With grateful hearts and rested eyes, we thank God for our safe arrival to the Philippines. As many of you know and as many of you have been praying, our journey began on Wednesday. Ginger’s folks and uncle dropped us off at the airport in Grand Rapids. One thing we asked you to pray for was that we could check our suitcases all the way from Grand Rapids to Manila. God answered that prayer with a “yes.” Our first journey was to Cleveland and then onto Los Angeles. Our hope was to keep our kids awake until we boarded the plane in Los Angeles, even though that wouldn’t be until 3am (Michigan time).
Well, all but Rebekah made it. As you can see, Rebekah found a “comfortable” (anything is comfortable when you’re tired) seat in the LA terminal.
Once we were on the plane in Los Angeles, it was just minutes before everyone in our family was asleep. Again, all six of us slept in whatever position we could find “comfortable,” even if that meant kids sleeping on top of you. After 15 ½ hours on this plane, we had a short layover in China. Here we purchased two bottles of water, a Sprite and a Coke for only 13 dollars! After we paid, a gentleman on our flight gave us $20 dollars for our drinks. Wow, God provided through strangers! Upon our arrival to Manila, (after four planes, thousands of miles and almost 38 hours), we arrived into Manila to find all of our 12 suitcases and had no “lost” kids. Another “yes” from God in answer to your prayers.
We arrived to Manila at 11am with a couple of things we wanted to do. Keeping our kids awake was the priority, which wasn’t hard at all. Upon seeing old friends and friends-to-be, our kids quickly forgot about being tired. They had no problem staying awake until dinner time. At 7pm we put the kids into bed and in less than 2 minutes they were all asleep. Shortly later, both Ginger and I were sleeping too. We expected all of us to be wide awake at 2am, but no one stirred until 7am. Another “yes” from God. Thank you for caring for our needs and taking those before the Lord. We already miss you all, but we are thankful for how our kids have quickly transitioned to the Philippines. Yes, another “yes” from God.