Travel Day-United States

We've got a good friend (and former missionary to Amsterdam) who likes to share the following quote:

"If you came back, you wanted to leave again. If you went away, you longed to come back. Wherever you were, you could hear the call of the homeland, like the note of a herdsman's horn far away in the hills. You had one home out there and one over here, and yet you were an alien in both places. Your true abiding place was the vision of something very far off, and your soul like the waves, always restless and forever in motion." 

-Johan Bojer, "The Immigrants"

We share that just to let you know how difficult it can be for us when it comes time for us to go on our trips to the United States.  We go back every two years to visit our family, friends and supporters.  It's tough because after almost 8 years here, Brasil feels like our home. It's hard for us to take 2 months out of our lives here and go back to the states.  Don't get me wrong, we love going back and visiting everyone but just imagine if you loved where you live and every 2 years you had to pull up for 8-10 weeks and be away from your family and friends.  

Saying that, after 2+ months in the states it's also tough to leave everyone there and come back to Brasil. We are very blessed to have strong families on 2 different continents.  It is a blessing but on travel days it's still tough to say goodbye to one group or the other.  

On the day we woke up to leave the states, last month, and come back home Benay said, "I am ready to go home but I also don't want to."  I believe from the youngest to the oldest in our family we all felt the same way on that day.    

My travel day started by having these guys put me in a chair, lay hands on me and pray over me, for our family and for God's work in Porto Alegre.

 

You might remember the "Memphis Guys" from this post.  The group has actually grown since we were last in the states. They continue to pray together every Tuesday morning and every Tuesday they pray for our family.  They are a HUGE blessing, in more ways than one, to our family and this ministry. 

We enjoyed a little lunch.......

.....and then we loaded up our 28 bags (14 that weighed 70 pounds).

 We had help from my parents, sister and even suckered my aunt and uncle to help pack (the stories I could tell about my uncle.....he just looks guilty doesn't he?)........ 

.........as well as babysit.  

It only took 4 cars to get all of this to the airport. 

We said our goodbyes to everyone and we were off to Dallas.

The older I get the less I like turbulence.  We had some bad turbulence on the way to Dallas.  The kind where the plane dips and feels like a roller coaster.  While I was praying, literally, for our safety I glanced up and looked at Carys.  She had a big smile on her face and said, "This is awesome!!"  I clutched my heart and kept praying. 

We then ended up circling the Dallas airport because we weren't able to land for almost an hour because of wind sheers at the airport.  Wind sheers?  Like the ones that can flip a plane on landing?  Lovely.  More heart clutching.  They cancelled all landings.  

We finally landed but had to sit on the runway for 15 minutes because as our pilot said, "They gave our gate to another plane and we'll just sit here until they can figure it out."  Gave our gate away?  What?

 It was a little boring.......

....but we'll take boring over the "fear your plane is about to crash because of the turbulence or wind sheers that close down a huge airport" feeling any day.

What made the delay kind of stressful was the fact that by the time we got off the plane we only had 45 minutes to go to a different section of the airport and get on our international flight.  We made it and then had another delay of an hour in taking off. 

At least we knew our luggage from the first flight made it for the international flight. 

We had a really good overnight flight.  This was a pretty common picture of the flight.  

Anderson playing games and Giovanni sleeping hard. 

Travel day is always hectic as we have to get 28 bags ready, have 10 passports ready at all check points (Anderson and Giovanni have dual citizenship), fly on 3 different planes and spend about 24 hours of travel time but God always blesses us. 

And somehow we've always gotten back home or to the states without any major problems.  

Next travel day blog.......Brasil.