Day 13 to 14

Day 13 to 14 is rolled together since when we leave in the light of the morning, we will arrive in the daylight as well, even though there are 18 or so hours of travel on the return.  Hong Kong is likely one of the nicest parts of China.  The little bit that we saw of it showed it to be more modern and the people spoke English.  We stayed at the Marriott on the ocean at the airport, which may sound really fancy, but was nice and had the purpose of us crashing for the night so we can get up and take off again in the morning.  Now we are preparing for the transition of leaving at 11 am but it is now really 11 pm to us.  The flight back was much smoother and quicker than coming to China.  The little guy did pretty good overall, and getting into Detroit was painless; except for customs.  It is funny that we fear the foreign countries more than anything but they were the easiest to work with compared to the US.  We waiting in a line for 15 minutes just to be told we needed to go to the special “blue line.”  That equated to another 15-20 minute wait to finally get through to the luggage.   It did not matter; at least things were now done.   The final stamp was put on the papers and now Samuel is officially a US citizen.  No time to care because we now go thru security again to get the connecting flight to home.   It was also a relief that we could drink the water if we wanted to.  After a fairly quick flight to home, it is now hitting us with the time difference.  We were told not to fall asleep until our regular bedtime so it took everything just to stay awake.  

Kids were all in one piece when we got there and everyone was happy to see Renee and Samuel.  I was the parsley on the plate, but oh well.  Darell and Noel must have been good at what they did since no one had any bandages or casts on any body parts.  We could not have done this trip without their willingness to step in and watch someone else’s crazy 12 kids.  I know they need a well deserved rest.   There were many days in China where we were just so out of it, confused by the language barrier, and lost in a big city.  We could tell there were many people praying for us since the days when we were weak, confused, and tired, we could tell that God was with us.  Thank you all who prayed for us since it was the one thing I knew that would get us through this entire trip.  Who would have ever thought that we would be doing all of this kid stuff.  God’s plans are much bigger and much better than ours.   Thank you Lord for all you have done and all you are doing.  I will stop saying I am done having kids since I have been wrong every time so far.  I will trust You still that You will do what You want us to and we will simply follow You.