upgraded to first class! I guess they felt sorry for us losing Warren.
I have flown tens of thousands of miles and have never flown first class. Wow, I could get used to it! Big leather seats. Real plates. Real silver ware. Great service. We were not worthy! Once we got off the plane at Houston, we returned to reality once we boarded our flight to Tegucigalpa. Back to the back of the plane! Where we belong, of course.
We were met at the airport by Mark Connell. We cleared passport control and customs without problem. We were led to our rental truck and loaded all the luggage. Mark took us to his house. There we unloaded everything. We then headed out to Didasko, the children’s home where our October team installed a water treatments system. We spent quite a while there. The system is working wonderfully well. The children are precious. Many of them came up to us and wrapped their arms around us. They wanted us to pick them up and hold them. We spent at least a couple of hours playing with them. Dan had collected shoes and clothes for each of the 28 children who live there. Dan has a huge, generous heart.
After Didasko we went back to Mark’s and got our stuff. We then made our way up to the mission house, where I now sitting writing this. I don’t know how you will take this next piece of information, but here goes. I have a slight sunburn. It was low 80s here today with a nice light breeze. Right now (9 p.m.) it is about 70. Sorry about that.
We are off to a great start, and we are really tired. We’ve been up since 2 a.m., so it is time to shut down and get some shut eye. We missed being with our church family in Mitchell today. I’m sure you had a great time of worship and sure that Gary did a great job.
We would appreciate your prayers.
 |
| Honduras January 2010 Day 1 |
1 comment:
Since you are doing a good work in Honduras, we will overlook the comment about the weather. We are praying for you and the good things you are doing. I will give you a nice slap on the sunburned back when you come home though, ;-)
Pat Arthur
Post a Comment