Changes of plans

We just arrived at the hotel, but I'll get you caught up on some of the first impressions of the day.

1:46 p.m. (Missouri time) - Looking over the barren ground of Southeast Colorado from 34,000 feet. I see Pike's Peak out the window, and it makes me want to bring the kids to Colorado in a year or two! So far so good, but some things have changed. Here's a rough summary of what happened:

We pulled into the airport in St. Louis with plenty of time to check our luggage and bags. When we finally got to the counter, the ticket lady informed us that we wouldn't be able to leave our luggage for the second leg of the plane. We had operated under the assumption (provided by a travel agent) that we could leave our checked baggage at the airport for the second leg of the trip, and just use our carryons for the one night excursion in California. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for a layover of 24 hours or greater (ours is about 33 hours).

So we'll just pick up the luggage and cart it around California with us. Only one problem: We're also transporting 5 boxes of 40 pounds each for a family that is headed to the mission field soon. Since that won't fit in the car we have rented, I spent 30 minutes on the phone trying to
change our rental into a minivan. With that accomplished (for a slight upcharge, of course), we boarded and have had a relatively uneventful flight.

And now, a word from each of the kids. My question to them: What do you think about flying now?

Adam: It's pretty good. You get free pretzels and you can do just about anything like play cards on the built-in tables.
Anna: I don't like it because your ears pop. (She cried for 5 minutes during the ascent)
Alex: Too busy playing cards and video games to answer. (His first words while taking off were "Wheeeeee")

In the next installment: What happened from the airport to the hotel (once again, not what we planned)

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Why we're going . . . and no, we're not packed yet!

Three days and counting until we take off, and three questions have been asked to us over and over again.

1. Are you really taking your whole family? Yes, that part of the purpose is to have a family adventure.

2. Are you packed yet?
Nope, and we probably won't be until late Friday night. We do have a few things set aside and we've started making our list. But there's enough stuff going on this week (meetings, papers to grade, doctors appointments, last week of school) that we really can't get ahead on packing.

3. What are you going to Taiwan to do?

This is the toughest (and most important) question. Going on this trip has an interesting backstory. David originally planned to go for 12 days with a group of students during spring break. A few months before the trip, it became apparent that this would be a traumatic experience for our family to be separated for this long. Plus, our kids were missing the Ralls children and Sandy was wanting to see Amy (I had seen Jon a few months earlier). So one morning, I called Jon Ralls and told him my struggle with coming. He urged me to look for the opportunity to bring the whole family. So we checked out how much it would cost, examined our schedule, and figured how we could make it happen.

I guess I can boil down our main reasons for going to these three:

a. We want to see the work that we support. We've supported missionaries in Taiwan since before we were married. Our church also supports the work in Taiwan right now. I am looking forward to seeing a glimpse of the heavenly treasures that we have laid up from that support. It will be good for all of us to see what we have heard about.

b. We want to encourage and fellowship with our friends. We have been friends with the Ralls family (http://www.eastasianmissions.org) and the Pagel family (http://www.pagels.teamexpansion.org) for several years, and we know other workers in Taiwan. We've always heard that it is an encouragement for people on the field to have visitors from home, and we want to provide that.

c. We want to develop our family's understanding of missions and the world. Our kids may or may not become missionaries in the future, but unless they are exposed to the work of missions, they will never be able to visualize themselves doing mission work in the future.

So even though the plane trip is long, the weather will be hot, and the kids may not like the food, we think it will be worth it!

Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted on what's happening.