Our first full year in Asia: Lauren's 24 hours in America saga

In early May, one of our teammates went to the capital city for some visa processing and to see a doctor about some back pain she had been experiencing for several months but that had all of a sudden gotten much worse after a fall. The doctor tried some therapy for a week and then said that she was still getting worse and needed to go back to America for surgery. So, I, Lauren, flew up to meet her and switch out with another teammate on her last day of therapy, a Monday.

From Monday to Thursday, our days consisted of lots of waiting and a few errands I needed to run. Waiting and waiting for insurance to approve her flight home and get her on a plane. All of this while her pain was getting worse and worse each day. My nights consisted of lots of phone calls while America was awake and trying to figure out why the flight wasn't being approved faster. Finally, on Thursday our company had had enough waiting and booked the two of us on a flight for Friday afternoon.

Our flight from the capital city to America wasn't very eventful. Had your typical fun people watching sights that I always enjoy like this one….

This lady had an inflatable neck pillow that also doubled as a blood pressure machine or at least looked like it

But, when we arrived in America, little did I know the rude awakening of culture shock that I was in for and all the stress it would take to get back across the world to home.

We arrived in DC to find out that the connecting flight customs had been closed for the night which meant that we now had a hour and a half to get a wheelchair from one airport terminal to another, through customs and back. Impossible for anyone who ever thinks they can do it. Lucky for us, there were storms in our flight path which had our flight delayed. We didn't know that as we were going through all the stress though. We made it through customs and to our gate in time for a 20 minute snack and then on our plane to Nashville we went.



I was beyond blessed to be landing in Nashville since that is where my oldest sister lives, which meant a 28 hour layover with my family! Of course we would have the issue of the airline losing our luggage on our last flight though and since our stuff was spread throughout my bag and Bekah's small roller, we couldn't have the suitcases sent to both addresses. Luckily, the airline was able to get the luggage to my sister's house by 9am the next day and then we were able to get them to Bekah's aunt that afternoon.

Evelyn once again stayed up through her bedtime to greet me at the airport.

Playing in the backyard with my two favorite girls

My 28 hour layover in America consisted of lots of fun with my nieces, hugs to my parents and family, shopping at target and petco for our puppy Coach. Even though it was only 28 hours, it was some of the best 28 hours I could have asked for. But, as I arrived at the Nashville airport at 5am for my 6:30am flight back across the pond. Little did I know what all would be in store for me at the airport.

As I was checking in the United computer system crashed, meaning that I had to wait an extra 10 minutes for them to get it back up and running and then resubmit all my info. Then I rounded the corner for TSA and I've never seen anything like it at such a small airport as Nashville. It was 5:20 and I had 45 minutes until my boarding began and a very long line to work my way through. At every turn in the line, I would explain my situation to the person in the next turns line to see if they would let me skip them and every response was a rude NO. Enter culture shock, I was in a very ME focussed culture now who didn't see the need to show love and grace to someone in need. Much different than where I live I thought and so on came the tears and hate of America. Please don't get me wrong, I do love America just like I love where I live now but in that moment, I hated every American in that line and America.

I finally got through TSA at 6:25 and had 5 minutes until take off time. I didn't even bother with putting on my shoes, I just grabbed them and ran. I made it to my gate at 6:29 and to my dismay, no plane. The plane was overbooked so they gave my seat and 15 other peoples' seats away and took off. More tears. I stood in line with about 80 other people who had missed other flights wishing I was on that plane as far away from this place as possible and yet here I was getting more time with my family. My experience with Americans became better as I stood in that line though and met a couple going to Thailand to do similar work that we do and the love they showed me and care for me as I cried will be forever remembered.

When I finally reached the ticket counter there were no available flights for that day which meant I would be on the same flight routine just a day later. I called my mom and of course got a "I told you we were cutting it too close" talk from my dad but then excitement as they now got one more day with me before goodbyes for at least 1-2 more years. We went back to Kalee and Dillon's house and exhaustion and jet lag hit, I slept off and on pretty much the whole day as I rode in the car to lunch, the American pickers museum thing and the grocery store for steaks. I slept the whole time my family cooked for me, but I had two adorable girls alongside me which made it all worth it. A confused Evelyn and Collins as I said goodbye again that night before they went to bed and a last night of snuggles with Evelyn on the air mattress before back to the airport again the next morning. This time arriving at 4:30 and I was at my gate at 5am, so crazy!

Harrison worked with my airline to get back to our city from the capital city and I was finally back home with Harrison and Coach just 8 days after leaving him and after a crazy journey to America and back.

Our first full year in Asia: Train Ride Sagas

As many or all of you already know, I am the worlds worst at keeping up on our blog. I write our monthly newsletter updates and stay pretty consistent with that but I fail at keeping people up on just the life outside of ministry stuff.

August marks our first full year here in EA without summers spent in America and it also marks the first year that Harrison and I both haven't moved over the summer! We finally have made a home, for now! It's kind of funny because as all of our friends were leaving us this June, I found myself going through every room in our house getting rid of old clothes, things we have accumulated that we don't need etc. My body and mind are so used to the typical summer routine for the past 8 years that it wanted me to do it now. Nothing's wrong with a little decluttering though :)

Throughout this past year, we have had some really funny experiences, some learning moments and some I-can't-believe-this-just-happened stories. To commemorate our one year anniversary of living here I thought I'd blog some of them for you to read and laugh or cry with us.
I'd like to start with some of our more popular ones that people love hearing/laughing at or I guess you might say grieving with us over all the crazy things we experience here. I feel like most of these have come due to traveling in this crazy country, and so I would like to begin with our train ride sagas.

Us with our 6 bags and 4 carry-ons just before checking in

We arrived here August 13th and had a meeting we were supposed to attend August 18th, we waited til we arrived here to buy plane tickets because they are usually cheaper in country. But low and behold, on August 13 Harrison goes to our friend's apartment for internet and there is not a single flight available to the city our meeting is in. We are talking a city where there is one or more flights every hour from our city to theirs and there were none! So we decide to check a city north of there where we can fly in then train 2 hrs and yet once again no tickets. No tickets the day before the meeting or the day after it starts. No tickets available 2 days before it was crazy! So we agree we will have to bear the 20-24 hour train ride there and go to check train tickets and there were also none! As in there are 3-4 trains every day going to this city through different routes and none of them were available for us to buy beds for. Only thing available was hard plastic bus seat for 22 hour ride, no thankyou! Luckily those leading the meetings agreed that that was not ideal nor necessary so we missed our meetings :(

We did get to finalize our lease and other details with our landlord while missing the meetings

But our train saga story did not end there. Over the spring festival we also had to travel to the same city for more meetings. Our team was all in Thailand at an event that we were not a part of so we decided that since we had the time to do it we would train there and save over half the price for us to fly. We set it up to train up a few days early so I could go shopping at ikea and so we bought our train tickets. The day came to ride the train.  We rode the hour and a half bus ride to the station from our house, got mcdonalds for lunch and had all of our other meals for the next 24 hours in tote that I had cooked and we walk up to the security check and are told we are in the wrong city. What?! Our train tickets were from the city we wanted to go to to our home city instead of from where we live to there. As to why in the world they would sell us tickets departing from the city we wanted to arrive in, I am still confused but part of it was my fault as they asked me to check them the day we bought them, I looked at the tickets saw the two city names and said we are good, not realizing the order of the cities listed, oops. So after standing in multiple lines trying to get our money refunded and a train for the next day booked, we finally were able to leave the train station with tickets for the next morning to leave and head back home with all of our bags, go to sleep, then wake up early and do it all over again. Of course the second time we were able to get on the right train. And believe it or not we actually enjoyed our ride with movies, card games, chicken salad and pizza!

Harrison laying on his hard sleeper bed for the 20 hour train ride!

Once again we wouldn't be living in a crazy transportation country if we didn't have yet another story or travel saga as I have begun to call them. We once again were going to the same city for this summer with 25 students. Having learned from all of our previous mistakes, we had a friend help us book our train tickets online, made sure they were going to the right location and we even went to the train station to pick up our tickets a day earlier to be extra careful. We drive up to the train station and harrison goes through all the crazy security checks now to get to the ticket booth, stands in line, then gets to the teller and they won't give us our tickets. Why? Our middle names are not listed on the reservation. I had our friend book our tickets by train another time and had no trouble with my middle name not being there, but this time they weren't budging. Our first and last names were right as well as our passport number but they couldn't/wouldn't let us modify the reservation. All they would do is refund us 80% of our amount and then us have to buy new tickets. Of course that train was now full but they did have one earlier the next day at 9:30am. So we went with that and after much long tension we left the train station with train tickets for 9:30 the next day.

Harrison in line at the train station trying to fix the ticket problem

Now given that we were going away for 5+weeks and Harrison was wanting to bring his new bicycle on the train, we left earlier than needed the next morning and had a driver friend take us and standby for in case we couldn't take our bike. We get up to the second security check and they say sorry your train is canceled. What? It's raining so your train has been canceled. Note: late June through mid to late August is the rainy season here and it rains every day for 30 minutes or 2 hours but it's a normal thing that happens all the time and is definitely not why that train was canceled. So back to the same window we were at the day before to once again change our tickets. This time we had bought the soft sleepers meaning that instead of being stacked 3 beds tall in open compartments we would be in a compartment that has a door and only 4 beds in the room.

Inside of a soft sleeper train cart room

We get to the ticket counter and they first say there are no more soft sleepers available for the day and very few hard ones. I'm like oh no not again. It's a little after 8am and the ticket lady says oh wait we have soft sleeper seats left on the 8:30am train would you like those? Yes! So at 8:10 we leave the ticket counter running to the security check home alone style. I'm toting a small roller and larger one, harrison is wheeling his bike and has his large pack on his back along with his backpack. We looked like the Clampets. Anyway, we run through ticket and security check, harrison gets to the top of the stairs and starts riding his bike down the hallway to our train gate to hold it and get there just in time as they hadn't even started the boarding yet! PTL!

Lauren, just as we reached the line to board, could rest knowing we made it!

We then get on the train to be told we need to take the bike apart and find a way to store it which luckily we do and then about 4 hours in we find out that we are on the longer train meaning it's 22 hours long instead of 20 but we were so happy to just have gotten on that we didn't care!

Harrison taking apart his bike to store it on the train

KFC is often the meal of choice for families on train rides here 

We did finally have our first smooth train ride when we trained home in August! We were about due one I'd say! Ikea purchases and all made it on and no canceled trains, just a 3 hour delay getting home once again due to rain.

watching a tv show on the train