My last blog shared a glimpse of
the feelings that I faced when I first arrived in the United States 70 days
ago. A lot has taken place since then. Let me share a little bit of my journey:
- Slept
maybe 10 hours in the two days before I left Belize because I was sick and
could not sleep well.
- Woke
up early to drive to Mexico and take the 8:30 a.m. bus from Chetumal to Cancun.
(Thanks Tanzi and Phoebe!)
- Landed
in San Francisco where I had the pleasure of sleeping on the airport floor.
(Sleeping is a relative term here. I started to fall into a good sleep when
some random man started talking to me and making a lot of noise around
midnight. I returned the favor by singing while he tried to sleep at 2 a.m.
since I was awake and had nothing to do.)
- Flew
out the next morning and arrived in Burbank where my cousin picked me up.
- Spent
about a week and a half with my family in Cali while also visiting many friends
from college.
- Flew
to Seattle, WA to spend a long weekend with my brother. We went camping and I
about froze to death. I COULD SEE SNOW FROM MY HAMMOCK!
- Took
Amtrak from Seattle to Sandpoint, ID (~13 hrs) where Phoebe and Shama picked me
up and took me to Montana.
- Attended
Idaho campmeeting where the temperature highs were in the 50s and raining.
(Still not ideal weather for the Belize in me.)
- Rode
Amtrak from Sandpoint to Minot, ND (~17 hrs, but really took 23 hrs because
there was a lot of traffic from the oil fields and then the staff had worked
too long so we sat in a field and waited for new workers to take the next
shift. Oh yeah, the police had to come because customer satisfaction was not
breaking any record.)
- Learned
how to drive lots of big things! And visit some of my missionary friends while
staying with my missionary family.
- Milked
a goat and caught a 31 in. 9 lb. fish
- Found
out that someone had donated a bus and another person donated money to buy a
new truck for the project!!! Praise the Lord
- Thought
my sister and husband were coming to America soon so I rushed home on a flight
from ND to Ohio.
- Met
my new niece and had lots of fun with her older sister.
- Spent
a couple of long days sewing some “broken” clothes.
- SLIP-‘N-SLIDE
- Rachel
and Keo finally arrived in the USA!
- Drove
to West TN for my family reunion (Eugene’s side made a big hit this year)
- Drove
to St. Louis and did the tourist thing with my brother-in-law since this is his
first time in America
- Drove
to Kansas the next day to visit Papa (have not seen him in probably15 years)
- Drove
back to St. Louis two days later.
- Drove
to Collegedale the next day. (But found a Laos café which was a great surprise
for my sister and her husband)
Now for the picture book version of that same story:
So far, my travels
have taken me:
And my mileage for
the summer has been: (Central America & USA)
But more than any of
my other summer journeys, I am looking forward to:
Not much longer!
I feel so blessed to call Belize my
home. God has truly shown me that His plans are better than anything I could
have imagined and that He knows me much better than I know myself. I can’t even
imagine how great it will be to go to Heaven.
“Sometimes I think I
can stay here no longer; all things of earth look so dreary. I feel very lonely
here, for I have seen a better land. Oh, that I had wings like a dove, then
would I fly away and be at rest!” EW 19
