As I mentioned in my last blog, all flights out of Ethiopia are late in the evening so our flight left at 11 pm. We were prepared for a rough trip home, knowing that the boys would likely be sleep-deprived and cranky. (Not to mention we would be sleep-deprived!) However, we had no idea what was in store for us. Let me just put it this way. I think that this was one of the hardest two days of my life, and that is not an exaggeration.
As we walked into the airport, the boys were so excited to get on the plane. They pulled their little blue and red suitcases and kept exclaiming, "Aeroplan! Aeroplan!" But as we walked through the front door we immediately noticed a very long line for security. Within a couple of minutes Liam was saying, "Mommy? Toilet!" which is how the boys let us know they need to use the restroom. So I left Stephen and Jude Surafel with the luggage and asked the security officer if I could take Liam through security to use the restroom. Thankfully, it was ok, but when we finished he decided that he did NOT want me to take him back. Instead he wanted to run aimlessly around and try to stay out of my reach. I knew that the boys had had very little exposure to busy places so they had absolutely no concept that getting lost would be dangerous. I could also see that despite the fact that we had taken a long nap that afternoon, Liam was already very tired. As I caught him by the hand and picked him up, he started screaming hysterically. I mean, you would think that this child was being hurt or something because it sounded awful! I held him tightly as he tried to get free, and walked as calmly as possible back over to Stephen.
Every eye in the airport was on us, and I remember thinking to myself, "Yes go ahead and look. There's no way that you could possibly understand what's going on right now." It was only the beginning. We made our way through the check-in and immigration with Jude Surafel on Stephen's shoulders and Liam Esrael still hysterical. He cried and cried that I would not let him down, and I knew that sleeping was the only thing that was going to help him at that point. Still, it was hard to carry a screaming child through the airport for over an hour. And I hated that it probably looked like he didn't want to come with us to all of the people that kept staring at us. But I didn't expect anyone to saying something to us so I was a little caught off guard when an Ethiopian man walked over and said loudly, "Where is his mother??" Stephen turned around and took Liam from my arms as I said, "Um, I'm sorry? We are his parents." But that only agitated the man, and he started yelling, "Where is his REAL mother? He wants his REAL mother!" At that point one of the women that worked at our gate came over and said to him, "Sir, these are their adoptive parents and it's normal for children to cry before flying." We literally had to walk away because he wouldn't stop shouting, "He's crying for his REAL mother! That's who he wants!" Talk about ignorant. There are 5.5 million orphans in Ethiopia and starving people everywhere you turn, and he's assuming that the boys' "real" mother is even alive?? Up until this point we had been pleasantly surprised by how kind and gracious the Ethiopian people in general had been to us about adopting the boys so I was truly shocked to have been treated this way by that man.
Thankfully we were able to board a few minutes later. We had the four seats in the middle row, so Stephen and I sat on the outside and put the boys on the inside. Liam calmed down and both boys enjoyed playing with the tvs on the seats in front of them for awhile. But Liam started crying once again when he had to buckle his seat belt. This was another new concept for him because there were no seat belts in the car we rode in all week. I remember looking over at Stephen after he finally fell asleep and said, "Well, at least it can't really get any worse unless our plane crashes, right?" What a naive thing to say! ;)
Our first of two lay-overs was in Frankfurt which meant our first flight was only about 5 hours long, and the second one would be the longer one of about 9 hours. So I fully anticipated both of the boys to be exhausted when we got to Germany, but we figured it would be ok since we only had a one hour layover before heading to Chicago. Stephen and I had only slept a few hours on the first flight, so the plan was to just make it until the second one and we could all sleep then. Liam was right on cue when we stepped off the plane with his crying. This time Jude was also uncooperative, and Stephen had to carry him. Both boys would cry for a bit, then yawn and look around and cry some more. As if making a 25+ hour trip wasn't going to be hard enough for two little boys that were used to spending every day within the walls of the little care center, they were also getting very little sleep!
This would have been enough for me to have considered this a very hard trip, but it truly was only beginning. It quickly became clear to us that our connecting flight to Chicago had been canceled, and as we tried to go through immigrations to get to the desk to book a new one we were asked for the boys visas. This caused a huge problem because they were in a sealed envelope from the US embassy and we were told to not open it under any circumstances but to present it to US immigrations when we got to Chicago. This meant that I had to stay back with the boys while Stephen went through to try and get us a different flight. But by the time he got in line, he was the last of 300 other people who were also suppose to be on the flight to Chicago. I didn't think that a person could possibly have to stand in line for 4 hours just to book a flight, but that's how long Stephen had to.
When I realized Stephen had to leave me with both of the boys, who were at this point going through a wide range of emotions and behaviors from excited and trying to run away to angry and then back again to hysterical, I kept thinking, "Oh dear God, this is going to be insane. PLEASE let it go quickly and get us home, Lord!" I had become use to the stares from people each time one of the boys would freak out, but after a little while Jude just shut down completely (which is understandable for a 4-year-old that only got a few hours of sleep and was in a really scary environment for him). I had taken the boys to the restroom after already waiting for Stephen to return for several hours and as we tried to make our way through the busy pathway back to the table at McDonalds (the only place where we could at least sit down and look out the window at the planes) he just stopped walking. I gently tugged at his hand and said, "Come Surafel. Please. Lets go see the planes again." But instead of going with me, he sat down. Right there. In the the middle of a busy walk way. I knelt down with Liam still in my arms, and tried to coax Jude into standing back up, but he just stared at the ground, completely unresponsive, as if to say, "I've had enough of this." Liam had also had enough, but he displayed it in a much, um, louder way. He screamed and threw himself all around, occasionally trying to bite my shoulder in an effort to get free. I mean you really couldn't get a worse situation. One of my kids was about to get stepped on by the swarms of people walking back and forth and the other was trying his best to just run away. I had one in each hand, but I couldn't move. I was on the verge of completely bursting into tears. I got down in front of Jude with tears in my eyes and said, "Jude, look. Mommy is crying. Please. Come one." He looked at me and then looked down again. And that's when I started praying, "God, I can't handle this by myself. Please help me somehow!"
It was probably less than a minute before a woman that was walking by stopped to talk to me. As I looked up at her she said to me, "You know, if you smacked them around a bit more they would listen to you better." Um, not exactly what I needed right then. She then proceeded to say, "Here, I'll do it for you." and as she grabbed one of Jude's wrists and yanked on him she told him sternly, "Get up! Get up!" I was absolutely shocked, and I don't even know what I would have done if another woman hadn't intervened at that time. I mean, I think I'm a reasonably patient person, but when I'm sleep deprived and trying to get my very tired, frightened, and over-stimulated adopted children home I have no patience for ignorant rude people that put their hands on my kids. God's timing was perfect because I very well may have laid a hand on her too. Just being honest. :)
Here's where my prayer was answered. At that precise moment, another woman walked up and said to the first lady, "You know, I think she's ok. We can handle it from here." and thankfully the rude woman left. I proceeded to cry as this woman, whose name is Natalie, kindly asked me questions about the boys, and told me that she was returning from a missions trip to Africa. It didn't take long before discovering that she was from Austin, TX, my hometown. And she goes to a church that is merging with The Austin Stone, the church that Stephen and I attended before moving to St Louis. She had a long layover and stayed with me for over an hour, helping me keep the boys occupied and fairly happy. When Stephen finally returned I told him everything. We were all such an emotional mess by this time. Stephen and I didn't fight at all, but we both shed plenty of tears. I was SO exhausted already and we were stuck in Frankfurt. Stephen told me about how he cried too when he finally got through the line just to be told that there were NO AVAILABLE FLIGHTS for that day and that since we couldn't go through immigrations with the boys we would have to sleep in the airport. Um, right like that was going to happen. Even the police in the airport said it was impossible to get a temporary visa for the boys so that we could got to a hotel, but they graciously offered to let us sleep on the floor of that room. Ha! Just when we thought we could take no more, we were told that there was one flight that had 4 seats left headed for New Jersey in 5 hours. That's it! Surely our problems were over now, right! Right?
Not yet. We were able to go to the gate where that flight would be departing, but Stephen was told that he would again have to go across the airport to "check-in" since this was a flight transfer. Dread was what I felt when I learned that I was again going to be without him. I'll make this part shorter by simply saying that they gave him the run-around for several more hours by telling him to go here and there until right before the flight boarded. The flight attendant at our gate called our name over the loud speaker, and when I anxiously made my way up there she asked quite rudely, "Why haven't you checked in?" I told her that my husband was trying to do so and she asked, "Where is your husband?? You're not getting on this flight without checking in." Thank goodness he walked up, or rather ran up, right then. All I could say was, "Stephen, really?" before again starting to cry. The woman asked Stephen why I was crying, and after explaining everything, they took our bags and let us board. THANK YOU LORD GOD!! All four of us fell asleep immediately after take-off and slept until touch-down.
We arrived in New Jersey that evening around 9 pm, got a taxi, and went to the nearest available hotel for the night because, well, we can do that kind of thing in the United States. Ha! All of us again slept all night, even after sleeping on the plane, and ate a great breakfast at the hotel the next morning. The boys were back to normal after sleeping well, and they ate a ton for breakfast. Jude looked amazed at the buffet. I don't think he had ever seen that much food at one time before.
This time while we waited for our plane to board, the boys sat happily with us in the waiting area, eating some snacks, and talking to my family on the phone for the first time. Stephen taught them to say, "Howdy, howdy, howdy!" They thought that was hilarious, and Jude kept repeating that and "I loooove you!" on the phone. Liam walked around showing everyone around us his snacks and his little toy car, and making lots of new "friends". He has a very outgoing personality, and likes to interact with anyone that will pay attention to him. :)
The 2 hour flight went very well, and the flight attendant was a kind older man that really enjoyed interacting with the boys. Since the flight was only half full, he stopped often to sit down and play games with the boys and make them laugh. My favorite part, though, was when we ordered the boys apple juice and it came with ice in it. We had not gotten ice in any of our drinks before because you're not suppose to drink the water in Ethiopia, and it became clear that the boys didn't know what it was. Jude would say, "Mommy! Mommy!" and put a cube in his mouth for a second and then take it out and point and say, "Ah!" to show me that it was cold. He thought that was hilarious!
We were so glad when we landed in St Louis! It felt amazing to be home, and as we walked through the airport with a kid on each of our shoulders, Stephen and I had the biggest smiles on our faces. The process of getting home was a complete nightmare, but we had made it! We were finally home!
