Travel: Sunday, June 30th-Tuesday, July 2nd

Sunday, June 30th-Tuesday, July 2nd

I just wrote the dates at the top of my page and cringed. The 30th-2nd… we’ve been traveling for 2 days. Non stop. *sigh* It’s been a long 48 hours…

But I’m currently sitting on my rock hard bed in Chenzhou, listening to the relentless sound of horns honking, and I couldn’t be happier, because that means only one thing—I’ve made it back to my second home.

This year I had a travel buddy starting from Nashville with me, so that was nice. Kathryn and I were probably 3 hours into our first flight to LA when we were literally about to die. And we still had 40+ hours to go.. haha. An hour in they announced that they’d be playing the movie Safe Haven for us, and we were pretty excited about that. After Safe Haven they continued to play some other tv shows which was a life saver.

When we got off that flight Elyssa met us at our gate and we went on a mini adventure trying to find our gate for the Beijing flight. We had to switch terminals and it took us a little bit to figure out how to do that…. Turns out we had to actually leave the inside of the airport, find a shuttle bus, and then take that to our terminal. Which meant that we had to go through security again. We weren’t too excited about that, but it was pretty empty because it was so late, so that was good. We found our gate and met up with our group. We spent the next few hours talking, charging phones, and doing a group devotion.

And then we were off! I got the middle seat… like always. *sigh* But that’s okay. We flew China 
Air, and we were so excited to have tvs in front of our seats, but after looking through the movies, we realized that most of them were Chinese dramas. Haha. So that was disappointing. I slept most of the way… 9-10 hours out of our 12 hour flight. And the other two hours I watched the “new” 007 movie, Skyfall, which I’d been wanting to see. So, I can’t really complain I guess.
 

We all survived the long flight. We got off and went through immigration. We were told when we checked in that our luggage would be checked all the way through to Guangzhou, but there was some confusion and we thought that we might have to pick it up and then drop it off again before we boarded our flight, though some of us thought we didn’t need to. But to be safe we decided to check the baggage claim and see if it showed up… and if it didn’t, we assumed it would be checked all the way through. So we waited for awhile, and none of our bags came up, so we exchanged our money and went on to our gates.
 

We got in line to go through security, our group splitting into two different lanes to go faster. Danielle and I stepped up first to have them look at our passport/ticket, and the lady checking mine 
kept looking at it funny, and then finally looked behind her and started yelling something in Chinese. 
All I could think was “umm… what is happening? What did I do wrong???”
 

Turns out our flight to Guangzhou got cancelled.
 

So the security guard came up and took my passport and ticket and started walking off and the lady was telling me to follow them. I freaked out because he was literally just walking away with my passport in the middle of the airport. I was so scared he was going to lose that.

BUT, he told us to go get our flights changed.

We met a nice friend, Beau, along the way… He told us he was supposed to be on our flight to Guangzhou as well, so he came with us to get our tickets changed. We ended up finding out that he’s from Guangzhou but was going to school in LA. He has VERY good English, so ended up becoming our guide throughout this whole fiasco, because at this point we hadn’t  met our guide yet, we were to meet him in Guangzhou. Beau was so sweet in trying to help us find our other two teammates, Julia and Amy, who we were to meet at our gate to our Guangzhou flight. But of course, not having a gate because the flight wasa canceled, we started to panic thinking that we’d never be able to find them in this crazy airport… and we didn’t want to book a flight without them. It was a hectic 
morning.

So we got in line to talk to someone about tickets and waited.And waited. And waited some more. Shannon and our new guide went to try and page Amy and Julia, and find info on how to contact them, get wifi, etc. While standing in line we witnessed a fist fight that was going down in the line next to us. So, that was interesting.  Also got cut off a bunch of times today. Welcome back to China.

Shannon came back, Sarah SOMEHOW spotted Julia and we all started flagging them down. Totally a God thing, because they were just across the room from us.
 

We got a little “I owe you” slip, and then we headed to the other airport terminal by bus to actually get our tickets from another airline going to Guanzhou that day. Beau was so kind in helping us find our way this entire time. He talked to everyone through our check-in, and then also asked about our luggage that was supposedly checked through to Guangzhou. Turns out, we had to go back to the terminal we were originally in and go find our bags and then recheck them. Oh the joys.

So a group stayed with all of the carry-on luggage we were lugging around, and then another group went to get our checked luggage. We went back on the airport shuttle, took another 15 minute bus ride to the other terminal, stood in line FOREVER to get on the elevator (I don’t know what it is about their airport system, but the elevators are so weird there and take forever to eventually come around. Not to mention that the people shove and squeeze their way in all the time), and then finally got to baggage claim. We were told that they couldn’t find our luggage, and we had to wait like an hour to get to it.

So we sat and waited. 

And waited.

And waited some more....

...when finally we spotted some of our bags that started coming around the carousel. We were so excited! Over the next hour or so our bags kept coming, but our flight kept approaching as well, and we weren’t able to get all of our luggage because we NEEDED to get on that flight.
 

So unfortunately, I don’t have my checked bag. :(
 

My checked bags had mostly orphanage donations. I carried all my clothes in my carry-on (because I just had a feeling that something like this would happen), so I’m just missing my bathroom stuff. Almost everything I need is in the hotel provided for me… so that’s good. Poor Charlie doesn’t have any of her stuff. Please pray that they track those bags down soon, and they’re able to get them to us!
 

Anyways, we had a couple walkers (for the kids with mobility issues) that we had check in LA that we wanted to find, so Beau and a few other people went to the oversize baggage while the rest of us brought our bags back to the terminal where our flight was taking off. We had two luggage carts with our bags, and getting onto that elevator is impossible to do with just yourself let alone two big carts.

We eventually got on, started getting a  little aggressive (hey, when in China, do as the Chinese, right?) and pushed our way through. Getting off was another story. The doors opened and literally no one would move. I kept trying to push my way out and no one would move for me. Poor Kathryn and Sarah had the carts and tried to get out while people were pouring into the elevator. It's rough. But we finally made it out, got a good laugh out of it, and made it to the terminal.
 

I swear Beau was a guardian angel sent for us, because we NEVER would’ve made it out with most of our luggage without him. Such a God thing, for sure. We had some interesting conversation with him, talking about what we do and why we do it, etc. God’s been giving us some interesting opportunities. Keep praying for us, guys!
 

So we got checked in, went through security with no problems this time, and we were off. Our flight was delayed… again. So we didn’t end up leaving until an hour after it was scheduled. Our flights have been pretty bumpy the last couple of days, which some of the people on our team do not like. So that’s been rough. We made it through, though, even though I thought for sure we were going to die from traveling so much. *sigh* SO much travel today.
 

We met our guide in Guangzhou, talked to him about luggage (hoping it’ll be here tomorrow or the next day, please pleaseplease pray!) and then we were off to the train station. Yes, we were able to take the train! Praise!
 

The train was nice and relaxing… AFTER we got on it.  Everyone was freaking out about getting on and off in two minutes. But we did it with time to spare.
 

When we got to Chenzhou, Mr. Ren, the director, and the head nanny (Joy), came to meet us at the station. My eyes filled with tears as I saw them. It was so sweet for them all to come see us, and they were so excited for us to be there. :) Made my heart smile—just what I needed after 42 hours of traveling.
 

So that was good.  On our ride to the hotel we were talking to the orphanage staff, and they were saying we’ll be at the orphanage at 9 tomorrow, but we’ll normally come at 8:30. The kids are excited to see us. :) Mr. Ren also showed us pictures of his new baby girl (I think she’s 3 months now?), and it was so sweet to see how he was beaming!

They also told us 100 degrees during the day in Chenzhou. Whoohoo. It’s going to be a hot couple of weeks. Haha.
 

We made it to the hotel, threw our stuff in the room, and went to eat. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that we haven’t eaten at all today because of our flight and luggage fiasco? Yeah, the only real food that I’d eaten from that point was the airplane food, and I wouldn’t consider that “real” food. ;)
 

So of course we opted for KFC. Fast, cheap, and familiar.
 

Joy, Mr. Ren and director came to dinner with us which was sweet. We ate, got our fries, and wanted to head to the market to get water for tomorrow, but it was closed. :( So we’ll have to have a market adventure tomorrow.
 

I FINALLY got my shower that I’d desparately been wanting. I can’t even tell you how gross I felt. Especially after it being so hot all day, everywhere we went. Just preparing us for the walk to the orphanage tomorrow.
 

Okay, I need to go to bed. So tired, and we have a big day tomorrow. Pray for us as we rest tonight (That we all get sleep!) and that tomorrow is a good day. So excited!