Heading Back Home

"Return to you own house, and tell what great things God has done for you." Luke 8:39

We were up at 4:15 am, woken by Art Moffit's call that the pickup was running to carry our luggage down to the buses. We had intended to ring in the New Year by getting up after midnight and hiking down to the lake shore to look at the beautiful Chilean night sky with Orion upside down. (The stars are so bright there!) However we didn't get to bed till 11:45pm and were frequently awakened during the night by the sound of Chilean party music, so we settled for stepping out on the porch and viewing the stars at 4:30am.

After a quick 5:00 am breakfast and making sure we had our lunch and supper bags (and the girls) we hopped on the buses for the 12 hour ride back to Santiago. A special thanks to Steve for getting a newer, larger bus to replace the small dilapidated one that we were in. We spent the time resting, eating, visiting, and trying to survive the exhaust fumes from the bus in front of us.

We got to the airport by 5:45 pm and stumbled off in search of our 7 bags, hoping they had all arrived with us since they were dispersed among both buses and had to go through two bus swaps and a follow-up pickup truck. With that accomplished we said goodbyes which would be repeated again as we encountered each other at the terminals, in restaurants, bathrooms, or gift shops. We had hoped to check our luggage and see some of Santiago since our flight didn't leave until 11:00 pm, but we didn't get checked in until after 8:00 pm, so we just stuck around.

(Too much stuff!)

(Leah with the teen crew.)

We boarded our plane on time for the flight to Dallas, and we managed to sleep, but my seat hurt from all the sitting, and I was glad to get off in Dallas. After making it through customs ("Howdy, y'all!") I headed to the bathroom, and what a gorgeous bathroom! It was large, relatively clean, modern, and I could flush the paper! We ate breakfast and waited to board the 11:00 am flight to Atlanta. The multiple TV screens blared Fox News, things were noisy and flashy. It seemed too busy.

Upon arriving in Atlanta we once more gathered that luggage (have I mentioned that we packed too much?) and got to our van for the three hour drive home. It was cool and rainy--very unlike what we had come from in Chile. Unloading the car and ourselves, we stumbled back in the house thankful that once again we had Sabbath to rest. And thankful that God had seen us safely through.