Closer to the other side of awesome - We have arrived!

 

In church on Sunday I (Sandy) was talking to a friend who asked if we had heard anything from Hong Kong yet regarding dates we should go and then how I was doing with not hearing anything.  I told her…I know God has an awesome plan all worked out…I just want to be on the other side of awesome. 

At 7:30 am Monday morning, awesome edged closer .  We got word from our case worker that the final steps of the process were going to happen Monday and then Friday (today).  You want to know what is amazing about hearing this?  First, we had originally set a “cut-off” in our minds for Friday at noon.  If we didn’t hear some firm dates from HK by then, we would probably try to switch our plane tickets.  I awoke Friday morning and read in the Psalms….wait on the Lord.  Ït meant going into the weekend not knowing if we would travel 1/2 way around the world on Wed or not.  I emailed Andrew the verse that really spoke to me and he replied, ok we wait until Monday at noon.  Second, Hong Kong waits until appointments are over before they tell the family…it just keeps them safe from any liability of last minute changes that would affect the date we get custody.  Yet they told us before!  Incredible! 

I flew into action booking our apartment and looking into return flights.  We got the apartment we wanted!!!  Huge praise!  and I hit a wall with return tickets.  I called Andrew, could he come home?  Amazingly, he didn’t have any meetings between 10 and noon – that really is amazing!  We eventually found “only 7 seats left at this price” on CheapOAir(most were 4 or fewer seats) for a really good price.  We tried to book them, but we immediately got a “sorry these aren’t still available”message.  Argh!!  Then Andrew had a brilliant idea.  He booked 4 tickets (the boys) on the main computer at the same time I booked the 3 girl tickets on the laptop.  We hit “book now”…..and it worked!!!  and we paid nearly 1/3 the price American Airlines was going to charge us per ticket!!

Even more incredible?  Last month, we received 2 American Airlines admiral’s club one-day passes in the mail.  Each pass allows the card holder to bring 3 children into the lounge with them!!  We have 1 layover.  2 1/2 hrs in Tokyo…which has one of the nicer admiral lounges in the world!  So, while we are in Tokyo, we can eat a meal, drink smoothies & charge devices, all courtesy American  :). When I told my mom about these passes, she was flabbergasted!  “People don’t just get Admiral’s club passes in the mail!” she said…well we did…apparently God put a glitch in their system . 

We packed Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday and then jumped in our van for the drive to Chicago – the first leg to getting Ka Hei home.

Now Andrew will fill you in on our flight details. -

After a long flight we arrived in Hong Kong about 8pm local time (+13 hours on CST – so 7am Thursday – CST).  Our first problem was a luggage delay (almost 10pm before we got our hands on luggage).  We also believe that Kayla’s ipod was left on the plane.  We then were able to exchange cash for HK$, get subway cards, pick up 2 smart phones, and work our way to 2 taxis (one doesn’t hold our family).  Thankfully, the taxis brought us directly to our apartment so we could start settling in.  The apartment is 3 bedroom (which is nice) and cozy (fits a bed in each room but that is about it).  We are also trying to get used to having only 1 bathroom. 

We got the kids in bed by midnight and most of us were up by 6am.  We are now getting ready for our day (not sure yet what we will do) but early on our list is to hit a supermarket.  We are also supposed to call Gladys (our HK social worker) and we’ll see what happens from there. 

Andrew & Sandy