Due to the cost of flights leaving from Tegucigalpa, as well as the dates departing, our trip was a bit longer than most (saved almost $500 per ticket which more than covered the additional 2 days on the ground as well as the transport north) and we drove to San Pedro Sula to fly out.  What this meant was the day before we flew out, we hopped into the vehicles with all of our luggage and took a 5 hour road trip up to Tela.  Since Tela is a beach town, we left the Mission House at 5:30am so that (with stops) we could reach Tela by noon.  That afternoon we spent relaxing at the beach, debriefing, connecting, and lifting one another up after a busy week of serving.  It was an awesome way to end our time in Honduras.   (Note in these pictures, you can see the clouds below the tops of the mountains.  It was an incredibly gorgeous drive, especially heading out before the sun rose into the sky.)

The trip north (by itself) was beautiful – we saw palm tree farms, sugar cane farms, trees called “fuego de arboles” which stands for flames of the forest due to the bright red flowers that decorated the tree.  While it rained most of the afternoon, this did not discourage us – we are by the ocean, we are enjoying God’s beauty, and our debrief included time to not only say our highlight of the week, but then others would popcorn thoughts on what we saw in each person.  It was so much fun hearing about how each person used their gifts and talents to bless each other and our Honduran friends and family!

Saturday morning, a few of us got up early to sit on the beach and watch the sun rise.  The verse from Psalm 69:34 kept rolling through my head:  “Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.”  Most of the time we just sat in silence watching the sky go from dark, to pink, to light blue as the ocean waves gently roared onto the sand.  After breakfast, we packed up and drove the 1.5 hours to San Pedro (Tela was a safer place to overnight as well as more beautiful!) to the airport.  We arrived in KC around 10pm.  Thankful for safe travels and an amazing time in the beautiful country of Honduras.  God is good, God is good indeed.  All of the time.