Reunited...and it feels so good!

After a short night of sleep, we got up to make final preparations for our 2 weeks in China. One thing that we realized we needed to do on our way out of town was to stop by the licensing office so that I (Jody) could renew my drivers license. It dawned on me last night that my license expired on my birthday 3 days ago, and I didn't want to take an international trip with an expired license. We hoped to get to the license bureau before they opened at 8:30am, but ended up running about 10 minutes late. When i walked in the door, there were already about 8 people waiting in line. This was a problem because we had a deadline of getting to the airport in Seattle by 11:30am...and it's about a two and a half hour drive. I decided to make a plea to all of those in the waiting room to see if there were any good samaritans. After around a minute, a high school boy came up and gave me his number that moved me up a few spaces. His Mom raised him well. And then another woman in line came up and traded me her number which put me next in line. Praise God I was able to get my new license in around 10 minutes, and we were out the door thanks to two very kind people.

The decision to get my license renewed paid off within around an hours time. I got pulled over. No, I wasn't speeding. But I did get distracted as we rolled west on I-90, and drifted out of my lane. Wouldn't you know, there was a police officer right behind me. He flashed his lights, and pulled me over. After explaining all that we had going on, he informed me that 110 people have died this year on Washington roads, warned me, and sent us on our way. We were again blessed by kindness...and grateful for a current drivers license.

We made it to the Seattle airport in good time, and were there when Jay and the team emerged into the baggage area...


We gave Jay the choice of where he wanted to eat lunch, and he chose Taco Bell...


We then made our way over to our hotel, where Jay opened up his suitcase to give us the gifts that he purchased in Burkina Faso. He also showed off a cool African outfit that he had tailored for himself, as well as a jimbay (African drum) that he was excited to bring home...


So now we try to get a good nights sleep before heading to the airport tomorrow at around 11am. We take off at 2:40pmPST, and will have a 10.5 hour flight to Tokyo, followed by another 3 hours to Hong Kong. This also involves crossing the international date line, which puts us into Hong Kong Sunday night around 10pm. We'll have a brief night in a hotel by the airport before getting back to the airport around 6am Monday morning for our flight up to Fuzhou. We'll try to get a brief update to the blog in Hong Kong...providing the the hotel has a good internet connection and we're not too exhausted.

Thanks for journeying along with us, and for all of your prayers. It won't be long now before we post some pictures of our new son! If you're reading this in the United States, we will be getting Ming on Monday afternoon the 30th (China time) at just about the time that you are heading to bed Sunday night the 29th. Say a special prayer for us.