And the journey home begins...

The past few months have FLOWN by, and I just wanted to apologize to anyone who checked my blog and was disappointed to not find any new updates. The good news, at least, is that there have been many wonderful moments, experiences and learning that I have had the past few months, and although I wanted to update my blog and share with people back home, I never seemed to find the time.

The past week has been full of goodbyes, and unfortunately they're not over yet. I just ate supper one last time with my Salvadoran host family, and now I am in my room, packing my suitcases and finishing one last MCC report.

With many tears (yet also excitement to see my friends and family back home, share my experiences, and see what the future holds), I will be leaving El Salvador tomorrow morning (Wednesday). My MCC Guatemala/El Salvador reps are picking me up, and we will drive together (about 5 hours) to Guatemala City, where I will have supper with my beloved Guatemalan host family, and then spend the night at my MCC reps house. Early Thursday morning they will drop me off at the airport...where I will head to the US, for SALT Re-entry with MCC in Akron, PA.

(This is mostly for my mom and grandma's sake) but my flight leaves Guatemala City at 7:20 am (which is 9:20 am back home). I will have a layover in Atlanta for a few hours, where I will hopefully meet up with some of the other SALTers coming from other countries, and then I will finally arrive in Harrisburg, PA at 6:15pm, where we will get picked up by an MCC worker and driven to the MCC office in Akron. I am looking forward to this time to relax (the past weeks have been super busy, and I haven't been getting much sleep!), catch up with my fellow SALTers, and begin to debrief this crazy/intense/amazing year that I have had in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Finally next Tuesday (July 24th), my mom and my aunts Ruby and Diane will pick me up in Akron, and if all goes as planned, we should be arriving back in Tavistock that evening!

I wish that I could give more of an update about my last few weeks, but my suitcases and report are calling out to me...just know that, besides my feelings of stress and sadness, I am also doing really well. I hope to have time to update my blog in the next week, but we'll see!

Goodbye for now, and I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as I begin my journey back home!