Orientation

After two days of orientation, we are almost off to our destinations.  It has been a whirlwind already - massive amounts of information, meeting new friends, and getting even more excited about the countries we will serve in.  I flew to Dallas Wednesday morning for a few precious hours with my family.  (Dad, this is your shout out, since you wanted to make the blog!)  After a quick lunch with Dad on Thursday, he dropped me off at the Buckner Missions office.  I saw a few familiar faces and met some new friends!  In July Buckner has intern teams going to Russia, Rio Grande Valley, Peru, Kenya, and Honduras.  We all experienced orientation together and will depart tomorrow.

Thursday we learned the history of Buckner and prepared for the culture differences in each of our locations.  Each team had a cultural dinner with Buckner staff to experience some local flavors from our respective countries and answer more questions.  (Our team actually ate authentic Mexican food, but I'm not complaining...)  Friday morning we worked at the Humanitarian Aid Center with the shoe warehouse and some other projects around the campus.  We also packed our humanitarian aid bags with supplies for each team.

Lydsay, me, Jennifer, and Edna packing our bags

 My team is awesome by the way - I have a feeling it is going to be an incredible month.  We also met with some Buckner staff about local ministries in our countries.  It was encouraging to hear about all of the wonderful work going on in Tegucigalpa (or "Tegu" to locals) already.  Our team is praying that we will be able to truly help the on-going work of the in-country staff.  After a time of worship and prayer, we headed off to the hotel.  Each team is leaving at a different time, but my team will report to the lobby at 2:45 am to leave for the airport.  So, I may only be getting a quick nap tonight, but I'm hoping for some sleep on the plane!  Oh, and by the way, apparently the Tegu airstrip is one of the most dangerous in the world.  It is surrounded by mountains and has a very short runway.  Needless to say, we are all a little anxious about the actual landing in Honduras!