Not Really There Until We Arrived

"He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him." (Ezra 7:9)

We have been to so many places on this China trip! The longest stay in one hotel is only two nights. We packed, unpacked, and packed again and slept on different beds. Imagine how we all wanted to go home towards the end.

In Guang Zhou, we had a hard time figuring out the airport. Somehow when we asked questions, different people pointed us to different directions. It was very frustrating. May be the airport is just too big and too new (relatively speaking)?

The flight from Guang Zhou to LAX was over 13 hours. So, I was relieved that we finally reached the country I have lived in for 33 years! In a short time, we had to pick up our luggages, go through Custom, recheck our luggages back into the system, look for the terminal for connecting flight, get our boarding passes, go through security checking, and rush to the gate.

Eventually, we were on the plane from LAX to SFO. "Great! We are almost home." I repeated the same sentence I have been telling myself in the last few days on the trip. Imagine our disappointment of losing our luggages. Nonetheless, the airline "promised" they would find the bags and delivered to us. So, at almost midnight, the three of us boarded a shuttle bus to go home in the South Bay.

The driver is from Taiwan. "I usually go to and from the city. Most of us do not like driving to the South or East Bay because we are not familiar with the places. You have to show me the way."

We told him to take 101 then 92. When we approached the tunnel from 92 into 280, we saw police cars with flashing lights and big signs saying the tunnel was closed. Taking a detour, I wonder whether there was an accident not long ago. Could we get into trouble if we did not wait in the airport for an extra hour?

Bags or no bags, I was relieved when we entered our son's place. We would sleep and drive home first thing in the morning. Other than our gracious God, who else can guarantee we get home safely?

Copyright © 2006 Winnis Chiang, Parenting ABC