We must admit, as the clock turned 6am on Monday, March 27th and we left Panajachel, Guatemala we only had planned about half our trip to LA. We knew this leg was going to have to be one of faith and trust in the Lord to guide our steps.
Our plan was
to sell our van in Mexico to Pastor Samuel, who we worked with for weeks in Jerusalen (Southern Mexico). We had agreed to meet him in Tuxtla, Mexico at the bus station and sell it to him for $1000. Days before we left, we took it to a mechanic and had the overheating problem checked and fixed so we could sell our friends a smooth running van.
We arrived in Tuxtla, Mexico after 11 hours of driving and we met Pastor Samuel and Francicso at the bus station. We made the sales transaction and went out for dinner with them before boarding a bus to Mexico City. We had one more chance to say our good-byes to our Mexican brothers. We also ran into the Brown Team at the bus terminal as their bus had a layover there. That was interesting!
Our bus ride to Mexico City was 7pm-8:30am. We were able to sleep a little however Sarah was in a seat with a baby and 1 ½ year old crawling all over her. As our bus pulled into the bus station in Mexico City we said, “Ok Lord, how do we get to LA from here?” As Kimmie and Lloyd guarded our luggage, Chad, Tauna, and Sarah ran through the bus terminal looking for bus tickets to Tijuana. They found that it would take about 40 hours to get there and than we still needed to get to LA. Thank the Lord there was internet access in the terminal where they did research on flights to LA. The Lord blessed us with tickets for $167 non-stop flight leaving the next morning.
We took the Mexico City subway to the airport and the airport became our hotel for the evening. We camped out in our sleeping bags all night under a stairway in the airport. That was the first for many of us on the team. When we arrived at the airport, guess who we saw? The Brown Team!! Neither team would share their plans of getting to LA but we knew Brown was going to be on our flight and it would be a true Amazing Race to Santa Monica Pier finish line.
As we got of the airplane it was a race. We ran to baggage claim, through customs, worried our teammate, Lloyd, might have tough time at customs being South African. But the Lord again blessed us with smooth sailing through. We easily found a cab that took us straight to the pier. Chad and Lloyd in the midst of their running and carrying bags fell and Chad’s knee was cut opened. However, we beat the Brown Team to the Santa Monica Pier by the Ferris wheel…which we rode later! We will let you know as soon as we find out where we placed in this leg of the race!
