3/3/14: Day 1: Travels

Only got about three hours of sleep but I did it to myself. I waited to the last minute to pack and had to spend most of the night trying to cram all my clothes into my carry on. John drilled the holes in the tubs for the zip ties. I was amazed that all our stuff fit in the Buick with Leanna, mom, dad, Della, and me. We got to the airport at 5:30 AM, right on time and Elliot was there. Someone from the airport helped us unload the bins and mom gave him a tip. When we got to the counter the zip ties that they had were too big to fit in the holes. The weight was slightly over but they didn’t charge us any extra. Then we headed up stairs and Ed and Robbie arrived and gave us big hugs. Christina and Dan were there too. Rodney arrived with a funny sign about eating quesadillas and wishing he was asleep. Jamie arrived before we left for security, really thankful I was able to say good bye to everyone. When we got to security they sent my harddrives and the projector through the detector three times and did the test on them to make sure they were not bombs. Then Della got a pat down while the entire family watched because she refused to have a scan, they kept saying “Code ##, we have a female opt out”. We were the last to board the plane so they took our carryon bags and checked them. I was totally mad and complaining about the fact that everyone was putting their bags that could have put under their seats in the overhead compartments. I told Della I was doomed to make the same mistakes (putting all my cloths in my carry on and having it ripped from my fingers). We managed to get to Atlanta and our plane was on the other side of the airport, very far away. I carried Della’s bag and mine, both together were 50 pounds. Our plane arrived about an hour late. When we got to El Salvador we had to wait a long time for the line, I couldn’t believe how many foreigners were entering the country. As we waited I could see our bags on the conveyer belt and I watched as a big bag got stuck in the door and every bag behind it started falling off. I watched as my computer fell off and bounce on the floor! I kind of expected that it wouldn’t make it but I didn’t expect to get to see it happen. We didn’t have much trouble with customs and we made it to get out the door of the airport! Hector and Osvaldo were waiting on us with Lucky and another family (Thomas and his wife Esmeralda).  Hector, Osvaldo and I all worked to get Lucky’s bags and one of our tubs tied to the top of Osvaldo van and then we headed for San Salvador. We ate at Pollo Campero and had the bean pizza. It was wonderful. We found out that Esmeralda has cancer and has a treatment tomorrow and that her husband is a full time preacher and sold cars on the side. Traffic was really good so made good time traveling to Hectors house. We got here with all the bags still tied to the roof. Carlos and Linda were at Hector’s house waiting on us. We plugged in the sewing machine and it worked same as before. I checked the screens and there were no cracks. We got on Hector’s hotspot wifi and were able to talk to Mom, Dad, and Leanna on skype. Then we talked to Brenda on skype. Then we talked to Jan and Mimaw on skype. Yay, got to talk to all the family. Then Luz Elena and Osvaldo’s kids arrived and we got to greet them. We are really sleepy and I hope we are going to go to bed soon.

Notes:
-Leave for the meeting at 7:30 AM to discuss the coordination of the church that Noé receives support from arriving at the same time as central.

-On the 14^th we will have a big meeting with all the church leaders at Hector’s house to discuss our plans as missionaries.

-Hector is going to Honduras in June

Groups coming to El Salvador in:
May 23 – June 7^th
June 28^th – July 18^th
Aug 9^th – Aug 16^th