So how do you get about 40 people from Honduras to Romania???
On April 6, our entire squad and three squad leaders left Tegucigalpa, Honduras for about 83 hours of travel and lovely jet lag. We began our journey at Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa where many of us had our daypacks scoured by security. I had my sewing kit and peanut butter confiscated, LA (Lynnsey Andrews) had a huge pack of fresh batteries taken away, and others had random things taken that weren’t exactly against the rules for carry-ons. The hilarious part was that some got their pocket knives and bottles greater than 3 ounces through security. We think there was some profiling of our squad!
Leaving our ministry site via a school bus!
Our whole squad, Tony, Nidia, and the street kids in Tegucigalpa Airport
We landed in Miami International Airport from Honduras and had about an hour layover. We then headed for New York City’s JFK International Airport for about a 22-hour layover.
We landed at JFK in the late evening on Friday with a Monday 12:30 AM flight to Turkey. Most of us slept in the food court of the airport Friday night, while myself and 6 others booked a tiny hotel room at a Fairfield (one double bed and one sofa bed) for the night. There were two in the bed, two in the sofa bed, Katie Howard and I on our sleeping pads on the floor, and someone else on a couple sofa cushions on the floor as well! There was almost no room to walk. This is the epitome of World Race sleeping arrangements! Half of us wanted the hotel room just for a hot shower because we never had one for most of Central America; however, the hot water for our room barely worked! So disappointing!
Since we were in New York for almost 24 hours, we are going to make the most of it, so we all split up and toured the city all day Saturday! Many of us saw Times Square, Central Park, the National 9/11 Memorial, uptown Manhattan, etc. Katie Howard and I spent the day running errands to take advantage of being in the States and then just hung out in uptown Manhattan for the rest of the day. It was a good day of rest.
Central Park
Times Square
Some of our squad in a New York subway
We all met back up at JFK Airport at 8 PM for our connecting flight to Istanbul, Turkey. What a process waiting for everyone to get back to the airport on time via the New York subway system! We left early Monday morning via Turkish Airways for Istanbul. FYI: Turkish Airways is a great airline! They served us good meals and snacks and had tons of movies and music available for our 9-hour flight to Istanbul.
The TV screen for each seat on the plane One of our meals on the flight
We had a couple hour layover at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, and then got on our last plane for Bucharest Otopeni Airport. We got in late Sunday evening, so we stayed in a hostel for the night and then travelled Monday to our ministry sites. Three teams took a 12-hour train ride to Oradea, and my team and Missy’s team took an hour and half bus ride to Pitesti.
Talk about a travel experience!
The hostel in Bucharest Myself and 7 others stayed in this room of the hostel
Fundatia Living Hope – the church we are partnered with this month in Pitesti
