Our team has made it to humid Puerto Rico. It seems as though Randall and Nadine got the most sleep last night before leaving. They said they slept a couple of hours. The rest of the team said they slept about 20 minutes. Mike slept for an hour and 15 minutes and Faith didn't go to sleep at all. There was so much to do with getting packed for the team, and youth camp that is coming up right after this week. Our family had a very good meeting yesterday morning in Bellevue, Ohio and then drove home in the afternoon.
After church last night, we left Matthew and Cherith at the McLean home and went home. Mikey, Cristiana and Carissa each slept from about 10 until 2:30 AM. Faith had to finish packing the kids' suitcases and also have Mikey's suitcase all ready for camp. He will leave for camp about 20 minutes after we land in Cleveland next Monday morning at 11:30!
We were all up this morning and left at 2:50 to go to Grace Church in Mentor. They loaned us their 15-passenger van and we all packed up and made it to the airport by 3:20 AM. We had to wait as they said they weren't open for another 20 minutes. Then we easily got checked in, went through security to our gate.
Our plane was scheduled for departure at 6:30 AM, so everyone decided that Cinnabons would make the perfect breakfast. They seemed a little bit doughy but they were very very tasty. That was good as we only received a small bowl of Cheerios on the plane from Cleveland to Houston. We arrived on time in Houston at 8:55 and everyone was feeling tired. Our next flight was supposed to leave Houston at 10:30. However, due to storms in the area we taxied late from the gate and then sat on the runway for 1½ hours with no air circulating in the cabin area. They were trying to get the air conditioning fixed. It was very stuffy and difficult as the plane was full.
It felt very claustrophobic for everyone, but the team did a great job with no complaints. Faith said that at one point she was ready to jump up running and screaming through the aisle because she felt like she couldn't breathe, but she didn't think that would be a good example to the team. We finally took off from Houston for Puerto Rico about 1:15. The flight lasted over 4 hours. We arrived in San Juan around 5:30 and were able to find all of our luggage.
Natalie and Mikey have both been battling with some sinus congestion and the second flight was extremely difficult for both of them. The pain in their ears was excruciating. Praise the Lord that Natalie was fine after some aspirin, but Mikey's did not clear up until we landed. Then tonight Mikey had a pretty serious nose bleed. Pray for that to get cleared up quickly this week so that they both won't have to go through that again on the return trip.
Mr. Pfaunmiller, his son Stephen and another missionary and his wife, met us at the airport and brought us the 1½ hour trip home with all of our luggage. San Juan is on the north of the island and Ponce, where the Pfaunmillers are, is about 75 miles on the southern coast. We had a good meal tonight with both of the families. We were very hungry after not eating too much on the airplanes today.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are planning on being at the church to do some cleaning, painting, and anything else that they want us to do. Pray for our strength as we need to sleep well tonight after not sleeping hardly at all last night. Thank you so much for your prayers.
We had several praises! We arrived safely and every single piece of our luggage was accounted for. We just had a wonderful time taking silly pictures and really enjoying each other as we traveled. They are a great bunch of young people!!! They call us "mom and dad"— so I guess we now are parents of seven teenagers!
In Christ,
Mike for the team
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Due to technical difficulties, these updates were not received until Friday.
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