We're Back!!!

It started with our departure from Columbia. We arrived at the airport on Wednesday Morning to find out that our flight to Washington, D.C. was no longer offered by United. Luckily they had space on a 10 am flight and were able to get us to D.C. on time.

In D.C., the antics ramped up some more. Apparently, 3 weeks ago, South African Airways made a policy that anyone flying through S. Africa needed Yellow Fever vaccinations. The only problem was that 3 of our kids vaccinations had expired and the other 2 had never received them. After going back and forth and praying a lot, we were able to convince them to let us on the flight. There was no guarantee that we would be able to board the next flight to Lusaka, but at least we would be closer.

Then, as we were finishing getting the tickets printed, Kerri realized something that we hadn't noticed the 8 months prior: our flight from S. Africa to Zambia was scheduled to fly out on the 2nd, not the 1st like we thought. Probably wouldn't be a big deal except we had no hotel reservations and we didn't know of any places to stay. But we boarded the plane and just figured that if the Lord wanted us to land in Lusaka, He would work out the details.

In S. Africa, we found a hotel after about 2 hours of searching. It was a pretty little lodge located just 15 minutes from the airport, but it was a sleeping adventure this time. The room we were given had a bunk bed and two single beds. You try to figure out how to sleep 7 with bed space for 4! Needless to say, Kerri and I snuggled all night and 4 of our children slept 2 to a bed.

The next morning and all today was pretty uneventful. When we went to the ticket counter to ask for our boarding passes, we were not even asked for our vaccination records again. We boarded the flight and landed in Lusaka at 9:00 pm.

So, itt was an adventure, but we've finally made it! What we thought was to be a 33 hour trip (including layovers) turned out to be closer to 52 hours. Had this been 4 years ago, we probably wouldn't have known how to react, but after living in Zambia for so long, we've learned to be flexible and pray a lot!