Our trip is balanced- seven men and seven women. Seven members of FUMC Birmingham and seven members of Methodist churches from Michigan, Tennessee, South Carolina and Florida. But not so balanced when it comes to age with two young members and a dozen not so young.
Jay objected that he really didn't belong in the larger group so we allowed him to be a group all by himself.
We also are pretty diverse with electricians, carpenters, farmers, lawyers, teachers and medical technicians. But for the next nine days we are just family. Our luggage was filled with items we don't usually travel with: a circular saw, sledge hammers, electric drill and grinder, hacksaw, 30 wooden cars for a pinewood derby and Pastor Zack traveled with a set of cymbals packed amongst his clothes.
The day began early with a 5:00 a.m. airport arrival. The plane was delayed and after we all hiked the full length of the D concourse twice due to gate changes, we finally got on board an hour late. It was a smooth flight from Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale. In Ft.Lauderdale the group was all together for the first time and Pastor Zack prayed us out of the States.
A slight glitch when we touched down. The Bishop's office sent me copies of our visas and that was all we needed to leave the US bound for Cuba but we could not go through customs without the originals. The pastors meeting us in Santa Clara had the originals but the bus coming to pick us up had broken down. So we spent our first few hours in a holding pattern. We sang happy birthday to Lee and Joan who had celebrated birthdays this past week.
