We ate breakfast Sunday night (January 10) at Pizza Hut, next to our hotel here in La Ceiba, Honduras. I left early, so I could post some news online. But before leaving, I asked Brian Magnus, the chairman of the General Conference, when the meetings started the next day.

“Nine o’clock,” he said. “We meet in the lobby at 8:45.”

Okay. With that information, I left for the hotel.

Sometime after that, it was announced that the conference was providing breakfast. The bus would come to pick us up at 7:45.

However, I blissfully missed this memo. I went to bed thinking 8:45 was my deadline.

The next morning, I arose early to write some news and process photos. I took a shower (no hot water), then grabbed my laptop and headed for what I called the “dlink” room at the northwest corner of the hotel. That’s the only decent internet connection, and it clearly comes not from the hotel, but from a neighboring business.

I posted some news, sent an email to Pam, and then made it to the lobby promptly at 8:45.

Nobody was there. But they’d been looking for a gringo, and I clearly fit the bill. I spotted our friendly Honduran bus driver appeared. He ushered me to a small van, in which I was the only passenger, and whisked me to the Bethel Institute. All the time, I was wondering what had happened. Did the bus leave a few minutes early?

Turns out the bus left at 7:45, and they didn’t miss me at all. Which does nothing for my self-esteem. It finally dawned on somebody that I was missing. They envisioned me lying dead or dying on the floor of my hotel room, remembering the bad fall I’d taken the day before from vertigo (which I told about on my personal blog).

They sent the driver back to the hotel to find me. He had the desk clerks call around to various rooms where members of our group were staying. Of course, nobody answered in my room, because I wasn’t there. I was in the Dlink room. But then I magically appeared on my own.

Tomorrow I will get up a little earlier–not only to catch the 7:45 bus, but to get hot water.