Planning for Mexico

Last time I posted from the letter I sent out to request support for the Mexico trip. Things have been moving along:

• We have our final team members: Harry, Oswaldo, Jessica, Kim, and I.
• We’ve purchased our plane tickets, from Buffalo through Chicago to Morelia. The flight back from Mexico is 4 hours in the middle of the night — hopefully we can sleep through it.
• One of Kim’s relatives offered to let us park for free in Buffalo rather than paying $8 per day at the airport.
• Kim got her new passport, and Jessica and I rediscovered our lost passports. Now we can actually enter the country.
• Yesterday we got our Hepatitis A shots from a doctor who also serves IV’s Guyana missions trip. As it turns out, he knows the Caldwells from long ago and has been to Mexico a number of times.
• So far we have about 20% of the money we’ll need. (You can help!)

Interesting fact: We’re flying through four distinct time zone names. We’re leaving on Eastern Standard Time, and staying in Chicago and Mexico under Central Standard. Then in the US daylight savings time kicks in right around the time we’re taking off from Mexico, though they change at a different date within Mexico, so the time won’t change on the ground. While we’re over the Gulf of Mexico, it’s anybody’s guess what time it really is. When we land in Chicago it’ll be Central Daylight Time, and then we hop one more hour to Eastern Daylight. So, we’re gaining one hour on the way to Mexico, and losing two hours on the way home.

We’re leaving in four weeks!