The day started bright and early as the team gathered at the airport at 6:45 a.m.! Some of us had coffee, others breakfast, and others a second breakfast (isn't that a Hobbit thing?) while we waited to board. We switched planes in Houston, and thinking that we would not get another meal until dinner, we grabbed a quick bite before boarding for the second leg. Of course, as these things go there was a late lunch served on the flight, which of course we ate :-) Upon making it through immigration and customs (all the bags made it, woohoo!!) we stepped outside to find Becky waiting for us, and one of the first things out of her mouth was that Dona Ema had prepared a lunch for our arrival. I guess we better plan to work hard if we're going to be eating like this for a week!
It took us about an hour to get to the seminary from the airport, but our driver Miguel got us here in one piece... though there were a few close calls. During the drive, we learned that apart from the very center of town, none of the streets in San Jose have street names, and none of the buildings or houses have actual addresses. It's a city of about 2 million people, that's 1/3 of the entire country's population, and somehow they figure it out. Even their mailing addresses consist of things like "25 meters east of the museum in the Mountain Cedar area." I can just picture the chaos that would cause if we attempted that kind of system in the U.S.
A picture of our first meal with Dona Ema (at the head of the table). She's an absolutely beautiful woman who is so excited to have us here and to be able to cook for us, and boy can that lady cook!!
It's an hour earlier here, so we're all pretty exhausted, but as we shared some of the highlights of the day with one another, a few stood out. This trip was Elizabeth's first time ever on an airplane, and she described the moment she felt closest to God today as being when she looked out the window of the plane and saw the clouds beneath her appearing to take the shape of a person. The excitement Elizabeth experienced by simply looking out and seeing nothing but water, and then beach, then mountains, is something that many of us have taken for granted. Sometimes we experience such incredible beauty in our lives on a daily basis and we find ourselves becoming desensitized to its true beauty. The first moment when we stepped out of the van onto the seminary grounds, we were greeted by the most incredible flowers and lush landscape that we could hardly take in the beauty of this place!
And tomorrow brings another day...
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