Friday, July 8

At 3:00 am, the group arrived the church parking lot to leave for Chicago.  Despite the fact that it was way too early, everyone's eyes were open and we filled the trailer with our luggage.  We prayed for safe travel and for our drivers.  We were driving out of the parking lot by 3:40.  Thanks should go to our drivers for safe travel to Chicago: Ike DeGraaf, Paul Miersma, John and Nancy Oudshoorn, and Tammy Schaap.

We arrived in Chicago to a long waiting line to check in.  "waiting" would be the key word of the day.  Finally, we checked in, found our flight, and boarded on time.  Four hours later, we were in Mexico City.  The main activity on the plane was sleeping.

Traveling was only beginning.  We needed to go through customs, find our bags, check in again, and find our new gate.  Various people through out the terminal gave different directions on how to get places.  So we got our exercise as we ran through the terminal.

Once on our plane, we found ourselves in Tuxtla Gutierrez.  John and Shirley Wind were there to greet us.  We threw our luggage in the back of a pickup truck and headed off to San Cristobol de las Casas.  That trip was an hour and a half of twisty turny roads up through the mountains.  But in San Cristobol, we found a hotel with beds and pillows and sheets and sleep!