The Story of a Family

Saturday, January 16, 2010

We are Home!

We made it home tonight! Thanks to the staff at Hannah's Hope, the information we needed to board the plane was at the gate when we checked in and we were smooth sailing the whole way. We are so thankful to be home! Thank you for all of your prayers. Pictures and more info on our trip to come.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Update

Sarah just called her parents to let them know that they were in the waiting area to board the plane. Meaning, they have boarding passes for all three of them all the way to Greensboro. Their next stop is in Germany, which there should not be any complications there to hold them up from arriving at 6:15pm tomorrow! Here is thier flight infomation for tommorow:

United Flight #7986 6:14pm

Delay

There has been a complication. Johnny needed an extra Visa the travel agency did not inform them about, or the people at the airport gave them incorrect information, so they did not get on their flight and are stuck in Ethiopia, desperately trying to get home. Right now they are rescheduled on a flight arriving on tomorrow, Saturday, at 6:15pm into Greensboro. We will let you all know if anything changes again. Sorry for the miss post this morning. Please keep the Pells in your prayers. They need them so much.

Here is an email from Sarah below on what has been going on:

We went to the airport last night and were turned away. They told us we needed an Italian Visa for Johnny in order to enter Italy when we changed planes. We had no idea what to do and the supervisor said he would contact the Italian embassy to gain approval. He tried to no avail.

We took a taxi back to our hotel (me sobbing the entire way) and got on the internet to try and contact our travel agent. I was furious we were not warned of this. She said they should have let us through no problem and it was their fault. She got us on a flight arriving in Greensboro on the 16th at 6:15 going through Germany this time. We finally got to bed around 3:00 am and then met some others that hadn't left yet for breakfast. They told us Germany was a problem as well, which of course our travel agent did not. I am furious with our travel agent. The flights are not refundable and it would cost us 5,400 to get home without going through Europe. Ahhhhh!

We finally called Almaz, the orphanage director, who asked why we didn't call sooner (ummm because we were bleary eyed and had no idea what to do?). She arranged for us to go to the airport with Wes, a driver and translator to ensure we would make it on our flight. She said that it shouldn't be a problem but they are confused and may or may not let us on.

This is the flight that we are now on. Went down to the airport and no one from Lufthansa was there. Our driver Wes to whom we are eternally grateful found the number to the Lufthansa office and spoke with a women who said we wouldn't be able to go without a german visa for Johnny and we wouldn't be able to get one until Monday. Almaz the orphanage director called back and was able to talk her into it but said it was up to the person at the gate. We decided to buy new tickets on Ethiopian airlines so we were sure to get home and just as we were going to pay Wes ran up to tell us they called back and the director of the Lufthansa airlines in ethiopia approved us getting on and would leave a note with the front desk.

So, please pray hard that this works. We leave for the airport at 11pm our time. Legally we should be able to get on the plane. Pray that we receive someone at the ticket counter that will see the directors note and have mercy on us. We are armed with phone numbers to call if we have a problem this time. The problem is our layover in Germany. They say we have to have a visa for Johnny to enter Germany even though we do not leave the airport. They are wrong but it is hard to argue with someone with english as a second language. We are getting there 3 hours early to ensure we get on. As long as we can get our boarding pass in Addis, we should be fine.

We are worn down and discouraged. We are still not feeling well and running on very little sleep. Please play for supernatural strength as we complete this last part of our journey.

On a brighter note, Johnny is doing wonderfully. He seems to have attached to us well and is only crying when hungry or tired. His cough has gotten better after some antibiotics and he is all smiles. He much less of a baby through all of this than I have been :)

We love you all and can't wait to hit sweet American soil.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Not Doing Well

The Pell family is struggling. I (Sarah) woke up last night with a pretty high fever and cold. I have been in bed all day and do not seem to be improving. John has taken over all baby duties even though he has had an off and on fever as well. This process of getting to know a baby in a foreign country is hard enough with healthy parents. We are now on survival mode. Please pray for us. Pray that we will wake up tomorrow refreshed and well, ready to make our 24 hour trip home. Pray that Johnny continues to do well. He is very laid back and pretty undemanding for his age which has been a huge blessing.

Thank you all for your comments. I was hoping to blog more but was sick with something Monday night as well so just haven't been up to it. I will fill you all in when I get back.

Love,

The Pell Family

Sunday, January 10, 2010

In Our Arms at Last

We had several flight delays but made it to our flights just in time. We ended up arriving in Addis Ababa at around 9:30 and then waiting in immigration for an hour. Two other families were on flights that landed after ours so we waited an additional 30 minutes for them to get through customs and then took the trip to the hotel.

The hotel is very nice and comfortable and we got to bed around 1:30 in the morning exhausted from our trip.

Today was a very long day beginning at 5 am when the Muslim call to prayer woke us from our 4 hour slumber. John rolled over and went back to sleep, I could not so I just layed there thinking about meeting our baby boy. We went to breakfast and then just killed time in the hotel room until we were ready to eat lunch and meet Almaz the orphanage director to go over paperwork. The paperwork took almost three hours and then we were off to the orphanage.

We opted to walk instead of have the van come pick us back up so we got to see some of the surrounding city on our way.

When we arrived at the orphanage we got to meet him right away. He was very happy and had no problem coming to us. He has so much hair and is adorable. His special mothers kept stealing him back from us to make him giggle and cuddle him. We could tell they were very attached to him and will miss having him as one of the babies in the boys room. The children are taken such good care of and loved on at Hannah's Hope. Almaz knows them all by name and the special mothers love on each child and know their likes and dislikes. You can tell from the minute that you walk in that they are taken good care of.

We were at the orphanage for about an hour and then got in the van to ride back to the hotel. This is when our little man looked around and started screaming. Big crocodile tears streamed down his face as he looked around at his unfamiliar surroundings. We got back to the hotel and tried every trick we knew to get him to stop crying. He cried for about an hour then John finally got him to fall asleep. He slept for 45 minutes and was up for a half hour playing, took a bottle and fell back to sleep pretty easily. He is sleeping very soundly now so we will see how the rest of the night goes.

He is everything we imaged and more! Gotta go get some sleep! Long day at the Embassy tomorrow.......

(The internet works in our room so we are able to email and everything seems to work except for the blog site..Alisa is updating this for me through emails I send her....Thanks Alisa!)