For I Know the Travel Plans I Have for You; Part 2

I will skip the dramatic build up and simply say: by the grace of God we have arrived safely in Honduras, all the way to our language school apartment, with all our children and all our bags.

God is Good.

Our week has been a busy, thank you for your prayers. Things have gone a smooth as we dared to imagine.

God allowed us to reschedule our flights with minimal cost, immediately after the embargo ended. He allowed two family members to be available on very short notice to travel with us to juggle luggage, children, and it first week in Honduras.

Here is a run down of our week:

Monday: We loaded our minivan with 12 plastic totes, 5 full size suitcases, 5 carry on bags, 4 carseats, 1 stroller, 1 violin, ( and a partridge in a pear tree). All of our checked bags were carefully packed by my wife, weighed, repacked, and weighed again till each came in between 48 and 49.5lbs.

Tuesday: 2am wake up, 2:30am left the house, 3am checked-in and checked bags, 4am prayers and send off, 5:45am departed Nashville for Miami, 9:45 departed Miami for Honduras. 12pm touch down in San Pedro Sula airport. 1am Visas, Claimed luggage (every single piece with everything inside unbroken and present) and transported all that through customs (with the help of 4 Honduran airport workers). 3pm Pick-up truck loaded with bags and we began the drive from San Pedro Sula to Siguatapeque. 5pm arrived in the apartment where will live for most of the next 6-7 months.

Wednesday: Awoken early by Ruthy who enjoyed many naps in Tuesday and believes that roosters’s crowing should not go unheeded. Deep clean of kitchen, Began unpacking, Grocery run (it’s hard stocking a kitchen from scratch in Honduras), Discussed and signed language school contracts.

Thursday: Language school began. 4 hours of class time for Bethany and I (staggered to allow us to keep the kids). The classes are one-on-one with teachers in and around a beautiful home. 1 hour of class for the girls. Still unpacking.

Friday: Language school: class time, plus homework, plus immersion time. Still unpacking, Beginning to find routine.

As I hope you can see, between the above tasks, and simply keeping or children fed, watered, and rested – we’ve barely had a moment to spare. I apologized for the cliffhanger that my last post may have been for some of you. And thank you for the prayers that worked to smooth out the problems and obstacles we did not even see.

Prayer request:

-Safe return travel for the 2 family members that came down with us.

-That our family would embrace, with all our hearts, the language, culture, and people of Honduras.

-That we would work with excellence, perseverance, and joy to become Spanish speakers (especially pray for my girls attitudes towards the overwhelming task of learning a new language)

-That we would transition well and gracefully (especially in our attitudes towards each other in our family) through changes in culture, church, school, language, friends, neighbors, security, and life itself in these next months.

As always, thank you for your prayers, words of encouragement and support.

Grace & Peace,

Nathan Gilley