T minus 5 days

I realized that my journal starts on Sunday, September 23 but the story of this trip really begins five days earlier. Those five days were a whirlwind of activity. There was so much to get done in a short amount of time so that we could leave our kids and our home for two weeks. I'll start the story there, during this crazy time of preparation.

On Tuesday, the 18th of September, I came home from school and Rebekah and I were lamenting for the millionth time that we hadn't heard anything about a travel date yet. We were waiting for confirmation of a court date in Cape Coast which would be set by the regional director of the Central Region Social Welfare Office. We had been told several days before that a court date was likely to come soon since the regional director was returning from vacation.

I decided to call Kelsey, our case worker at Faith International Adoptions, and ask if there was any news or if there was anyway we could hurry the process. She said she would talk to the director of FIA and see if he had heard anything. In a few minutes she called back:

Kelsey - "You're not going to believe this."

Me - "What happened?"

Kelsey - "As I was texting Boat (he's the coordinator for us on the Ghanaian side) to see if he had heard anything, he called me to say that you have a confirmed date!"

And just like that, the trip we had anticipated for so long was suddenly a reality. We were excited and nervous, overwhelmed and not sure what to do first. Kelsey told us that we should plan on travelling on Sunday the 23rd and return on Sunday, October 7. At bed time, we gathered the kids in our room and told them what was going on. We'd be gone over Stella's birthday and we were sad about that but she didn't seem to mind too much.

We started informing the people closest to us and decided not to advertise the trip to everyone since we didn't want the whole world to know that our house would be empty for two weeks. The kids would be staying with Rebekah's parents. Rebekah home schools our kids and teaches two classes at the Learning Tree Home School Co-op so she had two weeks of lesson plans to write and materials to prepare. That was a BIG job.

At school, I had two weeks of lesson planning to do also. Thankfully, my friend Lindsay would be subbing for me while I was away and I have a very good student teacher so I wasn't worried at all. My friend Nevin, who used to have my job before he moved on to the high school, volunteered to work with the after school band. Generally speaking, lots of people helped get things at school organized and I was pretty sure no one would notice I was missing.

There was also the issue of reserving flights. I had been watching airline fares for months and was planning to pay about $1300-$1400 per ticket before all the extra fees they tag on. I decided to call United Airlines before anyone else. We have carried a United Mileage Plus credit card since we got married and had almost accumulated enough miles for two tickets to Africa. Only problem....United doesn't fly to Africa. But I called anyway and explained the situation to the very nice lady on the other end for whom English was most certainly a second language. I listened to the sound of her keyboard tapping away for a long time and she finally told me that there was a way it could be done through some of their partner airlines. We had to pay for the difference in miles that we hadn't yet accumulated as well as all of the many fees. Altogether, though, we got both tickets for a grand total under $800!

On Friday evening, we had plenty of fun watching Henry play soccer. All the grandparents came, partly to see Henry and partly to send us off. I could tell that my mom was worried and I assured her that we would keep in touch as best we could.

There were other things scattered through the week that are associated with any trip. We had to pick up a few last minute things at Walmart, have our mail and newspaper held, figure out what suitcases we could take, and try to get things crossed off the list. Rebekah and I are both list makers and we had long lists for these few days. On thing I didn't expect is that in Ghana, reservations at hotels are secured on just your word that you'll be there. I tried to make some reservations but got none of the usual email replies or confirmation numbers. When we finally left for Ghana, I was only sure of having a place for us to sleep for the first night.

Saturday was the best day of the week, though. We spent the whole day doing just family stuff and enjoying each other. We made a huge stack of waffles for breakfast, played a dozen hands of rummy, went for a walk, and read together. At bedtime, we gathered the kids together one last time and talked about the next two weeks. We said all the things parents say to their kids when they are going to stay at someone else's house. We were concerned that the kids would be worried, scared, or unhappy about being away from home. On the contrary, they were excited to be going to Oma and Pop Pop's house and we were left wishing they had at least acted a little sad. We were really going to miss them.

After the kids went to bed, with about twelve hours to go before walking out our door to leave for another continent, we started packing.