Blanco Family Notes: Coming to (and from) America...

Once being a Geography teacher, I have always had a hard time when people refer to the U.S. as just America, when America includes North and South and the region of Central America. In El Salvador, to not use the term, 'Gringa' too much, they would call me the 'Americana', but they too are 'Americanos'! I couldn't say that I was from North America, because Central America is also included in the continent, because sometimes they would call me the 'Norteamericana'. So in the end I was 'estadounidense' which there is not a literal translation in English it would be like saying, United Statesian.

Lucas was the only one on the whole
plane studying the safety card!

Well after all the stress, sadness and anxiety of leaving our home in Ojos de Agua, we made it safely to the USA. We are thankful to all of you who prayed for us as we traveled...our prayers were answered! We had spent the last couple weeks weighing our luggage to not exceed the 50 lb weight limit. On American Airlines one has to pay an extra $30 for the second checked bag and $150 for the third. We had two pieces of luggage for each of us which included Lucas' car seat. I had one extra piece that I had resigned to pay the $150. Upon arriving at the airport, we didn't have to wait in any lines, walked right up to the counter, and nice woman working there did not charge me extra for the car seat, so we were still able to make it within our travel budget! The flight was not full, and Lucas was the best behaved child one could ask for. He has been so excited for months to travel in an airplane! Our first stop was Dallas where we had to go through immigration and customs. Since we had a nice long layover, we took our time getting off the plane and again didn't have any lines to wait in at immigration. They went through Camilo's paperwork and we all got through no problem! To go through customs we had to gather up all of our checked luggage and then re-check it to LA. We got to the luggage carrousel and there was all of our stuff in a pile, there was no one else waiting for luggage! A very nice man helped us load it all onto one push cart and, still thinking in Spanish, I told him, 'Gracias'.

ready to go!

Arriving in LA, oddly, there was no one else picking up their luggage, and all of ours was going round and round on the belt... another answer to prayer, that all of our luggage made it, no problem!
We had to wait a bit for Camilo's dad to pick us up, when he arrived he took us to Jose and Isabel Melgar's home in North Hills where we would stay the night. These are our dear friends from Ojos de Agua that have supported our missionary work and the building project. They recently helped raise funds with their church (Iglesia de Dios Reseda, CA) to purchase the remaining windows and the doors!!

As we entered their home we were greeted with many smiling faces and a welcome song! They had planned a Welcome Surprise Party for us with the members of their church! Even though we were tired from traveling, this was just what we needed as we had just had a very sad goodbye. We are so grateful to the Lord for our brothers and sisters in Reseda.

Arrived into Tulare on December 3rd with the Melgar Family
and Camilo´s father

The next morning, Jose and his family drove us all the way to Tulare, to my mom's home where we will be for a little while. We had a nice time of fellowship with them.

Now that we are here, we have been seeking opportunities to plant a Hispanic church in the area. Please keep this process in your prayers. We also ask that you would pray for God's provision.

We are happy to be here, especially to spend Christmas with mom, my brother and his family. We will get to meet our niece, Avery for the first time!

Thank you for your support and we also wish you a Merry Christmas!

Here´s Lucas adjusting...