Well, we made it back to the building. All forty-nine students present, accounted for, and jetlagged. The flights went pretty well. We safely made it out of the JFK airport before they shut it down. Praise the Lamb. Chloe yet again successfully partook in an airplane ride with limited fear and no panic attacks, even though the air had quite a few potholes.
Once in California, we were happy to throw toilet paper into the toilet, drink out of the faucet, and eat French fries. We found our luggage (except for Abby), got on shuttle busses, and loaded up the vans. Soon enough we embarked on our journey to the lovely town of Bakersfield where we spent the night at Heath’s church. We woke up to cookies made with love by Christian’s mom, and a breakfast of donuts, coffee, and orange juice from the staff. At about 7:30am we got on the road, made a quick pit stop at Wal-Mart, and headed back home to Hume. At 11:30am we arrived safely at Hume and headed off to a quesadilla lunch at Ponderosa kitchen. The second we got out of the vans we smelled fresh air for the first time in weeks; the scent of sequoia trees saturated the air. While we were in the Dominican Republic, a huge snow storm hit Hume, so multiple feet of snow covered camp. With our bellies full of good food and lungs full of fresh air we headed up the Joshua hill to make our final stop of the trip, the Joshua building.
Readjusting to Joshua life has been interesting. It’s amazing how you can forget in two week. Thankfully the staff gave us a day off on Monday and we were able to sleep in and get caught up on everything. It’s nice to be back in the building in our own beds again. Having the luxury of clean water again is incredible. I wrote a poem to commemorate a special event the first day.
The sounding call throughout the building
The urgent and persistent whine
We all step out together
We return to the building fine
Our speaker for this week, Rob Williams (no, not that Rob Williams), arrived last night and kicked off his time with us. We are all looking forward to what he has to teach us and look forward to hearing more jokes from him and his youngest son, Ross, who accompanied him to Joshua.
Also, check out the photos from the DR here!