Saturday, October 11, 2008
WE'RE HERE!

We were able to spend a short amount of time with the kids this morning before Brandon and his father took Jake and Luke to school. It was a teary goodbye! I stayed home to back up our last bit of stuff. We got to the airport 2 hours ahead of our departure time and discovered that our flight we delayed by 4 hours. We were stunned and stood there staring at each other for a few moments. After doing some quick math we realized that we were going to miss our connection from Beijing to Nanjing! I WANTED to panic but I decided to take a deep breath… and PRAY! We checked our bags and found some seats. I knew I needed to make some phone calls. We called our travel agent and I asked her to see about booking us on a later flight from Beijing to Nanjing . She immediately called us back to say that United had already taken care of the new flight arrangements.

We then called our agency and our in-province guide. Once those calls had been made we decided to call Brandon ’s parents and ask them to come back to the airport to pick us up. We had many hours to spare before our flight. We drove to a nearby IHOP and ate brunch. We arrived back at the airport at 2pm for the scheduled 4:30pm departure. We got to the airport, cleared security and arrived at our gate to see that the flight was delayed another hour. We finally took off close to 5:30pm and we knew that we would probably also miss the flight we knew United has rebooked us on. I was tempted to get upset thinking about the possibilities. As we took off I reminded myself of all of the ways that the Lord has confirmed this adoption to us. I decided to rest in God’s word… Psalm 91:1 Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. It was so nice to release all the worry and depend on God.

The 13 hour 45minute flight went quickly. We watched Hancock, Baby Mama and Speed Racer. Kiah did great on the flight. As we landed and got ready to de-board the plane, we heard an announcement asking those with connecting flights to check with the ticket attendant. We get off the plane, turn the corner and there is a lady holding up a sign with our names. We walk over and she hands us tickets for our next flight! We didn’t have to DO anything…. it had been all been taken care of for us.

It reminded me of the Bible story of Daniel. Daniel and his friends had been captured by king Nebuchadnezzar and were to be trained to serve the king. They were assigned a ration of the king’s food however Daniel decided he was going to be faithful to the Lord and he proposed that he was not going to eat the food.

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Daniel stepped out of faith… he didn’t know what was going to happen when he made this decision but he decided in his heart and mind that he would honor the Lord.

The next verse in the book of Daniel reads:

Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs.

When Daniel showed he was faithful…. the Lord acted. He was keeping pure in the face of adversity. I kept telling myself that the Lord would go before us and fix whatever issues there were. And He did. We believed and the Lord acted.

We were able to find our guide at the Nanjing airport with no problems. We were surprised to see that we have the same driver we had for Luke’s adoption back in May 2007! We are staying in the same hotel as well! As soon as I got to our room I quickly opened up the Panda Phone and started making calls to our kids in the US ! It was so good to hear their voices! Luke, Jake and Katelyn: WE LOVE AND MISS YOU VERY MUCH!!!

We are excited to be here and praising the Lord for His blessings. We appreciate your prayers and we continue to ask for them for the remainder of our trip.

We will post some pictures tomorrow. Right now we are heading to bed!

Good night from rainy Nanjing !