We're leaving tonight for Emmanuel!

Hello & Welcome to my Orphanage Emmanuel experience for 2012!

If you'd like to read how this trip came about, feel free to go through the archives and check out how it all happened.

First I'd like to thank all of my generous summer school students and their parents at Ferber Elementary School in Appleton, Wisconsin for all of their donations.  Earlier this week I got all of the donations, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, socks, clothing, games, baby bath, etc) packed up into TWO VERY LARGE boxes and sent them to Dr. Don Reynolds in Hixson, TN.  Dr. Reynolds is on the Board of Trustees for Orphanage Emmanuel and is in charge of sending a semi-truck full of donations down to Honduras approximately every 6-8 weeks.  They get very excited when the semi arrives.

I just got off of the phone with Kimberly, a girl from church who is going with me & Andrés.  She's super-excited, having had 2 prior planned missions trips fall through.  I'm very excited for her because I remember all too well what my first year was like in terms of sheer excitement!  I still get excited each year, but that first year of not even knowing what I was walking into and the thrill of being able to serve in this type of capacity was just different, fresh & new.  Now that I know what Emmanuel all entails, I no longer have the excitement of the "unexpected", but rather the excitement to be able to go and see all of the children and staff with whom I've made good, strong connections!

So, what's there yet to do today?  Well, I need to finish packing and to make sure that my suitcase is under 50 pounds.  Thankfully Andrés is currently only sitting at 40 pounds with his suitcase right now; so if I go over, I can just shuffle some things his way!  Andrés will take me to the Appleton airport to pick up our car rental, since we'll be leaving around 9:30pm to head to Chicago O'Hare.  We need to be at the airport approximately 3 hours prior to our flight, so arriving at O'Hare around 2:30am (after dropping off the rental) and then our flight for Miami takes off at 5:30am.

Between renting the car and leaving Neenah, I will be going out to supper with my husband one last time before he joins me in Honduras on August 10th.  I'm even more excited for Bob to go down there, because I've been hoping he'd go with me one year ever since I had started going!

As with each year prior, I'll try to keep you posted on a daily basis, but keep in mind that sometimes the internet is not as reliable in these 3rd world countries.  Thanks for your patience and prayers!  See you soon!