It’s beginning. I left Toronto Tuesday morning and headed down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for Launch. I didn’t know what to expect for Launch but it was great to be reunited with my team. It felt surreal. The Romanian church community in Fort Lauderdale welcomed us in. The church housed all 140 of us zealous World Racers. While in Florida, I was away from home, but it still didn’t feel like The World Race has started yet. We slept in church pews, had working bathrooms, even a nice warm shower. It was still comfortable.
Then, the excitement built up to Friday morning. When I say morning, I really mean 3:30am. This is a loose timeline journey from the states to El Salvador.
3:30am – Woke up and packed up all of our things. Cleaned up the church. Snacked on an apple.
4:40am – Headed towards to take the bus. We walked probably a good 20 minutes with all of our things to “Hollywood” to take the city bus. The bus fare was only $1.75! Which is WAY cheaper than the TTC.
5:00am – Boarded the bus to take the train to Miami. When we got to the train station, we had just missed one of the trains, so we had to wait another 30 minutes.
6:10am – Got on the train and got off at the Miami Airport station. And from there took another bus (city type bus again) to the actual airport.
7:20am – Arrived at the airport and waited to get our boarding passes and baggage checked. It took a long time because all 40something of us had to be checked in together. Had some Starbucks and pumpkin bread to savour last taste of America.
9:35am – Went through security smoothly and got to our gate. A smart idea was to get some food at the airport, but I didn’t.
11:30am – Boarded the plane and 2hours and a bit later, arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador!!
It is now Central time.
1:50pm – Arrived at the airport with some complications in getting through immigration. The team leaders were trying to call our hosts to get an address. Our hosts were actually already at the airport outside and we were able to get a hold of them and get what we needed. Picked up all our luggage got through customs fine and was welcomed by our hosts with hugs and introductions.
5:30pm – 15 hours later, we’re at our host’s house in San Salvador, El Salvador.
7:30pm – Had pupusas for dinner. They are either corn or rice tortilla stuffed with cheese and beans.
Our living situation is true luxury. More than I have imagined it would be. Hugely blessed. The house we are staying has beds though I did opt to sleep in my tent because it was cooler than in the room. And this morning our hosts made us pancakes. They have just genuine and loving hearts. I’m so excited to start partaking in their ministry.
This is our 2 teams worshipping outside in the backyard of the house we’re staying in.
