World Adventurers Return...Finally!

Nathan, Kathy, Graham, Abigail, Joy, Esther, Elijah, Isaac, and Joseph pulled into their driveway a little before noon today.  They have been gone since June 25th.  They all look none the worse for wear!  The reason that I add that in is that their return trip went every way but smooth!  I will say that they had a wonderful mission adventure in Iceland and Poland.  The Family English Camp went very well...this is a camp that Polish families go to to practice and get better at speaking English.  Nathan, Kathy, Graham, Abigail, and Joy helped in different groups as English speaking leaders.  There was lots of recreation and other fun things going on besides English classes!  I just hope that the return trip fiasco doesn't shadow the good times!  I doubt that it will. One or another of them have been over here telling us about their adventures both in Iceland and Poland.  For this trip they have been in Iceland, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia (had to look that spelling up!), Canada, and then back on USA soil.

They were supposed to get home on Tuesday...they pulled into their driveway late this morning after traveling since this past Sunday...they traveled for 128 hours (5 days, 8 hours)!  I will "try" to relate some of their misadventures on the way home.

  They drove in a rented van from Poland to Berlin Germany on Sunday.  They spent the night in a hotel Sunday night near the Berlin airport.  They were up and out and ready to give back their rented van (an interesting story in itself...rented from a Polish company so they couldn't just return it to a rental place at the airport...someone had to come to pick it up.  When they hadn't come they parked it and put the key in a safe place and messaged with their Polish contact what they had done and they headed to the airport to get checked in.  They were all checked in and "thought" that they would shortly be getting on their plane and heading to Iceland.  Well...there was a weather delay that meant that the plane wouldn't leave in time for them to make their connection in Iceland.  The airline told that they couldn't fly on their next flight...that they would have to wait till Thursday to fly out of Berlin.  That didn't sound like a "good plan" to them so they bravely got a refund from the airline and then set about trying to get reservations out of Berlin for 9 people!  At first Nathan and Kathy thought that they had made a bad decision when they started to try to book reservations and the prices were sky-high.  But they finally found a company that was supposed to be able to make reservations at affordable prices.  Finally Kiwi.com did come through and they ended up flying out of Berlin late Tuesday night on the airline that said that they couldn't fly till Thursday.  They flew to Iceland and had a long layover but not really long enough to go to a hotel...so they slept in the airport. And, not in an area that had chairs since they had to wait to clear security in the morning.  Kathy said she slept a bit when she wasn't checking on the children or talking to airport security!
 
They flew out that morning and flew to Montreal, Canada where they had an 18 hour layover!  Well, that layover didn't end being quite that long as the flight out of Iceland was delayed due to a personnel problem with loading the luggage!  Whatever that means!  They did get a hotel in Montreal and were too tired to do much except find a grocery store to get some food for a meal and some snacks.  They flew out Thursday from Montreal to Dulles airport near Washington DC but in Virginia...problem with that...their van was at BWI near Baltimore, MD.  Nathan had to rent a car to drive that 1 1/2 hour or so drive to get their van. Then he had to make that same trip back to Dulles to pick up family and luggage.  Then they were finally on their way under their own steam to head for home.  They stopped last night in Virginia...not very far from the TN state line.  Kathy took a video of Nathan's phone's GPS telling them that they had crossed over the TN state line...there was a lot of whooping in the background on that video!  Quite an adventure...but praising God for their safe travels and for their adventures...what a wonderful experience even with the "few" hiccups on their way home.

Woody did his usual Friday run to Aldis and Kroger.  He got home from the store about the same time as the world travelers pulled into their driveway.  I have spent the day listening to the tales told of their adventures...from climbing volcanoes, to walking behind waterfalls, to teaching English, to learning to dance a Scottish dance, to favorite foods eaten, etc., etc!

This evening Nathan and Graham are helping us out by attempting to install a garbage disposal...ours was the original with this house...almost 40 years old!  They don't make them the way they used to!  Nathan and Kathy put one in their house when they moved here 11 years ago and had to replace theirs just before they went on their Poland mission trip.  So they "thought" that it should be easy since they had just done but ours being so old is a bit different and has caused a bit of a problem getting it out and then put back in and now there may be an electrical problem...perhaps we didn't really need a new one after all!  Hopefully I will have a useable sink before they leave on their next great adventure!