"Here," in case you didn't know (because I wouldn't have, unfortunately -- I blame the fact that my 8th grade geography teacher had to take maternity leave and we were left to browse the internet for 4 months, but that's another story) is Honduras. I am headed to La Ceiba, which is on the northern coast. My brother Andy is working with Mission to the World down there on a church planting/mercy ministry team that is just starting up. I had been wanting to visit Andy since I found out he was going but didn't think I could because of the cost. Then (surprise!) my parents agreed to help pay for the travel costs as a joint Christmas present for both Andy and me. As a side note, I think he got the raw end of the deal: I get a trip to a tropical climate in the middle of February, a chance to travel to a continent I have never visited before, an incredible opportunity to become more educated about the language and culture of the area where most of my students are from and about world missions, a vacation away from the stresses of my life here, and he gets -- me. Thankfully, he's at least faking being grateful. :)
While I am excited, I am also ridiculously nervous. I do not like flying in general, but especially by myself, and especially to foreign countries. Last time I did that, I ended up losing my plane ticket during a layover and sobbing at a ticket counter in Vienna while the very mean Austrian man told me that I would have to pay the fee for a new ticket -- oh, and by the way, that's actually in Euros, and the exchange rate isn't in your favor. In that same encounter, I also nearly maxed out my credit card and had to IM a friend from an internet cafe to transfer money into my banking account (which is exactly the kind of thing they tell you not to do if you're traveling, and exactly the kind of message that's usually a scam if you're stateside -- thankfully, my friend recognized that I was the kind of person who could actually get myself into such a scrape). Needless to say, that soured me a little to the experience of foreign travel alone, so I need many prayers. (I'm also being a little more strategic this time -- Andy is picking me up in a bus when I land in Honduras, even though I could actually catch a connecting flight to his city. I told him -- no more layovers in airports where I don't speak the language!)
Meanwhile, I still have a full week ahead of me and need to get some rest now so I am fully awake to grade the mounds of papers greeting me on my desk tomorrow. Friday is coming quickly, but it still seems a long way off right now.
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