14 Jan The Dwindling Fellowship of the Meeting

A tired group of General Conference delegates left the Gran Paris Hotel in La Ceiba, Honduras, at 4:15 a.m. The conference bus (“Followers of the Lord” in bit white letters across the windshield, but in Spanish) came to pick us up. David Raudales, director of the Bethel Band and son of Francisco and Maira Raudales, tagged along with the bus driver to see us off.

The two Guatamalans, Francisco Najera and Rolando Valenzuela, deboarded at the bus station on the outskirts of town. The rest of us continued on to San Pedro Sula.

In San Pedro, the Americans, Jamaicans, and Sierra Leoneans boarded a flight for Miami about 9:30. they left four persons behind. Carlos Quesada, a workshop leader, would be catching a flight to Brazil to continue his presentations on behalf of Operation Mobilization. Jeff Dice waited for a flight to Costa Rica. And the two Canadians, Brian Magnus and Paul Plato, also had a later flight back to Canada.

In Miami, we lost Winston Smith and Isaac Nugent, who continued on to Jamaica. That left five Americans and three Sierra Leoneans.

On to Chicago. There, the Sierra Leoneans and Americans parted company. Billy and Alan Simbo were heading to Philadelphia, while Theresa Musa caught a flight for Baltimore.

That left the Americans waiting for a tiny American Eagle flight to Fort Wayne, Ind. Phil Whipple, Jeff Bleijerveld, Jason and Donna Hollopeter, and Steve Dennie arrived in Fort Wayne just after 8:30.

Meanwhile, back in Honduras….

• The Costa Ricans and Nicaraguans left Wednesday night, driving home.
• Oliam Richard would left this morning from La Ceiba, hoping to make his way to stricken Haiti. (We were happy to see, in Miami, that a scheduled flight to Port au Prince was On Time.)
• Denis Casco left Thursday from the La Ceiba airport, heading back to Mexico.
• Ajiax Wo and Karis Vong began their journey back to Hong Kong in late afternoon.

And that’s it. The end of a great meeting.