7/4/13 - Welcome Home

We made it safely from Addis Ababa to Frankfurt and God continues to extend His grace to us!  We got upgraded to business class AGAIN!  Kevin and I can hardly believe it could happen twice on the same trip, but it was a huge blessing to allow us to get some sleep!  We stayed awake until after we refueled in Khartoum and then slept the rest of the flight to Frankfurt (about 5 hours).  When we arrived in Frankfurt, we went through the maze to get to our gate and, on our way, received a packet of mints from a worker that said Happy Independence Day.  Thanks Germany :)  We are looking forward to getting home!!!

Our plane from Frankfurt to Chicago was a 747 again, so we sat while they hundreds of people pushed their way to get on the plane first.  We really had no desire to rush to get on the plane just to sit.  When we finally decided to walk up to get on we scanned our ticket and literally laughed out loud when a new ticket printed for each of us – business class upgrade – AGAIN!  Three out of our four long flights we were upgraded on this trip.  What a difference it made, though, we actually landed home well rested and not completely exhausted.  Once we boarded the plane we ended up being delayed by 45 minutes.  We knew our connection in Chicago was going to be tight due to having to go through immigration and customs, but were hoping we could make up time in the air.  The fact that we were two rows from the exit door helped.  We knew that we could beat the majority of the passengers to the immigration line.  Immigration was a breeze and went quickly.  Getting our bags – not so much.  The first bag came out within the first 20 bags or so.  The second one we had to wait another 20 minutes.  And the time seemed to drag knowing we were cutting it close.  Once we got it we waited in a fairly long customs line.  Then, off to recheck our bags and get boarding passes.  We got to the counter and the agent said we have plenty of time to make our flight, so he printed our boarding passes and pointed us in the right direction to catch the train. Once at the correct terminal, we went through security AGAIN and mall-walked to our gate.  We, surprisingly, made it to the correct gate with about ten minutes to spare.

The flight back to Grand Rapids was a quick one with no delays.  We landed and were so excited to see Nicolas and Grandma P standing at the end of the ramp!  We each gave him a big hug and asked a million questions about how his week was.  We walked down to get our bags and only one of our checked bags came off the belt.  We had to go and fill out the missing bag report.  We rechecked it in Chicago, so we were pretty confident that it just missed our plane and we would see it soon.  Sure enough, it came in on the next plane and was delivered to our house four hours later.  Due to the time change we started crashing about 9 pm were all in bed by 9:30.  We slept amazingly well back in our own bed and woke up feeling great about 6:30 the next morning.

We made it!

While it will be hard to wait, we know that we will be able to bring M home within the next few weeks and pray God will continue to give us the patience and strength to wait it out!  Happy 4th of July!!!  Now it's time  to take Nicolas to his first fireworks show!!  Who knew that God would bless us with two amazing children in a matter of months....... :)