China - Day Fifteen - Bringing our girl H-O-M-E!!!! (9/12/13)

As I thought might happen, Merle and I awoke before the alarm rang at 4:15 a.m. on Thursday morning..  Breakfast was arriving at our door at 5:00 a.m. and we were scheduled to meet Lily, our facilitator in the hotel lobby at 5:20.  We packed up the last minute things before getting the girls up.

Dressed in our comfy travel clothes, we were ready to roll.  We said our goodbyes to Lily who was a kind and sweet facilitator.  Her accent was heavy and could be hard to understand at times but she was so kind and often would console Lucy in Chinese with such a sweet motherly tone.

The four of us climbed into the comfy mini van (with the driver on the right side - in Hong Kong the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car).  In China, they have the steering wheel on the same side as the United States.  We would cross from China into Hong Kong in about two to two and a half hours.  Lucy slept in Daddy's arms for about an hour when poor baby woke, she was very nauseous.  This time I was a bit more prepared.  I had two extra sets of clothes for her as well as myself and Merle!  The van driver didn't miss a beat and handed bags back to us as he continued his driving.  We stripped little Missy down and put on fresh clothes.

At the China border, our van doors were opened as well as our trunk and passports given to security (ALL vehicles have this inspection). Everything went fine. And only a few hundred feet ahead was the Hong Kong inspection border and we did the same thing there with the addition of having this "radar looking gun" zapped at all of us.  When we inquired with Joe what that was about, he informed us that they were taking our temperature.  Can't go into Hong Kong with high fever?!  

Shortly after these inspections, we were at the airport.  We unloaded all of our luggage, tipped Joe and entered the beautiful Hong Kong airport to await our fifteen and a half hour flight!  We were able to switch our one seat so that three of us could be together in a row and the other right on the other side of the aisle.  These seat locations were nice with having a toddler because they were very close to the bathrooms!

Unfortunately, none of us slept much.  Few cat naps throughout the entire flight was all any of us seemed to be able to get.

We arrived in Newark on schedule then had to go through customs/immigration.  It was crazy disorganized and crowds of people of all different nations were trying to huddle into a cattle shoot.  I think that wait was about an hour and a half  --that was to get to the first immigration officer.  Once we got there, we sailed through and then Lucy and I had to go to a special room to deliver her immigration paperwork and passport.  Merle and Emily headed down to baggage claim where Lucy and I later met up with them.  We didn't wait long and they called us up to the counter to return her Chinese passport.

Thankfully our luggage all came through without any problems on any of the flights we had.  Now we needed to wait to get the shuttle to the hotel parking lot where our van was parked.

I think by the time we got into our van it was about 3.5 hours from the time we landed in Newark.  We hit the GPS button for H-O-M-E and started the last leg of our travel journey.  About 45 minutes in, the girls were sound asleep and Merle and I were very heavy eyed.  So another stop at Starbucks was in order!

We safely made it home about 7:30 p.m.  Absolutely exhausted.  Poor Lucy Kim was beyond tired and we put her to bed shortly after arriving home.  It was sooo good to be finally H-O-M-E!!!  

Praising God for His Guidance, Direction, Provision and Safety in bringing Lucy Kim Zimmerman HOME!