We arrived Tuesday afternoon at the Fort Lauderdale airport, picked up our rental car (which they upgraded at no charge from a little tiny car to this sporty machine), picked up a GPS that Todd's dad had sent to some friends, and drove the 5 hours up to Jacksonville to stay the night with my aunt and her family. They waited up for us until we arrived at 11 and actually visited with us until the early morning. :) Wednesday we woke up early and picked blueberries and then spent the rest of the day at the zoo. We rode the train around, played in the mist to cool off, and of course saw lots and lots of animals. What a special day with family!!
Kyle really wanted to see the sting rays, but they were charging to just look at them. We decided to skip it since we had done some other extras. Wouldn't you know, when we arrived at the registration for General Assembly in Orlando, there were some reps from Sea World with an aquarium of four small.....you guessed it.....STING RAYS!!! The kids got to touch them and enjoy them while we got registered.That night (still Wed.) we had dinner with their daughter, my cousin Lisa and her son whom I have not seen very much in years. We enjoyed catching up a bit, and then we went to church. They had a really neat prayer service. The pastor read a passage of Scripture and then gave his sermon or devotional points one at a time.
Between points, he gave time for personal reflection and finally time for individuals to pray aloud as they felt led. We closed with corporate prayer and communion at the altar.Thursday morning the kids and I traveled from Jacksonville to Orlando where we spent a couple hours walking through the exhibit hall at General Assembly. We saw many friends from Trevecca, Idaho, Tennessee, Guatemala and the MAC Region, Ecuador, Oklahoma.... That night we traveled to Port Orange (Daytona) and spent the night with my friend from college, Peggy, and her family. The kids had SUCH a great time together.
Friday morning we went to General Assembly together.
Fortunately there were quite a few things to entertain the kids....since there were five of them and just Peggy and me. :) We saw the sting rays while we were registering Peggy and her kids. The kids got their faces painted. The MAC region gave out balloons. They played on the little indoor playground. 
Toward the end when all of the little legs were getting tired we sat in the tent where they were showing the Jesus film. That was pretty neat.When we left GA, we headed toward my sister Sarah's house near Lakeland. Right now she is in dental school in Gainsville and comes home on weekends to spend time with her husband Craig and daughter Dorothy. She arrived at her house with my mom, sister Hannah and brother Carl who had driven down from TN about 10 minutes after we did! :)
The cousins (Kyle, Megan and Dorothy) had a great time together!Saturday I spent the day with my mom and siblings, mostly at the Ikea store. Of course shipping their wonderful furniture down to Haiti with us would not be so practical, but I did get a few plastic bins and things for the kids' room. Mostly we just had fun being together. :) Kyle and Megan stayed home with Uncle Craig and cousin "D" (Dorothy).
Sunday morning, my mom and the kids and I set out for the service at General Assembly. According to the GPS we were supposed to arrive 20 minutes early, but by the time we spent about 40 minutes stuck in the line of traffic waiting to get into the convention center, we ended up getting there about 30 minutes late...just as they were singing the last song before the message. Fortunately Dad and Mom's neighbor Lynn saved us seats, and we were able to join the other 23,000 people there in listening to the message and then participating in communion.
We enjoyed that service so much, but then they announced that a Haitian choir would be singing in the afternoon service, so we had to stay to hear that!!! :) We all walked to Olive Garden for lunch. Delicious!!! I am so glad we decided to stay for the second service. People prayed, read the Bible passage and sang in several different languages. Then after the message, people representing the 155 world areas (mostly countries) where there are Nazarene Churches walked in carrying their flags in the order in which the church entered. Quite interesting. Pastor Wallier, the one who showed us the Haitian church where we now attend was the one carrying the Haitian flag. We got to visit with him for a few minutes. :)We went back to Sarah's house to stay one more night and left
Monday morning. It was just so nice to be with part of the fam, even for such a short time!! :) Monday afternoon we spent some time with Todd's cousin Lee and family. The cousins (Kyle, Megan, Jordan and Katelyn) hit the pool together and had a great time while Lee and Anne and I visited a bit. That night God provided a wonderful place for us to stay. We were planning to just get a hotel in the area, but Lynn and her sister allowed us to spend both Mon. and Tues. in their condo since they went home a couple days early. What a fun blessing!
Tuesday we finally hit the WalMart and Target and got a few things to bring back which are SO much more expensive or hard to find here in Haiti. It was fun just looking. :) We spent that afternoon with my friend Peggy and her family. This time they were vacationing in Orlando and were staying in a hotel that had a pirate ship pool!!! They let our kids swim with them, and then we ate dinner together, too. Kyle and Megan had a blast going down the twisty pirate's plunge slide and just swimming around. It was so nice that they have gotten so much swimming practice here. They are now little fish!
That night each of us took baths in the jaccuzzi there in our room (separately, of course) with water as hot as we could stand it!! That was special! :)Wednesday morning we struck out bright and early in order to make it back to Fort Lauderdale in time to turn in the rental car, get the GPS sent back to Todd's parents and catch our flight. I do not think we would have made it if it was not for Joe and Virginia Roberts who live right there in Fort Lauderdale....the ones who had let us pick up the GPS at their house in the first place. They agreed to send the GPS back to ID, weighed our suitcases (all 3 of which turned out to be 49 lbs.), told us how to get to the airport, and even had a goody bag of treats made up for us!!
To make a long story short, I got lost several times on the way to the airport due to different names for the same roads!!!! Each time I called Joe, and each time he knew exactly where I was and told me where to go. I think that guy has a GPS in his head!!! We made it to the airport and to our gate even before they began boarding (by about 5 minutes!!!). The flight to Port au Prince was beautiful, and we arrived a few minutes early. Todd met us at the gate, and now....it is just good to be HOME!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment