China {Revisited}: Travel

Travel was by far the part of the trip that made me the most nervous as we prepared for the trip- I mean the actual flights.

I don't like to fly, and my kids had never been on a plane for longer than 2 hours. 13.5 hours on a plane? Um.....that sounded awful.

Long before we were matched with Cooper, someone told me that once I was matched and it was time to get on that plane, I wouldn't be worried at all- I'd be ready to do whatever it took to get our child.

And that was very true.

I felt such a sense of peace and utter anticipation at all the following three weeks would hold in store. I wasn't worried at all- I was excited, and I was also pretty confident that God didn't bring us all the way through all of the previous three years to drop us in a burning fireball over the ocean leaving Cooper twice orphaned! :)

We brought LOTS of stuff with us- stuff for New Day and also for every possible contingency as far as the kids were concerned: medications and food being top among them. Both would prove invaluable while we were there.

When we arrived in Newark, our flight was delayed. (About the last place you want to be when your flight is delayed is stuck at Newark airport!) So, one year ago today we spent a LONG day killing time at the Newark airport (kind of like we're spending LONG days killing time here there and everywhere now with the power out). 

The kids were really excited too! They saw this as a grand adventure! They did great on the flights too. They watched tons of movies and TV thanks to Con*tinental Airlines in-seat TVS. They played with the many toys I'd packed for them. They just didn't SLEEP. We all got MAYBE 2 hours of sleep on the plane. The food was surprisingly yummy too. 

All in all, the ease of traveling, including landing in Beijing and navigating the airport there (getting our luggage and such) without a guide went remarkably smoothly. 

We arrived in China in the dark. Pete, the volunteer coordinator at New Day, picked us up at the airport, and we began a long drive from Beijing to New Day where the city melted away and gave way to small houses, farmland, and lots of dirt. We could see next to nothing as we drove because there were few lights once we left the city. 

I didn't cry when I first set foot on the ground in China like I thought I would. However, as we drove and I saw a small fraction of Chinese villages even in the dark, I became a bit overwhelmed with emotion.  I was IN CHINA. CHINA. Finally.

Oddly, it did not feel foreign. It felt like landing at home.

Once we arrived at New Day, the realization hit me that Cooper was here. Right down the road. Out the kitchen window of the guest house, I could look across the traditional Chinese courtyard, and see the playroom and bedrooms of the kids that stay at New Day. I got all choked up. 

I was AT New Day, this place that I had long loved filled with children and people I felt like I knew but had never met. 

It all was so surreal, but I stood there soaking it in. It was one of the best nights of my life.

It is incredibly fitting, actually, that we are without power, living in a cold, dark house this week. Scot pointed out that it is JUST like our days at New Day. The lights in the guest house were dim- like living by candlelight or flashlight. And because we got there before China turned on the heat, the room was cold. We had some sort of a heater in our room, but it was likely 50 or 60 degrees in the room. We bundled up to go to sleep. The floor was cold to walk on. It's EXACTLY like we are living right now. 

The nostalgia and longing it has inspired in us almost hurts. We long to go back. To China. To New Day. 

It helps to know that one way or another, sooner or later, we WILL go back.

But, for now, we bundle up in bed by candle light and remember.

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*Thanks to my mom having power back, I had these pictures that she took when we left. Until we get power back, there will be no more pictures. Bummer.