Travel Day - What a day!

Friday, July 4, 2008
My alarm went off at 1:00 AM. With only a few hours sleep - my family, Brent, Josh and myself, along with 14 others started our first day of our mission trip traveling to Honduras. Our team met in our church parking lot at 3:00 AM to travel to Atlanta to catch a plane bound for San Pedro Sula, Honduras with a layover in Miami.
We landed in Honduras about 3:30 PM (US time).
The only hitch in customs was a brief panic attack by Sandra when she could not find her passport. It was quickly located and all made it through customs with no problems. We were greeted by David (the founder of Orphanage Emmanuel). It was nice to see a familiar face in a foreign country. David directed us to the bus to load our luggage for a very long trip to Emmanuel.

David and his wife Lydia drove their truck to San Pedro Sula so my aunt, Loyce and Sandra had the privilege of riding with them to our final destination. From what they tell us - David drove more on the left side of the road instead of the right side - the correct side. They made it to Emmanuel about 2 hours before the rest of our team.


Our bus driver, Miestro, was a very good and diligent driver. He is the mechanic which came in handy when the throttle stuck on the way up a steep mountain.

So as cars & 18 wheelers were passing by Miestro had the hood up knee deep in the engine. Jeff, one of our team members, was fondly named Macgyver when he opened up his suitcase to pull out a power screw diver and joined Miestro in the engine to fix the throttle. We were up and running in no time to complete our 9 hour trip from the airport to Emmanuel in Guaimaca. It was rainy on & off. Cold then hot. Noisy with all the horn honking. You see the drivers here do not believe in yellow lines down the center of the road. Nor do they believe in turn signals. They only believe in honking to get where they need to go.
Quite a fun experience especially a 9 hour roller coaster ride. We did briefly stop at Burger King for a pit stop. I was so relieved and praising God when we arrived safely at Emmanuel. I realized that I had been awake for 24 hours thus I found my bed quickly!

Until next time,
Bettye