Trip journal - Coming home

Sunday, June 27, (wow, one month ago already) was our final day in Ethiopia.  With just one other family and ourselves at the guest house, the place was eerily quiet.  We arranged for the driver to take us to the international church nearby for the morning worship service.

The church facility was amazingly modern, and we were greeted by pastoral staff and church members who spoke perfect English.  One of the pastors knowingly asked how long our "pregnancy" was, and many doted on Abel.  The entire service was in English, with people from all over the world in attendance.  The song leader was from New Zealand and the pastoral staff was even from several different countries.

The most beautiful part at the service was the music.  We sang songs we knew, but that wasn't the best part.  Praising God with His body from throughout the world, singing that we would, "Shout to the east and the west..." that "Jesus is Savior to all, Lord of heaven and earth," was pure delight.  It is so refreshing to see genuine belief in a place so far from home and to be at home with His Body, even when we are from different worlds.

We enjoyed a quiet day, before heading to the airport in the afternoon.  We realized that we had no more birr left to buy any food or water at the airport, and just had to wait patiently to board the plane before being refreshed.

We got the bulkhead row for our flight from Addis Ababa to Dubai, and requested the bassinet for Abel.  The flight left after 8:00 pm and wouldn't arrive in Dubai until after midnight.  We knew that our sweet boy needed to sleep.  We tried convincing Abel to sleep in our arms, but he couldn't seem to wind down.  Finally, after the seat belt sign was removed, I bounced Abel in my arms until he was almost asleep.  When I could hold him no longer, Scott took over, and Abel finally slept.  We slipped Abel into the bassinet, and discovered it was really for much smaller babies!  With arms and legs hanging out, he did his best to sleep in the tiny bed.  Every time he tried to rearrange himself, he'd wake up and need to be soothed back to sleep.

We made our way through the Dubai airport at 2:00 am, and the place was the busiest we had seen it yet (as compared to the very quiet 7:00 pm we had seen before!).  We had a very tired Abel in our arms, and seated him in one of the complimentary Emirates Airlines strollers, while we headed for Passport Control.  We had to go through Passport Control because our hotel was outside the airport.  We took one look at the long queues spread across the entire area, with at least 20 staff members decked in Muslim attire and checking passports, and instantly inhaled.  We were supposed to wait in that just to go to our hotel to get four hours of sleep before coming back to the airport for our next flight??

Scott saw the Emirates Air desk before the Passport Control, and asked the woman to confirm our hotel reservations before we went any farther.  The woman kindly looked down and saw Abel trying to stay happy at such a late hour.  She asked Scott a few questions about Abel and where he was from.  And then she slyly said, "You see the short line over there?"  Scott looked over at the First Class Passengers Passport Control line, "Yes?"  "Get these papers stamped and go directly over there.  Tell them Bindi sent you."

And so we by-passed all the waiting masses.  And we headed to the woman guarding the First Class entrance.  Scott said, "Bindi sent us."  The woman looked skeptical, "Vindi?" she asked, with raised eyebrow.  "BINdi," Scott intoned.  The woman silently moved aside, and we went right through Passport Control, and on to our hotel shuttle, thanking God for answering a prayer we didn't even know we had.

The next morning, we returned to the Vegas-style Dubai airport, knowing our way around quite well by now. We were even able to buy water (of course they accept Visa!) before waiting for our departure.  We tried to let Abel run around as much as possible, and we regarded with mixed reactions from the Arabs, Africans, Asians, Americans, etc. in the waiting area.

Before the flight, I packed 12 diapers in my carry-on bag for our 4-hour + 16 1/2 hour flight.  Abel had been using 4-6 diapers a day, so this seemed a reasonable number to me.  Well... Abel had already used two before we boarded the plane for Houston.  Then we boarded and gave Abel some of the baby food that the Emirates' flight attendants so generously offered him.  Apparently his tummy was not used to that kind of food. Within a couple of hours of leaving Dubai, Abel started having diarrhea.  And so Scott and I traded off changing poor Abel seven times over the next few hours.  At least the tiny airplane bathrooms had changing tables!  

One of the times, I took the new diaper and Abel, cleaned him up while he screamed at me, put on the new diaper, only to have the Velcro tab rip off!  I held it on as best I could, went back to the seat, and told Scott in utter exasperation, "I will put another one on HERE."  And so, as Abel stood in our bulkhead row, I attempted to put a new diaper on.

Ten minutes later, I looked down.  "Why are my pants wet?"  "Why is Abel all wet?"  I guess I didn't do such a stellar job getting the diaper to fit properly.  And so, this time it was back to the bathroom to change Abel's diaper AND his clothing!

After all those changes, and eight hours into the 16 1/2 hour flight, I informed Scott, "We're down to the last two diapers."  "Oh boy.  What are we supposed to do?" he asked.  "Start praying!"  We started.  Abel only had one more dirty diaper.  And we arrived in Houston with one diaper to spare.  Thank You, Father!

Many people ask how you can keep a toddler entertained on a very long flight without losing your mind.  I, too, wondered how we would do that.  I still do!  All I know is that many people were praying for us.  All the diaper changes took up some time!  Abel took three naps during the flight.  He watched some children's programs on the in-seat TV.  He played with some toys.  He ate.  And that was enough to fill all the hours.

We touched down in Houston just exhausted, but so grateful to be back in our home country.  Abel took a nap as we grabbed our luggage, headed for a shuttle for the rental car.  We stayed a night in a hotel near the airport, where we all slept 10 hours, before heading home on our last two-hour flight.  (That one seemed like a piece of cake!)

We walked down the airport ramp, looking for Scott's family and our sweet Adrianna, whom we had missed so much.  The rest was a blur of hugs and greetings and excitement at meeting the little boy who came home two years after we started our journey.