July 18th, 2003
At 6:30 in the evening a dozen members of St. Joan of Arc gather with much anticipation. We stand together in the baggage claim area with banners and signs welcoming the delegation and a Guatemalan flag. Many bystanders chat with us and ask questions. As each group of people enter the baggage claim area from the terminal, we look closely. Is it them? We crouch down to try to see up the escalator from where they will come. We wait. We wait. We start to wonder. One person goes to the airlines looking for information. Did they miss their flight? We find out they did and will be arriving in another two hours.
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At 10:00 pm a dozen members of St. Joan of Arc gather with much anticipation (well, maybe a little less anticipation this time). But this time out patience and signs and flag pay off. The delegates are here! They arrived to smiles and hugs and exclamations of welcome. What happened? One of the delegates has a name similar to a Columbian that is suspected of drug smuggling. It took just a little time to convince immigration that this was a different person. That was just enough time to miss the flight by less than 5 minutes. With a group of 9, they had to wait so they could all get on a flight together.
We take pictures, gather luggage, and send each off with their host families. I hope they will get enough sleep before we start into the packed schedule in the morning...
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