Anticipation (Picture Version)

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