Sam goes back to work and the girls and I have school.
This week we begin saying all our goodbye's! Sad times. Everyone keeps asking when we will be back. Our prayer is these are not "forever" goodbyes.
Tuesday and Wednesday Sam works his night shift until midnight. He is not going to miss working those shifts every week! Sam also has picked up a cold and does not feel well.
His Chinese colleagues work these late shifts every week so to be available to their American coworkers. We have a lot of respect for the Chinese!
Sadly the visa requirements to visit America have tightened and the Global Rotation Program at Sam's work had to cancel the China to America trips for 2019. Some of his colleagues who were hoping to visit next year are very disappointed! We are too! Would have loved to host the Chinese visiting the Raleigh Durham offices. Praying for the political relationships between China and America to improve.
Thursday evening is our final date night. Ms. Helen comes over and watches the girls. The girls are excited to give her gifts and a card and we let her know (with Google Translate!) what a blessing she has been and how much we will miss her!
We head to the French bistro armed with gifts for the staff and family that owns the restaurant. We share a salmon appetizer and a baked Camembert for dinner. We sadly say our goodbyes and repeat what we tell everyone - if you are ever in America, let us know!
Sam hopes to return to China for a few weeks this summer.
Friday after school the girls and I head to the trampoline park one last time. Of course they make friends and sad to say goodbye to the staff. We pray for the staff.
Day 66
We have plans with Sam's coworker, Tony, and his family. (We now call Tony the Chinese Santa Claus - he is so generous and constantly giving us gifts!)
Before we head to see Tony's family we work on house chores and pick up more gifts from the mall next door. We also start going through the apartment and figure out all the items we cannot bring back (food, laundry detergent, cooking items, etc.) and start packing it up to give away.
Unfortunately right before we head out, Penny throws up. She had been battling a fever earlier in the week and some stomach issues. Now it is confirmed she has a stomach virus! Ugh.
So Penny and I stay back while Sam and the older two go to Tony's apartment. They have a great time and enjoy all the homemade Chinese food. The girls and Tony's 2 year old son get along well.
Tony and his family end up driving Sam and the girls back and even though I warn them of Penny's illness they still want to come inside. So we visit for a bit and they even brought back food for me. Nice to meet Tony's wife and son!
After they leave, I head next door for some clothes shopping! (I can't go to China and not take advantage of the low prices on their beautiful clothing!) However we do still have limited luggage space and the clothes aren't free!
Day 67
It's Sunday! Sam is still not feeling great and we don't want Penny to spread her stomach virus (or get sick while we are out!) so they stay at the apartment while the oldest two girls and I go to the Fellowship. It is great to see everyone (it is a cold and rainy morning and only about half of the fellowship shows up) but sad to say our goodbye. One of the families has a grown child living in Raleigh/Durham, so we hope to see them again!
After the fellowship, we head to McDonalds (the only free standing location with a playground in Dalian!) with a few families from the fellowship. Great conversations, girls loved playing with their kids and we sadly once again exchange WeChat info and goodbye's!
I mentioned this before, but in China they use WeChat instead of Facebook. We make sure to exchange WeChat with everyone before we leave! That way we can still stay in touch. Even most of the Americans we meet are not on Facebook - they use WeChat or Signal (a very secure texting/messenging application). Using VPN we were still able to access Facebook, etc. while in China, but VPN often did not work.
Later that evening Penny is doing better and Sam is feeling OK so we meet Sam's coworker, Daniel and his family for one last meal together. The mom and I had been exchanging Mandarin/English lessons with the kids. It is sad to say goodbye! We had a great meal at a place translated in English means "Mother's Table." I also get some unexpected compliments from Daniel's wife (Her English name is Kathy). Will miss her friendship! (We exchange WeChat info)
American parenting can be different from Chinese parenting. Chinese parents/grandparents are very involved while American parents can be more laid back and hands off. I often wonder if I am viewed poorly in my parenting style! I cannot blame their style of parenting. If the government only permitted me to have 1 or 2 children, that would definitely impact my parenting (it is still the norm for a family to only have 1 child).
Day 68
Sam goes to work and I have school with Annie and Penny. Lucy wakes up with a fever and not feeling well. Sam works until Midnight.
There are definite aspects of China we will not miss - pollution, crazy stressful driving, rude cutting in line (anytime you are in a line in China, you have to be assertive or else everyone will cut in front of you!), no hand washing, the bathrooms, and soap not often used in cleaning.
Day 69
Sam goes to work and Annie wakes up with a fever. Penny is feeling better. Sam still not 100%. Lucy really unwell. She ends up having the worst case of the stomach virus! No school. The kids rest while I spend the day packing the apartment. Sam says all his goodbyes to his colleagues! But he knows he will still be in contact through work and see people again when they visit America or he visits China again.
We say goodbye to all the hotel staff! Several stop by throughout the day to say goodbye and drop off gifts (by this time we know to be well stocked with gifts ready to give back). The operations manager finds out we will miss breakfast in the morning due to our early flight and arranges to have breakfast available for us to pick up when we check out. They are so good to us!
We are excited that we were able to gift all the Chinese Bibles we had purchased in Beijing - and every person that received one was so excited! Thank you Jesus!
Overall, we experienced little sickness on this trip! God took such good care of us.
We are definitely ready for our clothes again. Wearing the same few outfits over and over gets old. Most of the girls pants are stained and full of holes - wearing and washing the same pants twice a weeks definitely wore them out. Was able to repair some pants - others really needed patches.
One note about living here - we had no problems paying our bills online while in China!
Day 70
Sam and I wake up at 5am, shower and finish packing up our bathroom, dirty clothes and the kitchen. We get the girls up at 6:15 and get them dressed. Sam starts check out with the front desk, and brings back the luggage carrier and breakfast. We eat, finish packing, last bathroom breaks, coats, etc. and take medications to help everyone on the long journey home. Lucy and Annie are both fever free. We leave our apartment for the final time! Goodbye beautiful apartment and beautiful view!
We wave good bye to all the great staff. Mr. Di picks us up in a minivan which we barely fit (8 suitcases, 6 carry-ons and 6 people)!
It is not the safest, but we got really used to not having room for everyone in the car we had in Dalian or sometimes in Taxis, and having to hold kids on our laps. And we only brought one booster seat, which we stopped using. Thank you Lord for no car accidents!!
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| Here's a picture of Mr. Di, our driver, with Penny at the beginning of our trip |
We make it to the airport, say goodbye to Mr. Di and get checked in. We make it to our gate on time. Flight from Dalian to Beijing leaves on time. First flight goes well. Only lasts about 1.5 hours.
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| Goodbye Dalian! |
We make it to our Beijing connecting flight on time!! Woohoo. We only had a 2 hour window between flights (would not do that again.)
12.5 hr flight from Beijing to JFK, New York begins. We are not all seated together but convince a Chinese woman that she does not want to be sitting between our children haha. So she switches seats and now we are all sitting together.
This flight is much better than our long flight from Newark to Beijing back in September. Newer plane, much more comfortable seats and all the screens and headphones work - woohoo! It is also about 1 hour shorter since on the way back we are traveling with the wind instead of against it. We also had time to purchase water and refill our one water bottle that made it to China, so we weren't so thirsty like last time.
We got 2 hot meals, snacks and small cups of drinks. Watched 3 or 4 movies (much better movie selection this time time - many in English).
Girls passed out at about the 8th hour into the flight (and we did not use melatonin or any other sleep inducer this time). Girls had no accidents on this flight! Yay! I slept about 1 hour, Sam slept maybe 30 minutes. Overall girls did really well.
45 minutes before we land we wake up girls. It is lunch time in New York, but 1:30am in Dalian! Landing was scary - we initially make contact with the runway on only the left landing gear! Thankfully it did not snap having the full weight of the plane on that one side. We bounced back and forth but finally we were slowly driving on all wheels. And we are in AMERICA!!! At least if we are going to have an accident, I would rather it be in America than anywhere else!
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| Hello Atlantic Ocean! |
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| Hello American airplane with American Flag! |
We arrive a little early, which is great because we have several checkpoints to get through before heading to a different terminal and finding the gate of our last flight.
I have to say that as much as I love America, I was really embarrassed by all the completely rude and hostile American airport staff that greeted us (or should I say not greet) our Beijing flight which was almost all Chinese people. Would have loved to be proud of my country but was not.
Almost every airport staff member we came across in JFK was very rude. Sigh. I know New York has a certain reputation but wow. Praying for my country. I saw airport staff belittle Chinese people for trying to move through a very confusing line in immigration/customs and obviously knowing little to no English. When we were in China, we almost always found Chinese airport staff that knew English and could help us. Rarely did the Chinese belittle us when we didn't know their language.
Another big thing that stood out to us was how in China, so much is also in English. When we arrived in JFK, which has tons of international flights, nearly everything is in English. Here and there we saw a little Spanish. We sure don't make it easy for people of other countries!
The one exception at JFK was during one of the checkpoints, Penny who is understandably very tired at this point and starts crying, a law enforcement official carrying a gun stops and asks if he can help with anything.
We make it to our gate with about 20 minutes to spare. So while I take the girls to another restroom stop, Sam picks up a New York pizza!! Our first meal back in America! And wow was it so good!! No more weird Chinese pizzas with eggs and mayonnaise and corn!
The pizza and a couple bottle waters cost $40 - we are definitely back in America.
Flight to RDU leaves on time. We are mostly all seated together. A group of older southern women sit with us in the back after a week long trip visiting NYC. They were so much fun and made us feel like we were already back in NC.
Flight was 2 hours (and may I say it is such a relief to be flying on planes flown by well trained American pilots and maintained by crews with high standards!) and it flew by with the great conversations we had with those ladies. Found out they are retired teachers for Cumberland County schools and fellow believers. They were very interested in our Asian travels!
We arrive in RDU right on time and I am immediately struck by how nice our airport is and how much money I see walking around the airport! Wow our country is so blessed. May we all know from whom all blessings flow!
We grab a jumbo taxi to our home. Our taxi driver is from Somalia and we have a great 45 minute conversation with him - mostly listening to him and his sad tale of how his family was impacted by all the civil wars in the 90's and the civil unrest that still continues. Reminded again of how blessed we are. Praying for the taxi driver, his family and Somalia.
Something that really stood out to me in China - we saw few Africans in China, but every time we visited a church in Korea, Japan or China, we always saw Africans! So excited to see what God is doing in Africa!!
We are welcomed home by Sam's mom! Both her and my mom cleaned our house, and both Sam's mom and my mom and brother Edward cooked enchiladas, soup and pumpkin bread for us! Wow! And my dad had left a note and some beverages on the kitchen counter. Sam's mom even went grocery shopping for us and someone did our laundry. And one of the neighbor kids came by and dropped off a heartwarming book she wrote for us! What a homecoming!
Our family and neighbors took such great care of our house, cars, mail, plants, etc. We are so thankful!!
Day 1 Back in America
Struggling with Jet Lag! Wake up at 2:45am, stay up until 10am. Had a whole list of things I planned to do. Instead at 10am I decided to take a 1 hour nap. It turns into 6 hours! Thankfully Sam woke up shortly before I passed out and was able to take care of the kids!
First day back ended up being kind of a train wreck. Haha. I have heard the jet lag coming back will be harder than when we arrived. It took us about a week to adjust in September.
Day 2
Wake up at 3:45am (it's progress! haha). Use the time to work on blog!
Sam heads to work at 6:30am. He is excited to catch up with his colleagues in NC and hand out gifts from China!
We both have productive days! Yay.
Day 3
Girls and I are up by 3am. Sigh. Finish Blog.
Few observations we have made since we have come back - we were so thankful for the trip while in China. But once we got back I became even more thankful. Seeing how God just spoiled us with a fancy life for a little while. We are so undeserving and God already blesses us so much. But I can see how just as a parent loves their child and sometimes they want to do something extra nice for them, and God did that to us. Thank You Lord!
I also realized that just as parents can get so excited to share things with our kids, that God must have been so excited to show our family what He made on the other side of the world! What beautiful countries, ocean and people! I think that as a relationship with Jesus Christ deepens, that we can become more sensitive to God and His doings in our life. Thank you Lord for showing us a glimpse of Your creation.
If you are reading this, thanks for hanging out with us on our journey! Your interest and prayers were such an encouragement to us! Thank you!
