Welcome to Honduras... on steriods!

Whew, what a week. I guess God really does work in mysterious ways. He allowed me a couple of days to get the Brazil incident out of my system before putting me to task on the airport dilemma in Tegucigalpa. By now I am sure most everyone knows that the airport in Tegucigalpa is closed due to the TACA accident that took place several days ago. All large commercial planes are not allowed to land in the capital until a complete investigation and report is done.

Teams, such as Mark Connell and Gayle Davidson, have had to scramble to make changes and juggle flights into San Salvador and San Pedro Sula to get their teams into Honduras. It was a nightmare for them since their trips were upon them with little to no time to be flexible with the changing of plans. I have been more fortunate. Since I came home early from Brazil I was able to talk to Gayle and Tim to get a head start on what I needed to do to get our travel plans changed to adapt to the crisis in Honduras.

So, 4 days later and countless number of hours on the phone and on the Internet, it looks like we are well on our way to having all of our transportation arrangements made to accommodate our team. Many, many thanks to all of the team leaders that took the information sent to them and getting in touch with all of their people to get flights changed and re-ticketed so that we can arrive pretty much on schedule. Amazingly, all 103 team members have successfully changed over to the new flights. God is amazing, can I get an Amen on that!?

So, if you are flying TACA, your new schedule should take you directly into Tegucigalpa. If you have not sent me your updated flight information, please do so as quickly as you can. If you are flying American Airlines or Continental, welcome to Honduras. We have successfully changed our flights to San Pedro Sula, but that is as far as our friendly skies people will get us. We are on our own from here. So close, but yet so far…

So, our plan is simple. Tim Hines, who is in Tegucigalpa right now, is going to help us secure commuter flights on local airlines that have small planes to get us into Tegucigalpa. The plan is simple; getting it done might be difficult. This is going to require making reservations for all of the AA and Continental people. This 1 way ticket is probably going to cost $75 +/- per person. So, please make plans accordingly. Make sure to bring enough money with you to pay for this added expense. I will let you know how this will all work once I have talked to Tim.

Outside of this adjustment, I believe everything else is on track and ready to roll. Final payments are rolling in (thank you all very much) and I am getting word from the different groups about the amount of money they are bringing down for the work fund. I am sending off our final payments to IRC for insurance and administration fees, and hopefully I will have our bus reservations for our retreat done this week. I am mailing out t-shirts, journals, and hats this week.

Again, thank you all for being flexible, understanding, and faithful that God is going to take care of us. If He can do all of this to help us get to Honduras, imagine what He has in store for us once we get there! Wow, you know it is going to be something! Stay tuned, as last minute information will be sent out. I will also try to send out a report on the Brazil trip too before we leave. God is good all of the time.

TR