Walking In The Truth: Travel Day

Someone has said that a theme to Psalm 27 could be that we are not alone and that we are not in charge. Initially, it seems that through difficulties, David cannot see God's greatness. As he ends the psalm, however, he asks God to teach him His way and to lead him. I especially like the last verse. "Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (Psalm 27:14) We are taking that verse literally as we wait to see Elsa on Monday. Like David, we know for certain that we are not alone and that we are not in charge! God is good and faithful as we walk this adoption journey to Elsa.

Our first leg of the trip brought us to Seattle. Annika and Kirstin were seated next to a wonderful woman who was interested in all we were going to be doing in the next two weeks. She showed us pictures of her grandchildren, spoke of the faithfulness of God in her life, and when we parted ways, gave Annika a small gift. Oh, the sweetness of the body of Christ! While waiting for our next plane, we had some Starbucks and saw Santa and one of his elves! We also had a chance to Skype with Aunt Ingrid and Heidi & Ellie Lee.

Flying from Seattle to Tokyo is long! It seems longer when you are sandwiched in the middle seats of an Airbus 330. We passed the time by sleeping, eating and watching movies. With one more flight left for this part of our journey, we knew we needed to pace ourselves with sleep, although we all felt pretty groggy. Annika was a trooper and only woke Dad up three times to ask him to help her with the Smurf movie. From Tokyo we boarded the last plane of the day for Hong Kong. Everything has gone so smoothly for this first part of our journey. Our luggage was spinning around on the carousel when we arrived there, the immigration line was relatively short, and the walk to the airport hotel was a breeze. Praise the Lord!

We are now in Hong Kong awaiting our afternoon flight to Nanning. It is Sunday morning here and we are sad to be missing our normal routine of worship. We are also thankful that our worship is not dependent on meeting with a group of believers, as important as that is, but that we can worship Him wherever we are. More importantly, we worship Him with our lives.

Leaving later today for Nanning, Elsa is on our minds and hearts more intensely than ever. Pray with us for Gotcha Day tomorrow. We are so excited to begin this new life together with her as a part of our family. We are so looking forward to the ways in which God’s hand will be evident.