Trial run ended successfully! Family means no one gets left behind!

Well, OK, so it wasn't meant to be a trial run, but in fact it turned into one. We figure God just didn't really want us to get on that plane at that time. Here is goes:

1. Thursday 1100 pm (day before flying): after an extremely busy day of final packing, house cleaning, and car selling (YES! We sold the van!!!! Someone called us at 10am and had cash in our hands by 4pm!!! Talk about an 11th-hour sale!), we pack all of our 10 suitcases, 5 carry-ons, dog kennel, and 3 kids in two cars, then head to a hotel next to the airport where we plan to overnight so we can just take their shuttle to the terminal the following morning. Before leaving, we go through a mental checklist:
• - house cleaned - check
• - left keys for tenant - check
• - left garage door openers - check
• - got all kids out of the house - check
• - got one dog out of the house - check
• - got suitcases and carry-ons out - check
• - got travel documents and passports in carry-on - check
• - ready to go - check
2. Friday 6am - the hotel wake up reminder call comes way too early, we could have slept a few more hours, considering we only had about 3 hours sleep that night. Saying goodbye to family was hard for everyone, especially for the kids (as we had expected). While we thought they would be too tired to get emotional, it seems a second wind came over them and falling asleep was an arduous task. But, regardless, it is now morning and we're READY TO GO. Everybody's dressed, and the shuttle pulls in front of the building when we decide to take a last minute look at all of the documents and put them in an easily accessible pocket. That's when we discovered a passport is missing: Lexi's. We rescheduled the shuttle for 15 minutes later and frantically turned everything upside-down to look for that one passport. Then we stopped and gathered together to pray that God would show us what to do next. Half-hour later we resigned to missing a passport and not being able to fly out. WE WERE STUNNED!

So, by the grace of God, we found a passport agency through which we can expedite a passport application and have Lexi's passport in our hands by next Wednesday or Thursday. We've also been able to re-book our flight for next Friday, so all in all our departure has been postponed by a week now.

Having had a full day to reflect on the craziness and totally unexpected events of yesterday, and having had a good nights sleep, we are realizing that God knows something that we don't (big revelation!) :-) and are thankful that we didn't have to travel under such exhausted conditions.

Through some dear friends (and supporters) we are able to secure a place to stay this week and are looking forward to getting some rest before the second run (and hopefully final!).

We jokingly told the girls that they must have prayed for this to happen! I don't know if that missing passport will ever show up, but we have learned that you never can anticipate what each day will bring forth.

Trusting in Jesus for each day,

Catalin & Shannon