Hey everyone! Here with another update. The team is doing great... and we are at the airport. The leaders are tired... let me tell you why! So obviously yesterday there was countless cancelled flights in and out of Toronto which made the Winnipeg airport very very full of grumpy, angry, emotional travelers. 100’s of them. I am proud of our team for having great attitudes and lots of fun in the midst of lines and stress. Once we were at our hotel last night Corwin followed the instructions he was given to call WestJet for an update on our departure time. He waited on hold for 2 and a half hours only to be hung up on. He then took a cab back to the airport and was there until 5 am making arrangements for our team (thanks Cor... you are a champ!)

So it’s a bit of a good news/bad news/good news scenario. I will start with the good news... we will all be in Belize pretty soon! We are leaving Winnipeg in a couple of hours and flying to Toronto, but unfortunately not in enough time to catch our flight to Belize today. So we will wait in Toronto all afternoon, and at around 7 we are flying to Atlanta, Georgia (yes... I did say Atlanta). We will stay in Atlanta overnight and early tomorrow morning we will fly to Belize!! Yay!

Now for the bit of bad news. One of our students Richard is from Jamaica and does not have a visa to get into the States. So he is flying back to Saskatoon today and then flying from Saskatoon to Calgary to Belize on Friday. It’s tough to be away from him for a couple days, but we are so thankful that he will be back with us less than 24 hours after we arrive in Belize.

Now.... let me just talk about God’s goodness for a second. It may seem that things have gone horribly wrong for us and we could easily take a “why us” approach. But it is actually the hand of God at work that is allowing us to go to Belize. There was 2 hours last night when Corwin was working with the agent at WestJet that getting us to Belize was actually impossible and he was told our whole trip would have to be cancelled because the next available flights were Feb. 24th. This is an incredibly busy time of year for tourism in Belize.... and every ticket to the country was booked for weeks to come. But all of a sudden this woman found these Atlanta tickets... the exact right number we needed... and we were able to book them. The flight from Calgary to Belize on Friday was also 100% sold out but as Corwin was at the desk one seat opened up. It is literally the only ticket from Canada directly to Belize for the next 2 weeks and Richard got it. So even though things have not gone as planned.... we are so grateful that God he worked out the details and we are able to move ahead (and let’s be real... teenagers think that staying up all night and taking bonus flights to Atlanta is fun... so they are good).

We ran though every single scenario, and have talked to many other people whose travel plans have been completely ruined. We are going to Belize and we are happy! WestJet was also incredibly generous with food vouchers so we are all enjoying $50 each of free breakfast! (Do you have any idea how many things you can buy at Starbucks for $50? Cause now I do!)

Thanks so much for praying! Pray for continued strength for us as we have another long day ahead of us... especially for Corwin who has not gone to sleep yet and for me who slept for maybe a couple hours. Pray for Richard that his trip runs very smoothly and we can see him on Friday. Pray for continued fun, great attitudes, patience and love for each other on our team. So far so good!!!

Thanks for reading along and praying! We will be in touch from Toronto later today.

Parents.... just a reminder that your kids don’t have access to social media on their phones so if you would like to send them a message or talk to them feel free to contact me on my cell anytime.

Thanks everyone! I’ll leave you with a pic of Sarah and Emily living their best life with free food vouchers.

Blessings from a happy but tired leader. We can do this!!

Heading Out For More Adventures