Team Nicaragua :: Departure

We are sitting in the Jax airpot. 2:43 pm. We have a nice delay from 3:05 pm to a new departure of 3:50. The problem is we have to hit our connection in Miami in about 30 minutes! Please pray for us as we try to connect and skip dinner to run through the airport. Other bad news is some of our team members didn't pay attention to my emails about packing toiletries. So some people might not have clean hair, smell so good or have clean teeth. I guess we will share. Good news is that all of our bags made it. We had 2 that weighed in right on the money at 50 lbs. Let's hope the plane can get off the runway with all our weight! I'll update you again in Miami if I have WiFi. If not, look for an update tonight from Managua.

UPDATE: 9:53 PM (MST). We made it. Only by the grace of God. Our Jax flight left really late. Some of our team barely made it on the JAX flight after taking a wrong turn to get to Starbucks and having to go back through the security checkpoint. They ran through the airport to get back to our terminal. We did alot of running today.

Our flight from Miami was scheduled to leave at 6:05, but I checked online before we left JAX and saw it was delayed until 6:20. I was hoping that would give us a half hour. It didn't. We landed in Miami at 6:08 and hit the terminal around 6:18. I was already on the phone with AA when we landed trying to get gate info and actually get a message to the gate that we were coming. We were praying they would hold the plane. I ran upstairs ahead of the team to our gate and the clerk said the plane was closed. In the most humble, yet somewhat forceful way I could, I said, "We are getting on that plane - my group is right behind me." He just looked at me for a second and then said, "Well run." We were already running through the MIA terminal and we ran right onto the plane after throwing our boarding cards at them. As soon as we got on, most people didn't look excited to see our group and the flight attendants were yelling at us to take our seats. Most of our carry-ons weren't fitting and we were shoving them everywhere. Some had to get gate checked and go below.

We did make it to Nicaragua... we are here... all of us. The 32 bags of donated clothes and supplies didn't make it with us. We are praying they come in on the morning flight. Needless to say we are exhausted and were starving (we just ate dinner here a little bit ago). We hit the ground rolling tomorrow and head off to the work site. Pray for us for a good night's rest, that our bags make it tomorrow and that we get off to a great start at the worksite!