Raising Sweet Savages: Family Field Trip to Honduras, Part 1

We just returned from a week-long family, medical mission trip to Siguatepeque, Honduras. It all started about 9 years ago, when we were living in Florida. One Monday morning, I bought my 3 children at the time...Aslan, who was 5, Noah, then 3, and Hosanna, and infant to the Florida Aquarium to learn about fish and sea life. It wasn't a very crowded day, so when I saw another mom there with 4 children on a school day, I went up and asked her, "Do you homeschool?" She said that she did and we chatted a while. Christy and I became friends, and we would get together at least once a month to visit and for our children to play. (she had 4 boys about the same ages.) About 8 yrs ago, God led us to Kentucky and was leading them to the mission field. 2-3 yrs ago, they moved to Honduras as missionaries, and we have kept in touch through email. Last January, I emailed Chris with an idea to consider going to visit the Pattersons in Honduras. He liked the idea, so we began praying and planning.Finally, on February 19th, 2010 it was time for our adventure to begin...We began pricing plane tickets a few months ago. We were expecting to pay about $600-700/person from Nashville to Honduras.Very close to ordering them, God gave me the idea to check prices from Atlanta, GA instead of Nashville, TN (which is a 5 hr drive instead of 2 hrs to Nashville) It would save us $3,000 to fly from Atlanta...so we booked the tickets and decided to drive.We left Kentucky on Friday, Feb 19th to drive to Atlanta. We found a motel a few miles from the airport that would allow us to park our van there for no extra fee, give us a free shuttle to the airport and free breakfast to boot, all for $50/room. (We reserved 2).We woke up at 5am Saturday Feb 20th to head to Atlanta Airport.Here is a picture of us all in the ticketing and baggage lines at 6:30am. We had 16 suitcases, 3 carseats, 3 carry-ons and 7 children. We were quite a sight that morning....we also all had on matching lime green shirts that said, "He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, No one comes to the Father except through Him."

Here is the line up of suitcases ready to be checked in...

We actually had no problems with the whole process of checking in or getting on the plane...We had to switch planes in Miami....that entailed a LOT of walking, especially with carrying carseats, and carry on's and little one's but we got lots of smiles and people counted us whereever we went, so it was kinda fun. Here is a view from the airplane of Honduras as we approached San Pedro Sula Airport.