"International Travel Is Only Glamorous in Hindsight"

 

The title quote is great although the hindsight needs to be from a distance of at least a few months, when the memories fade. I have nothing to complain about, travel went as smooth as it can go. We just wait in lines, miss a night of sleep, wait in more lines, drag/run yourselves through four airports and then being so tired you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. But it was still good and the arrival, well, I didn’t know how that would go.

How can one predict their emotional state when doing something they’ve never done? 

I wasn’t sure how it would feel to return to Ethiopia. The goodbyes were surprisingly tame, probably 5% of the tears of our original goodbye. Not that we’ve become expert goodbyes, it just helps that our home assignment is this summer, so we were just saying goodbye for a shorter period of time. The girls said “See you laters” but after one, Little A added, “VERY later”.

We landed in Addis Ababa and all just felt peaceful and it had a feeling of coming home. Something for which I praise the Lord alone for because I never thought I would have that feeling towards our new place. It’s not the same as home home, people make the home. But we do have a community here that love us and we love them.  

All four of us fell into bed at 2:00 am and woke up the next day at 1:30 pm! That is a good day of sleep! Last night, Jon and I were up for about 3 1/2 hours in the middle of the night but we woke the girls after ten hours and Little J asked, “Did we just take a nap?”  They say night three can be the roughest, but we are so thankful for how the girls are sleeping.  I think you’ve prayed them into sweet dream land.

A few pictures from our last days in the USA.

The Littles trying to convince Jon to buy Aunt Chris a rabbit for her birthday.

Uncle Chad introducing the girls to a chocolate fountain at a reception held in our hometown in January for Jay and Lynnae

Meeting a new friend who made The Littles cookies!

When your cousin is bald and you’ve got hair to share.

 

Here’s a few grainy pictures of our trip...

Getting ready to say our last “See you laters”.

Our stuff taking up the entire security line. This was at a small airport and most people were going on short trips so the security guard was in shock at all our stuff. 

Ready to board the first flight

On the plane silliness, somewhere in some time zone...

We found a playground in Doha airport. There were several of them, some cool, others a bit strange but great for kids. 

 Okay, we are back. Time to dust off this Amharic and engage again, now if only we could blink away the jet lag or invent instant transport.