Settling In

The past 48 hours has been a whirlwind of activity for us.  Most importantly, we attended the midnight showing of Harry Potter on Friday morning, getting home just in time to throw everything in the car to head to the airport (spoiler alert: the score is now Potter 1, Voldemort 0).  While that might seem to be a strange thing to do, I have to remind myself that we just left our home, friends, and jobs to go live in the jungle - so in the whole scheme of things seeing a movie is actually pretty moderate.

At the airport, we were met by Steve Sherman (insert "Steve is often helpful" comments here), Doris, Kevin's sister and husband and daughter, and Kris and DeeDee Hatchell.  Unknowingly, we also met a lady named "Peggy" who flew to Lafayette Louisiana with 4 of our bags and we flew to Guatemala with 4 of hers.  I feel like we are close friends now, even though we never spoke, but we are "united" in our struggle with Continental.  Peggy, whoever you are, we love you, and you WILL get through this.

At the Guatemala airport, we were met by our dear friend Cata, who will be living with us and working with us and ministering to everyone she comes in contact with.  We had lunch with two of her sisters today - an authentic Guatemalan lunch that pretty much filled the entire daylight hours.  Spending this next year of our lives with her is one of the things we most look forward to.

We have actually had a fairly relaxing couple of days, catching up on some much-needed sleep and mentally preparing ourselves for the upcoming months.  We start language school in the morning, and we are expecting that to be partly a challenge and partly exciting and partly rewarding.  But more than anything it is important.  We are going to work with people who have 500 years of good reasons to distrust us (or at least be a little skeptical about our motivations), so the least we can do is learn to say things like "We are here because we are all God's children" and "We hope this clean water makes things better for your children" and "Help me - there is a squirrel in my pants".

Next post will have some pictures - still working out some internet issues so it's a little slow going.  For all of our friends in Tennessee, I just want you to know that it's been about 75 degrees the last couple of days, and as I write this with the window open I'm a little chilly (I'll use this line again in January except I'll brag that I'm "a little warm").