home to Genghis Khan and lots of wind, sand and a very dry climate! This trip has been adventurous to say the least. It began with our flight from Tampa, FL to California....sounds easy, however, there were hailstorms in TX which damaged several planes, one of them was ours. Thus began the adventure....with much prayer and almost begging the person at the ticket counter; we were finally put on a flight through Cleveland to L.A. That wasn't so bad in the end as we were only two hours later than originally planned. (They had wanted to put us on a flight the following day.)
We enjoyed our short time with Joshua and sadly said our goodbyes then set off for Beijing, China at 2AM. This part of the trip was uneventful and we both actually were able to sleep on the flight. This is where the real fun began :) Our layover in China was to be two or so hours then onto Mongolia. As we were making our way to the boarding area, we realized that our flight had been postponed....until 8pm that evening. The Beijing airport is enormous and beautiful, but 12 hours more didn't sound too thrilling to us! The reason for the delay was high winds in Mongolia...not unusual, so we were grateful for the delay. We'd like to give credit to Air China for then taking the folks from our flight over to a hotel for the day and feeding us lunch! (Not so sure that would happen in the US these days.) We were taken back to the airport that afternoon and loaded onto the plane on time...however, several passengers had some sort of visa and/or ticket problems so we sat on the tarmac for an hour while everything was sorted out. We did eventually arrive in Mongolia...only 15 hours later then planned :) WHEW....
We have train tickets for Russia and will travel on Thursday arriving in Russia Friday morning! After which we have a two hour car ride to our home in the village!!! It's never boring when travelling half way around the world.
We can never say THANK YOU enough to ALL who made our time in the U.S. so amazing! To our family...WE LOVE YOU and miss you already....you are all so amazing also, sacrificing the most as we live and work so far away; THANK YOU!! We are humbled and honored to know that so many of you pray often for us and the folks we work with. We are truly blessed!!
An update on our sons: Joshua has found work and so will be staying in California - his new home. He's obviously excited to have found work and excited with another new stage in life. Corey is not deploying...medical reasons kept him in the States for now so he'll remain at Ft. Carson. It's nothing serious so we're not certain if he'll deploy at a later date or not.
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| Saying goodbye to Corey as he heads back to Colorado. |
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| Burgers on the grill in California with Joshua and family! |
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| On the plane to Beijing!!! |
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| Breakfast in the Beijing airport.... |
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| Kevin in Mongolia...finally! Gotta love the traffic here |
Next update will be from Russia...Wanted to leave you all with a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson....
"The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God before you"
