One Of Many Miracles

For the past 3 days, I've been composing a blog about how Ken and I got in, out, back in, then back out of debt again during our marriage.  Due to some issues with the new formatting I tried on this blog, I managed to lose one entire entry!  One of these days, I'll work on it again, but for now, I'll share with you a miracle story (one of the many) from our adoption.  It's a story we didn't share at the time because it wasn't the appropriate time and we wanted (and still want) to protect identities.

Just weeks before we got travel approval, Ken came to me in the evening and said, "We can't take our bio kids with us to China. We just don't have the money."  My heart sank into my stomach.  We had been counting down for one year, planning and talking with our kids about traveling to China to meet their brothers.  They had given up an amazing cruise vacation for us to adopt.  My middle child didn't even like being away from us for one night, so spending one month on the other side of the globe just seemed impossible.

Before we went to bed that night, I told Ken, "I don't know how, but our kids will go with us.  God will do something, so I'm not going to worry."  Easy to say, difficult to do.  I think I cried myself to sleep and I vividly remember feeling sick to my stomach, but still had a deep, unreasonable feeling that God would work it out.

The next day, a friend messaged Ken out of the blue and asked him to meet for coffee.  When they sat down, the friend said, "God keeps telling my wife and me to do something to help you guys. What else do you need?"

I must add that this couple had already done much in regards to our adoption of the boys, so for him to be asking what he could do seemed like too much.  Ken mentioned our airfare concerns we had discussed the night before.  Turns out, this friend was in a unique position to help us with airfare so that we only had to pay a tiny fraction of the cost for flights.

A toast to our 13-hour date

But that's not all.  Not only did our friend provide a way for all 5 of us to get there and 7 of us to get back, but because of the time of year and because we were on standby, we flew first-class all the way to China!  Ken and the older Brownies also flew first-class on the way back home.  Crazy! I had never even sat in first class domestically, so to be on an international flight, first-class for 13 hours was a luxury beyond anything we deserved or worked for ourselves.  It wasn't a necessity, but an extravagant blessing.

Being able to sleep on the way there, having an endless supply of food, being pampered in ways we were not accustomed, were all so much fun and a great way to celebrate our transition from a family of 5 to a family of 7!

On the way home, a couple of the older kids were sick, so their being able to lie down and sleep was a great comfort.  (All seven of us getting back to the US together was a miracle story on its own, so read it if you haven't yet. It's a 3-part story, so click "newer" after reading the first and second entries. We had three flight attendants separately tell us that they had no idea how we managed to do what we did. According to their rosters it just didn't make sense. I love those unexplainables.)

It all came from people just wanting to help. We didn't do any fundraising for our adoption, but friends would step up and want to help.  We are forever grateful to our precious friends (a number of friends, acquaintances, and even strangers) who cared about us and wanted to help, even when it was difficult for them.  May I be just as generous.

Kenzie, visiting Hannah's sea

Huge "pods" where we could stretch out,
eat, watch TV, and sleep.