We are here!

After I'm not even sure how many hours of traveling, we are finally here...closer to our boys than ever and a little over 24 hours from finally meeting them. There was so much to do to prepare for this trip. I was trying to avoid taking any time off of work so the weeks prior to this trip we were swamped to say the least. The trip to the airport I was doing mental lists to make sure I didn't forget anything. Then we get to the airport (my sister and nephew dropped us off...thanks Staci and Nathan.) Then as we were headed off he asked for one more hug. It in that moment hit me....I can't travel halfway across the world...I get homesick! I had terrible homesick issues as a child. I was highly attached to my family. I that moment, I realized....I am still highly attached to my family. Not a day goes by that I don't see or talk to my parents. I can't go a week without talking to them. The nerves had kicked in full force at this point:)
The first leg of our trip was a 10 hour plane ride, which I wans't overly thrilled with. I am not a nervous flyer...but I do like my comfort. As we sat in our seats we had a moment of prayer. The entire take-off I just prayed that the Lord get our plane to Moscow safely, that he keep his hands around the airliner and get us there safely. And so he did. Do let me add that the total trip had a few different legs and each one we had to depend on others to get us to our destinations safely. When we made it to get our luggage and through customs without a single problem. It was honestly a piece of cake. Then our driver met us exactly where he was supposed to holding a sign that beared our last name. He "M", was wonderful! He was such a nice guy and made us feel so comfortable he rode us around the city of Moscow...which is HUGE! We rode by the Kremlin, Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral. We didn't stop as we have a whole day there at the end of the week. "M" took us to the next airport, walked us in and and showed us all he could show us. At this point we had 10 hours until our next flight. This part was not one of the highlights thus far, but we they had some comfy chairs and we didn't get a whole lot of sleep on the first flight so we snoozed (if you can call sleeping in an upright chair amonst hundreds of people chatting in a laguage that you don't even slightly comprehend). It really wasn't bad at all, just long. If I had it to do all over again we may have gotten a day hotel to rest at. Then, last night we caught our second flight which brought us to our region. That flight was 5 hours and at this point we had driven 3 hours to the airport, flown for 10 hours, hung out in the airport for another 10 hours and we had just has a couple hours of sleep. The flight was not bad, it was just very hot and very packed. Beyond that it was just fine. As we were landing, it was very dark and you could see the lights of the city. In that moment it hit me...our boys were right below us. It was an overwelming feeling of excitement. We have prayed for them for years and now we are closer to them than ever before.
We landed in our region and we were to have another driver meet us there. Well there was no sign bearing our last name....and people in our region do not speak English at all...nor could we find a phone. We really didn't wait long at all before our facilitator found us. We were so relieved as we were gettting a little nervous. Or flight was a little early thus they seemed late when they were really right on time. They brought us straight to our hotel. Then the Lord blessed me once again...we have free Wifi!!! We didn't expect this. My sister sent me with her laptop as it has a camera so that now...we can skype and see each other. We talked to Benji's mama and my mama and daddy. It makes me feel a gazillion times better to know that I can still see them and talk to them every day. We don't have a cell phone here and were fully expecting to only communicate via email....but the Lord knew my desperate need to see and talk to my family:)
Our facilitator "Y" gave us our itenerary for tomorrow (we have the day free today). We have our appointment with the Ministry of Education in the morning then we get to go see the boys!!!
I can not even begin to tell you how awesome God's mercy has been on us this far. He has made this trip far smoother than I ever expected. He as held us in his hands and gotten us here safely with added bonuses along the way. I just can't get over how awesome that God is, and I have no idea how I deserve all the blessings he has given to us!
So for now, we are going to try to nap a little bit then go on a search for food as the only things that I recognize on our hotel menu is boiled veal tongue. This should be interesting:)