The flight home on Nov.1

We boarded the bus to the airport at 5:50 am on Nov. 1. AJ did a really good job. In fact, all of the kids did really well. As I mentioned before, we had 9 families in our group. We met some really wonderful people. They are all regular folks like us...teachers, construction workers, nurses. Nobody rich or famous, just hardworking, warm hearted people. Did you know that there are about 143,000,000 orphans in the world? Wow!! It seems overwhelming. It's sometimes hard for me to think about the extravagant ways people spend their monety. I mean, why do we build $5,000,000 homes? Wouldn't a $1,000,000 home be more than adequate? Why do we drive $40,000 vehicles? Wouldn't a $20,000 vehicle be enough? Why do we think more is better? Don't get me wrong. I'm all for capitalism. If you have talents and resources and gumption, you can make a lot of money. It just seems sometimes our priorities are out of order. I mean, do I really need that Diet Coke every day? Think about it...that's about $400 a year I could do something else with... maybe help someone in need. I don't know, having a Diet Coke is not a luxury is it? I don't really need it. Anyway, something to think about. The family who stole my heart was a gal named Jody. She brought her mom with her to China to pick up her daughter. Her daughter is Lena, a beautiful 13 year old who was kind and warm and funny and soooo thankful. Their first day together they went to the mall and let Lena pick out her own outfit. She slept with the clothes on her pillow that night. Just a simple pair of jeans... see what I mean about priorities. We take so many things for granted here. Jody and her family will have a pretty big adjustment I think... language and culture and Lena will be their oldest at home. So they adopted out of birth order. Amazing. She's my hero!! Would you pray for them? Thank God for people like Jody and Dave.

One of our checked bags made the alarm go off. So, this Chinese guy asks Aron, "Is this your bag?" uhhh... yeah. Well, the swords we bought for the boys set off the alarm. Imagine that. The gentleman opens the bags and takes out the swords and says"It's okay...they not sharp". Aron wanted to crack up. Not sharp? They're swords for crying out loud. But, we were thankful because the boys have wanted swords for a long time. They were almost confiscated in Tokyo too, but Aron sweet talked the little Japanese lady so off we went. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it for yourself, but AJ slept 8 of the 10 hour flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis. He actually likes it when you just put him down. He's not a big snuggler. Darn! So, we ended up putting him on the floor in front of our seats. I think he was able to stretch out and the hum of the plane lulled him to sleep. He only woke up for meals and a little playing. I'm sure many of you were praying for us. Thank you!!! We are so grateful that we didn't land in Grand Rapids exausted and pulling our hair out. AJ did great!!

We were welcomed home by family and friends and a big sign that my crazy father in law made that said,"Welcome home Aron and Heather and a boy named Su... we love you". Of course, I blubbered like a baby. It was so sweet and we felt so loved. It only took about half an hour for AJ to warm up to the kids. He was running around and laughing. It was a beautiful meeting day. We flew out of Guangzhou at 8:30 am on Nov.1 and arrived in GR at 7:30 pm on Nov.1 but China and GR are 12 hours apart. To our bodies it was 7:30 am Nov.2. We actually traveled back in time. Go figure. It was wonderful to be back with our family and the kids fell in love with AJ almost immediately. Let me say that AJ has already blessed our family and will continue to teach us how to love. He's provided us with way more than we have for him. He's incredible. We really feel like we're the blessed ones. If you have the opportunity to love an orphan, I challenge you to go for it. You'll never be the same. Blessings to you all. I'll try to get some pics posted soon.