Vacation Wrap-up

Thursday last week started our Come Away Conference at Iglesa Bautisto El Faro in El Progresso. Those were some busy days. We had an evening meal Thursday catered by the church and our first session which ended about 7:30 pm. That gave enough time to those who had to travel outside of the church complex to get home before the 8 pm curfew. The rest of us stayed at the Rearick Surgical Center. There were enough rooms to house six families. The kids really enjoyed the sleepover. They were out until way past midnight playing soccer and basketball. It was an especially fun time for them. Mama and I were not up that late, but we did spend some time visiting after the session ended and the cleanup was finalized.

We were back in the kitchen at a little after 7 am to get the coffee started and get breakfast items set out. We were on our own for lunch Friday (Pizza for us) but had a catered dinner again Friday evening. It was another late night for all of us, but we were up again early Saturday morning to get all the breakfast items set out an ready once more. The last session ended at about noon Saturday. It did not take us long to clean up and that was a good thing because the laborers were waiting on us to vacate the sanctuary so it could be swept, mopped and set up for Sunday morning. The conference was really good overall. Staying on site allowed all of us much more time to visit and catch up with each other.

Sunday service was done in English, so I got to hear the message in both languages. That was a good experience to hear how Matt Goins translated some of the more nuanced ideas woven into the sermon. After church we visited one last time while Nate downloaded the audio and video record of the service. Then we headed to Tela to spend the afternoon at the beach. It is about a 90-minute drive with lots to see along the way. The roads were not great, but we traveled along at about 50 mph for the majority of the drive. When we got off the main road, it was a lot slower going, but Nate is very familiar with the way and he knew we could not hurry over the last ten miles. The roads were very rough but were surprisingly better than they were last year when we made the same trek. The weather was beautiful. The beach was magnificent. The meal we had there was stellar. It was a memorable afternoon. The ride home was anticlimactic. The evening after we got back was short, but Mama and I packed up the majority of our belongings so that we would know how much room we needed for all the things that seem to materialize after the bag are thought to be packed.  

Monday was a sad morning. We weighed all the checked luggage and looked over the house one last time before we loaded the vehicles and headed to Denny’s in San Pedro Sula. The food there was surprisingly good, and it was only a few minutes to the airport from the restaurant. Once at the airport, we had to say goodbye outside the building because only those who needed to access the terminal were allowed in. It was a brief, sad goodbye. Check in was slow but fairly easy. Customs was slow but not problematic. Once in the waiting area, we had less than thirty minutes to wait until we were boarded. The flight was not full, so we spread out a bit into the open spaces. In Houston we had to go through customs – which was very easy – and collect our baggage to go through security once more for the flight back to DFW. It was not full either.

James Wycoff met us at the airport about forty minutes after our flight landed, so we had a brief wait, but we were home by 11:40 pm. That gave us plenty of time to dig our coats out of the luggage to get into something warm. It is always bittersweet to get home. That homecoming was made even more disappointing by the seventy degree change in temperature.

Mama and I spent the first day back grocery shopping. By the time we got home, we were both ready to sit down for a bit and all this morning I spent with our IT group getting my computer functioning properly. In doing so, I lost all my saved user id’s and passwords, so all those now have to be individually reset. It is a pain, but at least I can work from home and access the network as needed.

I will be teaching class half a day Friday and I am glad I have a respite until then because there is a lot of work I need to catch up on. Tomorrow and Friday evenings I will be busy getting ready for the many little things we have to do to survive the brutal cold coming this weekend.

Hopefully I can get all those little things done.