Yes, We Are Alive....

....and on furlough in America for the next 6 months!  Sorry it's been a while since we've made a post.  In December I was quite ill for almost two weeks, then the kids were, then it was Christmas and then Heather became ill too with the same thing so I played mom while packing up our house for furlough, and then we left.  Our journey home wasn't just a straight shot to Raleigh, but we actually visited four different countries, though one of those we hadn't planned to visit (more on that later).  We vacationed in Singapore for a few days which was a lot of fun.  Our second leg was on to the MAF headquarters with a stop in China.  We spent a week at MAF (which was crazy cold, but a good visit), then finally made it home to Raleigh.  

China??

Yes, that's right, we made a stop in China.  OK, maybe we just changed planes there, but our passports prove that we actually visited China.  Here's why we will never, and I recommend nobody to ever, go through China again as a "stopover" to change planes.  

We used to live in China, so when we found out that our routing home would take us through Beijing, I was kind of excited.  We are adopting a child from China, and we used to be able to speak Chinese, so this would be fun, right?  Our plane from Singapore arrived at 6am, and our next flight to Seattle didn't leave until 12pm.  Six hours seemed like plenty of time to transfer.  Well, we arrived in Terminal 3, a huge facility that looked like it'd been completed for the Beijing Olympics in 2008.  It is massive.  Well, apparently they forgot to connect the tram over to Terminal 2, where our next flight left from, because in order to get over to Terminal 2, you have to get a 72 hour visa and actually get your passport stamped, get on a bus for 10 minutes or so, then go through customs again, and finally you're over ready to get on your next plane.  We had to fill out the departure/arrival cards and everything.  The crazy thing is this new Terminal 3 was huge, and we had to get on a train for quite a while just to take us to the baggage claim area, which leads me to wonder, why couldn't they link the two terminals together without forcing you to go through customs/immigration like every other airport in the free world does???  

So we finally arrived at the Terminal 2 check-in counter at 8am, two hours after our previous flight had arrived.  But we didn't have boarding passes for the next flight, and the Delta check-in counter didn't open till 9am.  When we did finally check in at 9am, they told us they couldn't find our bags (we had six checked bags), and we'd need to wait for our bags to come from the other terminal before we could proceed.  OK, three hours seemed like plenty of time to get our bags transferred, but whatever.  Well, an hour later and I was beginning to realize that doing an international transfer in Beijing was not normal for them.  Nevermind that we've done it in Tokyo, Singapore, Stockholm, without a hitch before.  By 10am they'd only found two of our bags, and by 10:30 they finally just sent us with our boarding passes to the gate.  I kept asking the Delta folks (who were very nice and helpful) what would happen to our other four bags, and I never really got an answer.  It wasn't like, "Oh, when we find them, we'll send them on ahead on the next flight."  I got the impression it was going to be, "Oh you're not here to claim them?  They will stay in China FOREVER!!! {evil laugh}"  They kept saying how we had flown from Singapore on Air China, but this was Delta, and that's why there was a problem.  Of course, in Singapore, where everything just works like clockwork (it is seriously the most efficient, time sensitive, cleanest place I've ever been, though very expensive), they indicated no problems at all, and just checked the bags to Seattle like you'd expect.  But here in China, you'd have thought we showed up with no passports or something.  

We finally got to our gate around 11am, but still no sign of our missing four bags.  At this point I was already calculating in my head what everything was worth, how much we would be reimbursed, etc., because we'd probably never see those bags again if we got on that plane and the bags weren't in the baggage hold.  Finally, as we began to board, the Delta agent that was actually very kind and helpful told me that they'd found our bags!!  "Really??"  I said to him.  "HIGH FIVE!!!" and he did give me a high five.  We began to board, and I thought the drama was over.  Someone would need to stay back and confirm that those were indeed our bags (???) while they retagged them (apparently the tags from Singapore weren't good enough), so I stayed behind while Heather and the kids boarded the 767.  It took a while for everyone to board, and as the line dwindled down and I was getting anxious since our bags still weren't showing up, an agent with a walkie-talkie came up to me and said, "Sir, they found a lighter in one of your bags.  Can they open it and take it out?"  Seemed odd since I didn't remember packing a lighter, but I was like, "Of course, take it out, just please get our bags on the plane." Thankfully they did bring up three of the bags, re-tagged them, and so now just one bag that's a problem.  

At this point almost everyone is on the plane, and I'm beginning to wonder if I was going to get left behind.

A couple minutes later, the same agent came up to me again and said, "Sir, they said it's not a lighter, but a GUN."  
"A gun?!?!  There's no way that's my bag!"
"Yes, they said it's a gun in your bag."

I was beginning to think I was going to be on Locked Up Abroad and be stuck in a Chinese prison for a year.  Is this really happening??

But then, he got word it's not a gun, but he couldn't describe it in English (this is where remembering some Chinese would have helped, but alas, there's only room in my brain for one foreign language).  I implored him, just tell security to open up my bag, that there was definitely no gun in there.  He said that he wasn't sure the bag would make it on the plane, but still he seemed to indicate that it couldn't just come on the next flight.  So I got on the plane, literally the last passenger on board, as they closed the door behind me, still not knowing if we'd ever see that last bag again (hey, 5 out of 6 isn't bad, especially after we were thinking 2 out of 6).

When we arrived in Seattle, we were relieved to see all SIX of our bags dropping out on the baggage carousel!  As we opened up the one suspect bag, guess what we found on top?

This:







Six hours in China, got our passports stamped and entered China, but it was by far the most stressful and unpleasant part of our 8 flight, 10 day journey home for furlough.  It did not make me miss China.

I didn't have a camera the whole time, since I sold my camera in Indonesia, but here are just a few of the kiddos since we arrived home.  Ella and Roman let Drew paint their faces like superheroes one day, probably because they had just watched Spiderman that morning:









Be looking for us while we are in the USA, coming to a church near you soon!