Thursday, April 29, 2010

24

24 hours.

Twenty. Four. HOURS!!!

We left Nashville at 3:20 pm on Wednesday. The time at the Nashville airport and the flight to Denver were uneventful. We were very fortunate in that our gate in Nashville was next to a play area, so Caleb had fun for the 2 hours we waited.

When we arrived in Denver, we got to have a delicious dinner while we waited and finished just in time to board our plane to Vancouver. Steven had warned me on the way into Denver that it was often VERY turbulent landing there. I prayed ALL THE WAY TO THE GROUND, and thought I was out of the woods. Little did I know that the only thing as turbulent as landing is taking off.

I will spare you the miserable details, but suffice to say that I was miserable throughout that flight, for the entirety of our time at the Vancouver airport and until I was able to go to sleep on the plane to Manila.

Again, we were fortunate. The plane from Vancouver to Manila was not full, and we were seated on a row of four with an empty seat and the row directly in front of us was ... EMPTY!! Can you believe that?!? I jumped up on that row and was able to fall asleep after awhile and slept for about 12 hours. Well, I thought, when I woke up, for SURE it was 12 hours. I also thought the flight was only 13, so I woke up HAPPY. Then I asked Steven how long was left in the flight. About 7 hours, he says. At first I thought, surely he's kidding. Nope. The flight was 14 hours and I had slept for half. Once I sat up for a little bit, I started to feel sick again, so I laid back down and slept a bit longer. After that nap, I felt much better.

Caleb slept for about 6 hours on the flight and spent the rest of it charming every person on the plane who looked his direction. Most of the flight crew told him to say "hi" to his sister for them as we were getting off the plane. The nice woman who sat across the aisle from him gave him her maze book and chatted with him for at least an hour, maybe more.

All in all, a pretty good trip.

Here we are. 24 hours later, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, resting up to go MEET OUR GIRL TOMORROW!!

Hopefully, I'll be able to post tomorrow night with pics and lots of fun stories.

Love to you all ~ The Reutters

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Hanna-baby, HERE WE COME!!

Well, the day has finally come. We got the call today from our social worker telling us to get our travel plans together, we can go get our girl!

We are SO very excited and relieved because her Visa "interview" happened so quickly, so we are able to leave when we hoped we'd be able to. We'll go get her in about a week and finally be a family of four physically not just emotionally.

God is SO good, and His timing is perfect. Please pray for us, our travels, our final packing and preparations, but also pray that the Lord would continue to prepare sweet Hanna to make such a huge transition. Pray that He would speak to our hearts and guide us to be sensitive to her needs. Pray that He would knit our hearts together as only He can.

Now to the One who can do more than we can think or hope or imagine be all the glory, power and honor. Amen.