Well, after many months of planning, we've done it! We have been in Texas now for nearly two weeks on the Mercy Ships Gateway program. The flight to Dallas was fine, but we unfortunately landed just as a hurricane was making its presence felt in US airspace, so we had to wait over 6 hours for the last flight to Tyler that night...nearly 24hrs travelling in the end! Still, after an unexpected few hours in a hotel in Tyler, we were picked up and taken about half an hour away to Garden Valley, where the Mercy Ships International Operations Center is located, all 400 acres of it!
We took a few days to recover properly from the jetlag, and started our training on the Monday, with about 12 others, plus 3 other children actually here with their parents who are doing Gateway. There are a number of other children around, some of whom Elliot is making friends with; including one whos dad we discovered came from Canada but used to live in Bridgend! There is an outdoor pool here, so Elliot spends some time in that to cool off from the temperature in the 30's!
The course is excellent, and we'll try and tell y'all some more next time; plus some recent pictures. For the astute readers, the picture at the top is NOT of the three of us, but a very nice one of Patricia with Emma, a very good friend, at her xxst birthday!! (Hi Emma). I was just practicing uploading photos and thought it was a nice one to use.
Tony, Patricia & Elliot.
