The journey part two

God's mercies are new each morning. I find particular joy in that statement because I am not a morning person. I need a lot of extra mercy in the morning especially when I have to wake up 5 children, see them dressed, fed and ready for a shuttle at 7:15am. Ever minute counts with international travel and our shuttle arrived 30 minutes late because it took another group ahead of us. God's mercies are new every morning.

With the 8 of us and our luggage loaded, we were on our way. Our shuttle bus driver assured us that 2 hours was plenty of time. But I knew. We needed every minute. And we had 30 less than we needed.

It took a full hour checking our bags. It took us another hour to go through security. All our carryons needed to be checked twice because of a swab that came back positive. Boarding was in progress. We were cleared and we ran. I laugh now. Memories. We were making a lot of them. Kids on moving runways. Kids jumping off and celebrating the success of not falling flat on their faces. Arriving at the gate and finding we were the second last to arrive but the plane was still waiting. 15 hours and we didn't need to run anywhere.

More memories: Kids' movies and odd food at odd hours. Thunderstorms over Rome. God calming the storm before we landed. Technical problems in Rome. Sleeping on empty seats. Receiving kind words by fellow passengers. “Your kids travelled amazing.” Yeah they really did. They didn't whine or complain. They didn't argue or scream. Actually we seem to function best when we are squished into small places like airplanes and landcruisers.

The roughest flight we have ever been on. Three children quietly throwing up. No tears. No complaints because this is what we do. We travel and it isn't usually easy. We were the very last off a flight that ended up being 17 hours long. It was morning in Addis Ababa. God's mercies are new every morning even when we get two mornings in less than 24 hours.

The visa line was long but we were immediately ushered to the front. We were then ushered to the front of the customs line and our bags were the first off the plane. Not one bag was checked. No questions asked. Petros was waiting for us. Unbelievable. We were last ALL day long and here we were among the first. By God's grace and grace extended to us from strangers all along the way. We made it and we celebrated!

I wonder. Did I just get a glimpse of heaven? Will those whose journey is toughest, also celebrate the most joyfully? I wanted to shout for everyone to hear. Did you see what we just did? We are done and we made it! The real journey's end is going to be so much better.