We actually had Christmas today, December 16th, 2009! Abe's x-ray came back negative, meaning he does not have full blown TB and he is cleared for travel. That means WE are cleared for travel and will start our journey on Christmas Eve. We will be home with the boys January 2nd. The girls will get to come to Portland for the boys' arrival on Jan. 1 and we're going to stay at the Oxford Suites that night for a family party with the Leerssens.
This was such a stretch for us in our faith walk. We had prayed for a Christmas break travel date and the Lord blessed us with one. The problem was that the date they gave us was tentative based on TB tests for the boys. It was a conundrum of cost. If we waited until today, the ticket prices could have been as high as $6,000 a piece (adult price) and planes were filling up because of holiday travel. If the boys tested positive for TB we could have been delayed into January for an embassy/travel date. So we faced a dilemma. Do you purchase tickets on faith? According to Wikipedia, approximately 80% of the population of some African countries test positive for TB. (I'm glad I didn't know that until writing this.) If we had to change the tickets after purchase, there would be a potential of a $2000 "change of ticket fee" for the five tickets. We opted for just buying the tickets and trusting God that we would actually be able to go during Christmas break; worst case scenario being the change of ticket fee.
Praise God for this Christmas gift of a Christmas break travel schedule and getting the boys as soon as we possibly could!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment