Our trip across the world

We can hardly believe that we are actually writing this sitting in our home in Lilongwe, Malawi.  We feel so very blessed, loved, and overwhelmed all at the same time.  We are slowly settling in and are going to take our time and relax some, hopefully.  Here's how we got here:

June 21 at around 11am CST we left Jeremy's home in Montgomery, AL headed for the airport in Atlanta. After dropping our dog, Lucy, off at the pet mover's office we decided to go ahead to the airport early so that we could make sure there were no snafus.  Well, I'm glad we did.  Our flight was at 9pm and we arrived at the ATL airport at around 330pm Eastern time and the lady at the counter (that finally opened around 430pm) said that since we didn't have a VISA we couldn't fly on a one way ticket.  Our friends, the McDonald's tried to explain to the lady that Malawi wouldn't issue VISA's until we arrived in the country.  This didn't matter to her.  Her computer said that we couldn't enter the country without a VISA unless we had a round trip ticket.  So two hours later and phone calls to our travel agent we bought a return ticket (which we have already cancelled) and received our boarding passes.  Crazy!  By the time we said our goodbye's, grabbed a bite to eat, and settled into our gate waiting area we didn't have long before we loaded the plane.  Mind you, we arrived 5 hours early for our flight.

The kids were so excited about their first plane ride.  And they did very well!  I am so proud of them!  Our first flight was from ATL to London.  We were in the air over 7 hours and AJ and I didn't sleep a wink.  That made two nights without sleep for me since Jeremy and I stayed up all night the night before packing.

Needless to say, my head was spinning when we arrived in London.  We were going to leave the airport and tour London for a while but when we saw the hundreds of people in line to get through customs and we added up the travel time and the extra time we'd need to check in and go back through security we decided to play it safe and stay in the airport.  So we spent 9 hours in Heathrow.  Wow!  Here is what goes on with 6 kids, 4 adults, and tons of carryon luggage:

When we finally got on the next plane we knew our next stop would be Africa!!!!  Wow!  Even though the 10+ hours was very long we all slept great!  The trip really didn't seem that long.  All of the kids love flying and never had a problem whatsoever!  What a blessing!  I've heard horror stories but our kids were amazing!


After a 2 hour layover in Johannesburg we were finally on the plane for Lilongwe, Africa!!!  We were so exhausted at this point it was hard to fully comprehend what was going on.  But we landed and got all of our bags (14 total plus 10 carryon)  and through customs without any problems at all.  Now, it was hectic and crazy but we didn't have any problems.  There were two families who came to pick us up and they have not left our side!  The Whites and Hirotos are amazing!  They have helped us with food, figuring out how to get cell phones, exchange money, help us buy a car, and tomorrow they will take us shopping.  We thank God for these new friends and for their time and help!  We can't wait until we are settled and sure of ourselves here so that we can be the helping family instead of the ones needing help.  But for now we are so very thankful for their help!

Christian is sick with some sort of stomach bug that he picked up along the way.  No telling which continent he picked it up at but he's pretty pitiful!  Thankfully we have amazing friends at the clinic already and Carson and Becky hooked him up with a Phenergan shot.  So he's sleeping soundly!!!  We pray this is just a little virus and it will be gone by tomorrow. But please join us in praying for him.

We love you all and would love to hear from you.  Email us at the address on the right of the screen!

Jill