The rest of the story of traveling!

So I am trying this again. Hopefully we won't lose any of this post along the way. The long flight started with the kids hooking up with headphones to watch movies right away. We were so glad that there were a lot of good choices for them. Paul however fell asleep almost right away. That was good because it was probably 1:30am Montana time. I am so glad that he did so well up until that point! God answered a huge prayer there! Soon into the flight they served us dinner. That was a little weird but of course whenever I stay up that late I am hungry. After eating I expected Dan and Clara to crash but they just kept on going. I think it was around 2:30 MT time that I said no more it is time to sleep. Once we turned off the movies they did crash. Dan had a hard time sleeping though. He could not get comfortable and kept waking up. Josh really didn't sleep at all because Paul was laying on him. I think he watched movies while the rest of us tried to sleep. This was the only part of the journey that my whiplash injury bothered me. I had to have my neck strait or it was very painful. It is a bit hard to sleep on a plane with your neck strait! Almost impossible. I think I managed a bit of sleep though. So Paul slept about 8 hours and Clara maybe 5. Dan an interrupted 3 to 3 1/2. Then it was time for more movies, fruit snacks and juice. Anything to keep them happy at this point. I had been dreading this part of the journey for many months. All of your prayers were answered at this point. The kids did so well. We took walks up and down the isles, went to the potty and watched movies. It did seem like forever but soon they were serving breakfast and we had only two hours to go. Breakfast was a choice of seafood porridge or an omelet. We all chose omelet. I figured we could eat familiar food for just a few more hours! It came with yogurt and fruit salad too. Everyone was quite pleased with that meal.

Finally we landed in Hong Kong! As we walked towards security there was a health check point. They chose Josh and took his temperature. No fever so we were allowed to keep going. Security here was the hardest to get through. Even worse than customs in Manila (which was a breeze really). We had a system of Josh taking Paul to go through security and I took Dan and Clara. Well here they didn't like Dan's epipens. I didn't pack the original packaging for them to save space. Also we brought 5 for the six months. Since we are 3-4 hours from a hospital etc. I wanted to be prepared. Anyway with out the packaging there is not information about the prescribing doctor and who they are for. Josh went through a different line than we did and they had to call for Dan's passport and then write a bunch of stuff in a log about it. Josh was carrying two and I had three. I watched them throw away another lady's pill and thought maybe they would make us throw away some of the epipens. At $52 a piece and concerns about getting more I was pretty worried. But in the end they let us through.

While waiting for the flight to Manila, I realized that almost everyone at our gate was Filipino! That was pretty exciting- we were almost there! Several Filipino women saw Paul and thought he was the cutest thing ever. They all wanted to talk to him and would laugh at anything he said. He liked the attention for a couple of minutes but then was tired of it. They wanted their picture taken with him. He smiled for that I think.

The last flight was just over an hour long and they served breakfast. We were not too hungry at this point. But it was a good diversion. Paul refused to fall asleep and Josh was giving him anything he wanted in order to keep him happy. We finally landed in Manila around 10 am local time. We got off the plane and walked to customs. I was a bit nervous because Dan was coughing a lot. But they let us through with no problems at all. There was a pretty long line to wait in though. So we loaded our 6 action packers, 2 rolling carry-ons, 4 backpacks and one golf case (with Josh's equipment in it) on to a big flat bed cart. There is a very long ramp to get to the pick up area so we had two guys help us down that. We then realized that the pick up area is very very long and lettered A-Z. We did not know which letter Fe and Sid were waiting at! Josh went with on the Filipino guys to call Fe. While he was gone the other guy wanted to talk to me about Obama. He was pretty excited about his election. Josh finally came back and said that the phone he called was with Fe's son who was not in Manila. Fe's son said he would text her on the phone she did have to say we were at letter M. We prayed that she would get the text. In the mean time Josh and I realized that we had forgotten to have some money changed back in the airport. So Josh took Dan and went back up the ramp and back inside. That left me alone with Clara and Paul and all our luggage in a very busy pick up area. I prayed and tried to look confident. As I was scanning the crowd for a familiar face I made eye contact with Fe! What a relief! She waved at me and came over. We waited for Josh and when he came went to the waiting van. I forgot to say that Fe is the Deputy Director of the orphanage. She is in charge on site. Sid is the driver for the orphanage and he is surprisingly conservative while driving. Well relatively speaking of course! All our luggage fit in this vehicle too. It took 3 hours up a windy mountain road in a jerky manual transmission. We only had one kid get car sick. 10 minutes before we got to the orphanage Dan got sick. We thought it would be Clara but she was fine. I am so glad we had a plastic bag handy!

So that is how the traveling went! I will write about the last five days tomorrow hopefully. We also will post more photos. Right now I need to go to bed! Love you all and thank you so much for all the prayers!

New prayer requests:

Dan and Clara were given some water that was not bottled on Sunday. I am not sure what the incubation period would be for sickness. They have been healthy so far. We are praying that they stay healthy.

Paul is not dealing with the change well. He will only play with a couple of the kids and is not nice to the others. He is throwing tons of temper tantrums and is very clingy. We are praying that this passes quickly and that we have patience with him.

Wisdom for Josh as he choses a contractor and deals with some changes in the plans. There is way more dirt to move than expected. That translates into higher cost or changing the current plans. He really needs wisdom!

Thank you so much for all the prayers. They are invaluable!