7/28/10 Wednesday FLIGHT LEAVES FOR ETHIOPIA – 5:05 pm
As much as I have been packing and repacking for weeks you would think that I would have been so organized and had the luggage on the side of the curb just waiting to be loaded in the car when it was time to go. Unfortunately that is just NOT how it worked. Not sure why it is always like that for me. Such a bummer.
The night before we left our Pastor, Youth Pastor and their wives came over to pray for us. I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to feel so much love and support from these people. I really believe it is not just because they happen to be our pastors but they are truly our friends. It was great being able to pray together, Giving Him all the Glory and Praises for what is has and is going to do and also praying that the He goes before us and paves the way and makes our paths straight!
When they were there I felt like I was pretty set. The bins were closed, not sealed but closed. We were bringing our 2 carryons with our personal stuff, 1 suitcase for the kids we were shipping and 5 larger plastic bins of donations, including the 2 computers we were able to purchase from the donations from the shower we had. Something happened between then and the time we were to leave for the airport. I really have no idea what it was but it was NOT PRETTY. For some reason I felt the need to reorganize all the bins. LUKE was the official wiegher of the bins (Although I will give credit to CHASE, one of seragent sons from Rockpoint, who did step in when Luke was not available – YOU MADE THE BLOG CHASE!!!;-). I think we weighed and reweighed, reorganized and weighed again a hundred times.
At first I wanted to reorganize so I only had to open certain bins while in Addis and certain ones in Soddo, But as soon as we were into that and almost done we concluded that we knew of someone that was actually leaving a week after we got back and could bring the extra bins for us. We were allowed 2 check in bags each and were going to pay $200 for each of the extra bins we were bringing. This realization made me panic and scramble to again reorganize everything so anything that I needed for specific individuals were packed in the bins I was bringing and not the ones I sent later.
Seriously MY PLAN was to have all the bags on the curb when Mike got home from the half day of work he put in. I really thought I could do it. I was fully aware that with any trip/vacation we go on there is always a bit of tension and anxiety in the house until everything is packed and in the car or even checked in at the airport. Then you add the little facts like this was a trip to AFRICA, all the extra luggage and ministry things we wanted to take advantage of, ABOVE ALL THAT THE FACT THAT THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS WHOLE TRIP IS TO ADOPT AND BRING HOME TWO PRECIOUS LITTLE CHILDREN. I really wanted to be able to minimize that tension as much as possible. It really was my intent. Instead when Mike got home he arrived to a little tornado to say the least. I had my girlfriend, Lynette over – Organizer extraordinaire- One of my Favorite cousins of all times who has experience with the adoption process multiply times and been by our side through all of this from day one– and my mother all running around like crazy. We tried to act like we had it all under control but there was no fooling Mike. It did not help that Luke runs up to him says “its just out of control here!”
Oh, I am so sorry Honey! I really did try. All that said, we were at the airport, checked in and even at the gate 2 hours before our flight
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