Sigh…. Tom gets home from the bank and comes upstairs to eat lunch. Bob pulls in right behind Tom and tells Tom that he has a flat tire on the red van. You guys all know the drill. Yep, it is going to be one of those days. BUT, we are blessed, because we got up this morning! We have food to eat and a place to stay. It's all good.
The grey van is finally done (6:00 pm) so needless to say we never made it to San Pedro Sula today. we will be leaving at 6 in the morning tomorrow morning and driving straight to Costco to get food for the team that comes on Sunday morning.
We left at 6:45 in the morning. No problems getting to San Pedro Sula. We went straight to Pricesmart to get groceries. Then to the campground to get settled. It is well over a hundred degrees here. Boy is it hot! We needed to go to the bank and get money so we went to the little mall in El Progreso to the bank, ate dinner, and went to the grocery store for the things I couldn't get at Pricesmart. We were driving out of the lot when two security guys flagged us down. They told us we had a flat tire. Yep, ANOTHER flat tire, this time in the grey van. It is dark and we try to find all the parts to change the tire. My first thought is someone did to us because they saw us get so much money from the bank (the police in me). I am looking all over, but no one seems to notice us. The security guard comes over and helps Tom with the tire. I stand guard by the locked van. We did feel very fortunate (perhaps a God thing) that the guards told us about the tire while we were still in the lighted parking lot (it gets dark by 6pm here). The spare wasn't in great shape, but it did have more air in it than the flat one did. But hey, at least we HAD a spare. And Tom has had so much practice changing tires that he has it down to a science. Back to the campground to start cooking for tomorrow's arrival of the next team.
I went to take a shower and went to look for my shower shoes. Not there. In fact, not one pair of our shoes that we left in our closet are here. I came down wearing only flip flops because I had left my work boots, tennis shoes, shower shoes, extra flip flops, aqua shoes here so I wouldn't have to carry them back and forth. Tom had shower shoes and tennis shoes here. All gone. Sooooo, when the team comes tomorrow morning, I will greet them in my flip flops and will have to go buy something that I can wear to the worksite. UGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. Ok, say something positive about this. Hmmm, at least I have money to buy shoes. Now I just need the time.
6/24/12 We went to pick up the team from the airport. We have Monica Holloway from our church staying with us for 3 weeks. She will be helping out with two of our teams. She came off the flight, but no one else did. We waited, and waited. She said there weren't people on the plane from Oregon. They were suppose to be on the same flight with Monica. We asked at the counter if they had missed the flight. We were told they are not permitted to tell us that. All they would say was the flight was here. I called Bob to see if he had a number for one of the team leaders. He said he thought they weren't coming until tomorrow. I told him they were suppose to be here today. We get Monica and go back to the campground wondering what happened. Tom asked Monica if the plane was full or not. she said it was. This team is 28 people. you would miss that many on a flight. I went and got my calendar, along with all my paperwork. Everything I had written down said they were coming on Sunday, the 25th. Hmmmm, Sunday is the 24th. Oh, my bad. They will be here tomorrow at the same time. We took Efrain and the box truck and two vans for Monica and one piece of luggage. Oh well, she got the full treatment. We got back to the campground to 3 pans of homemade mac and cheese and a huge pot of sloppy joes. Guess what we are having tomorrow for lunch? Anyone? Monica is trying to adjust to the heat here. She asked how long does it take to get used to the heat? I told her, when I get used to it, I will let her know.
Some of you know that we have a problem at the campground with squatters. They have been here for several months. At first, they completely blocked the road leading to the campground and stated that we did not own the land, that they did and they were taking over the campground (Maybe they took my shoes……) Anyway, Efrain took the ownership papers to the Mayor's office and showed proof of ownership. The "leader" of the squatters had to sign a paper stating that if they came on our property or tried to take it over, they would be jailed. He signed the paper and went to jail for the evening. The next day, they were all back blocking the road leading to the campground. BUT, they let Efrain and anyone else who wanted to go to the campground go by. It seems that there are about 3000 people who live among the cane fields. They say that they are the rightful owners of the cane fields. The Sugarcane producers have not shown any paperwork stating they properly own the land. So, the mayor is not kicking these people off the land. We are talking about over 10,000 acres of land here. These people are talking about taking up the cane and planting African Palm trees for the production of Palm oil. This is going to get really interesting. A lot of the razor wire on top of our walls had been torn down or had fallen. Tom spent the day re-securing the razor wire on top of our walls. There are a couple of small spots that don't have any wire, so we will be looking into getting those taken care of soon.
Oh my...what a crazy few days you've had. We are praying for you!
ReplyDelete