Butterflies & Jitters

Our big day finally arrived yesterday! We had every intention of blogging some thoughts and pictures yesterday evening, but it was't meant to be. Susanne and I collapsed in sheer emotional and physical exhaustion last night at 10:30, shortly after tucking in our four arrows in bed.

I'll back up a little to set the scene. Sunday night, after two days of full throttle Beijing touring and the physical exertion of climbing the Great Wall, we had the treat of going to a beautiful theater in Beijing to see the "Flying Acrobatic Show." It was one of those vacation decisions where you just go for it because, hey, "When's the next time we're going to be in Beijing?"

The show was awesome, everything you would expect it to be. At least the 50% of it I actually saw between doing touch and goes with my head as I fought off sleep the whole time. Kit slept through the first half. Joshua slept through the second half. Only Zachary and Susanne, blessed with hummingbird metabolisms, were able to gut-check it through. Joshua stumbled out of the theater looking punch drunk, fighting off tears, with onlookers laughing.

So we get back to the hotel, race to get our check in luggage out in the hallway by 10:30, log about 4 hours of sleep, get up at the crack of dawn, and head off to the domestic terminal at the Beijing Airport. Our guide, Sheri (pictured above with us in the lobby of our Beijing Hotel), had arranged for a friend of hers to meet us and the Fiorelli family at the terminal to help us navigate the check in process. She was great, although she didn't speak any English. We wondered what security would be like, but it ended up being a little more low-key than ours in the USA.

We had to wait a couple of hours for boarding. The boarding pass said gate 47, so off we went on a half mile hike down in to the depths of the airport. When we got there, the signs didn't match our flight, and all we saw was a bunch of busses parked outside the gate. Off we went again, deciding that the LCD signs were telling us that gate 23 was what we wanted. A half mile later (think of the old Huey Lewis video where the family is trapsing around the beach with all their earthly posessions), we're at gate 23 with not much confidence. We had stopped at two customer service desks where speaking English was not on their service menu. An Asian man who ended up being from Oklahoma (wacky) assured us that we had the right idea.

Cue Huey Lewis...as we chatted away, excitement building, one of the endless airport announcements (that we would have missed unless the Oklahoman was there) told us that they were boarding our flight out of gate 47. We logged another half mile, this time at a quicker pace, and scooted through gate 47 to board a mystery bus to our mystery plane a mile or two away on the tarmac.

Now we find that we had exchanged our 767 at gate 23 for a beat up looking old 737 for our 3 hr flight to Kunming City, home of Weifeng's orphanage. This flight was Harding style, which is to say crammed in the back like sardines. Southwest's marketing hype about having more seat space actually turns out to be true.

At least we would get breakfast, right? You know how flight attendants typically get right on the drink order as the plane is still climbing out, followed up by a snack or food in the first 30 minutes of the flight. Not so much in China. I was having flashbacks to survival school, prepared to eat whatever was put in front of me. My training failed me.

Orange juice -good. Congee (watery rice with all flavor painstakingly extracted) - not so good. 1,000 year old egg (their name, not mine) - 'nuff said. Watery yogurt - edible. Some sort of breakfast sandwich with mystery meat - mixed reviews.

I mention this not so much to complain, but to let you know how desperate we are for Western food. Kit's assesment of the breakfast sandwich: "I guess I'm eatin' a hambuhguh for breakfast," with a little shrug of the shoulders. Susanne resorted to the survival school technique of staring at the chicken sandwich ad for Mcdonald's in her copy of People. Yes, Christian friends, Susanne has a little weakness.

God has used the food issue to teach us how overwhelming a change Weifeng is facing as he joins our family.

We arrived in Kunming, took a bus back to the terminal, grabbed our luggage, and met our Kunming guide, Susan. Her smile and excited greeting reassured us as we headed off to the apex of our adventure.

Our hungry and tired band of travelers were off in a shabby but strangely homey bus on a rainy day in the "City of the Eternal Spring" to meet the main character of our story.

Gotta wait till the next post for the big stuff....Felt like I have to get the details recorded, or they will wash away with time. I will give you this Sneak Preview: God is faithful! Things have gotten off to a great start!

-Chris