A good friend from church took us to the airport on Friday afternoon, and we flew from CVG to LAX. Then we had a six hour layover in LA. I was a little concerned about how we would fill that time, but it turned out to be really nice. We found a little pizza restaurant, and had a really relaxed evening. By the time we boarded the plane, it was nearly 3 am Cincinnati time, and we were both exhausted. One of the things that I am most thankful for is that I actually slept on the plane. I never, ever sleep on planes, but I slept for about six hours this time. Some of it was deep sleep, and some of it was lighter dozing, but it still helped me to feel more relaxed and refreshed than I have ever on an international flight before. Thank you very much to the people who were praying specifically about this for me. Please pray about the return trip too! 

Our plane landed late in China, and we were only supposed to have a two hour layover to begin with, so Greg and I knew we would have to hurry to catch our plane. Unfortunately, the lines were all very long, and very slow, and that airport is HUGE. We ran a good bit of the distance, but still arrived just a few minutes after they closed the gate. The airlines did get us on another flight just a few hours later, and they even managed to get us seats that were side by side. So now we are in Zhengzhou, but our luggage didn’t make it. We are not sure if it was lost because we switched flights, or if it would have gotten lost any way, but NONE of our checked bags made it to Zhengzhou with us. Please be praying about that. The workers at the airport seemed very confident that they would be able to get them to us this afternoon or evening. I really, really hope that is the case!!

We meet Jonathan tomorrow. I have many thoughts and feelings about that, and I want to share them, but I think I am too tired to get them down in a coherent form tonight. I will try to do that tomorrow if I have time to blog. A lot of that will depend on how he adjusts to us.