home!

We're here! We're home!


Oh, it feels so good to say that... and it feels even better to be here: Sitting in my 2nd favorite chair in the world, a cup of coffee - with a dash of eggnog - on the window sill next to me, enjoying a cloudy day in Texas during naptime. It's a good day. :)


Our trip home went well! We had two attempts to nail it, and Attempt 2 was a great success. During Attempt 1, we were thisclose to boarding the airplane when the man checking our tickets asked us about our Schengen visa. "Oh no," we said, "We have all the visas that we need - we're going to America." But not so fast - we needed to be educated on something really important: if you are not an American citizen and you need to travel through Europe, you need a transit visa for certain countries.


Oh no.


So, long story short - they off-loaded our luggage, and we went back to Kampala. Our friends, Kerry & Neltia, were gracious and invited us to stay at their home for the remainer of our time in Uganda. The next day was spent visiting the airline's office, the Belgium embassy (to find out about transit visas through Brussels), and on the phone with Continental. In the end, we were able to book flights so that we could bypass the transit visa issue AND have plenty of time to clear customs before we arrived home. Yay!


We can not stop thanking the Lord for how He has provided for our trip home:

- We found out about the visa issue before we arrived in Belgium... Can you imagine? What an expensive headache that would have been! At that point, no one had caught this or brought it up...and let me tell you, there had been ample opportunity for it to come up. Thank you, Lord.
- We got to see the Hendersons for 2 more days.
- Continental basically gave us additional frequent flyer miles for free with our new itinerary when they heard our situation.
- The kids enjoyed take-offs/landings and slept well on the airplanes, and the length of our 2 layovers were perfect for what we needed to do during each of them.
- On 2 full flights, the Lord kept 1 seat open near me or Andrew so that our family could sit next to each other. (Even though they did great, the idea of sitting with 2 kids by myself where the in-flight meal involves red sauce and crumbly cake is a little crazy.)
- Friends and family were waiting for us when we landed!

Thank you all so much for your prayers from the time we got on the plane to now. We are so thankful for each of you and have rejoiced to see how the Lord has provided. We still have a long way to go as we transition to life in America and figure out what this family/parenting thing is all about. The Lord continues to remind me that:

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. (Isaiah 40:11)

He is faithful!