Welcome Home!

We didn’t think it was going to happen until Y actually got on the plane to come to America. None of the 90 plus hosting families knew what God was up to. There was a worldwide visa shutdown in June. At first, they thought hackers had gotten in to the system but then later it was determined to be a computer glitch. Regardless of what happened, it caused visa systems everywhere to completely shutdown. No visas anywhere were being issued.

Y was scheduled to arrive on a Monday. The Thursday night before, through tears, we read that there was nothing that anyone could do. The systems were coming back up but they were slow and in Y’s country there were 39 plus people ahead of our kiddos. We had begged, pleaded and finally contacted our congressional members who also did the same. There was just nothing they could do.

We accepted this. Trusted God had another plan and found comfort in knowing we would see him very soon. But God.

Friday afternoon, I sat down to work quietly (something I get to do on occasion) at a coffee shop. I pulled up my email and burst in to tears. The embassy workers had agreed to come in on a holiday weekend to process our kids visas. All of them.

And so, I got a bit emotional and almost tackled our poor Y when he came walking through the airport with a hint of a smile and excitement in his eyes.

The car got covered in window chalk. And Zoe made sure to put “Welcome to Y” in his native language. Our flight attendants recognized several peoples shirts and came over to tell us how the kids did on the flight over. They sweetly smiled for pictures and told us the kids really enjoyed coke. Oh yay. Super excited sisters having fun with the camera while waiting. Still waiting. We totally forgot his welcome poster at home so I made Mark stop at a Walmart and the kids decorated one while waiting. Super excited Mama. Here they come! Yeah, I think he had a bit of trouble breathing and really wanted to see his brothers and sisters too but I had trouble letting go.