July 30th

Friday was a travel day from Taiyuan to Guangzhou, our final destination.

 

We started with a great breakfast, again...that has been our mainstay meal, and it has always been good. If it were measured, I would venture to think that between Faith and I, we drank more of the cappuccinos from the buffet machine than the rest of the guests combined.  It does not see a lot of use, and Faith even had to show the staff how to work it!

 

We took a walk after breakfast, with directions from the same young woman who sent us on our 22 block adventure. How good can this really be? At least this time, she wrote the name of our destination on a business card.  Both English/Pinyin and Chinese!  As we walked, the map we had on the back of the business card was pretty clear and easy to follow. Except the directions were off by about 6 blocks!  We took a detour of about 10 minutes off the main street into the alley/back streets with all sorts of local vendors. Beth was worried, Faith was laughing, and we were all HOT and sweaty. It was about 10:00 am, and it was already said 40.1 degrees (104.18 degrees Fahrenheit) on the side of the big bank building.

 

We left for the airport after a great noodle lunch again at the hotel.  I might add that the noodle experts of the Shanxi province recommended our hotel as the "THE" noodle place.  We enjoyed knife pared, pulled and "slided" noodles over the three meals we ate there, but back to the airport stuff.  

Waiting for our plane

On the way to the Airport, Levi was very quiet and reflective. Being not too sure of what to expect or how it would go, I just sat and mostly let him think quietly.   Once at the airport, we followed our normal routine-we got checked in and left for our gate. I might add that the airport was very HOT. Did I mention HOT? Oh, I did?  But, I left something out...yep, I left out humid.

Getting ready to taxi!

 We only had about an hour or so at the airport before we boarded and took off. Remembering that Levi got car sick, we administered the Dramamine and waited for the taxi and lift off. Levi was ok while the plane was rolling, but when we got on the active runway and the engines ran up, hmm, he was less than pleased as we rolled down the runway, bouncing.. etc...yeah.  That was not the best time of the week.  Once we got up into the air, and we were starting to go through the clouds, Levi looked pretty bummed.  I asked him via the Gongculator ( Chinese/English translator), what was wrong, and he wrote back, "I will never see my city again."  He was pretty quiet for a while.  It was quite the moment for us both.  

 

On a lighter moment, let me back up, to when we first boarded the plane. 

 

Enjoying some lunch during our flight.

We sat in row 39, B & C... Levi was in the middle seat, me on the aisle.  A 40ish Chinese man had the window seat.  When we were watching the "safety video" we also saw a short explanation of the air sick bag.  Levi looked at me questioningly and held the bag up. I explained that sometimes people get air sick and that bag was to throw up in. He opened it and made it ready-just in case!  Shortly after, the man was pushing the button for the steward to come.  When she came to answer, he asked if he could move to an empty seat...his reason: he did not want to sit by the airsick kid! So we have our own row, and Levi got a window seat.  Sweet deal!

 

Waiting...waiting for our bags.

Back to the ride.  It was a pretty uneventful two hour trip. Levi used Goo Goo's iPhone to play games for an hour or so.  (Goo Goo means paternal aunt, so in this case Aunt Faith is Goo Goo).  Once we got to Guangzhou, we collected our bags and we were greeted by the site of Amy, our AWAA guide and our friend.  It was such a blessing to see her, I can't explain, but Beth, Faith and I felt so good at that point.   We had about 30 minutes to wait till a few other families showed up on various flights.  What a happy reunion to see three other families!  Although these are new friends from just last weekend in Beijing, it felt like we were all long lost family and friends.

 

One of the interesting things about a trip like this is to see the couples/families before they get their new children, and then after arrival here in Southern China. Once again, we were speechless.  To see the culmination of months and years of these parents responding to God's call, mountains of paperwork, and the prayerful support of their families, churches and friends.  How humbling to see how God works miracles and makes something so beautiful out of such broken lives of these children.  What else can we say but, "Thank You Lord for Your miracles and Your example of Your love for us and adopting us as Your children!"

Levi crashed, clothes and all, after our long day of travel!

Ending the day, we relaxed in LUXURY, we are so blessed to be here.  We look forward to having you, our family and friends witness the miracle of God's work in our lives as we bring Levi home to our family.  We're almost home you all!