Day 1

While we are travelling, we'll try to blog every day. I can't guarantee that we'll have internet access every day, but we'll do what we can.

Today, we left our house bright and early. The night before, we had some dear friends stop by and pray for us and for our trip and our family, which was very encouraging. We left this morning tired, but refreshed at the same time.

We drove to Portland, where we'll be flying out of. We came out early so that we could have our lice situation dealt with once and for all. Any of you who have had lice know that it is hard to get rid of, and since we'll be gone for a while, we wanted to treat it aggressively  So, we had an appointment set up for this morning. That went well, and we are now lice free. We have heard from several people that it is likely that we will get lice from our visits to orphanages, and we're OK with that. But, we want to be able to go and visit them and not worry about giving them lice. So, we hope that everything will stay clear there. We're set to go back to the place tomorrow and get re-examined.

After running a couple of last minute errands, we grabbed lunch at some food trucks. Elliott won the "Adventurous Eater of the Day" award, since he tried something new. (We all agreed that the stakes for that award are about to be raised quite a bit). Most of us chose the French crepe truck, which was good. In typical French fashion, when I (Kris) asked to substitute gorgonzola instead of cream cheese in my crepe, the French owner rolled her eyes at me. But, I chose wisely. It was really good. 

Finally, in the late afternoon we settled in to our friend's house, where we'll stay tonight. Our friends are awesome, since they are letting us stay here and they are not even in town! I hope you have friends that love you and open their home to you (even when you might have lice). We're blessed to know them.

So, we're relaxing tonight and making some final travel reservations/confirmations.

Speaking of confirmations, I have to share a story from earlier today. We were driving, and as always happens on road trips, our radio station started to cut out. So, we began to flip around the dial. It is always a little like Russian roulette when you do that, because you might get some really good music, or you might get Ke$ha. We stopped for a moment when we heard a preacher, Alistair Begg. It was really fortuitous that we caught the tail end of his sermon, because it was on the book of Ruth.

The biblical character of Ruth is a story that we have both loved for a long time, and it is one of the reasons we wanted to name our daughter Ruthie Joy. In the book of Ruth, and in the part of the sermon we caught on the radio, Ruth has to make a very difficult decision. She is an outsider, not an Israelite.  When her husband dies, she has to decide if she will go back to her homeland, or if she will stay with Naomi, and with God's people. She finally says, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." 

Being reminded of this today was very encouraging, because, really, that is what is happening with our family. These two kids are "our people" and are forever connected to us. They are Harrisons, with all the good and the bad that comes with that. It means they probably won't be very good at sports, they may not grow up to be very tall, and they will have insatiable cravings for Tex Mex.

When people find out that we are adopting two kids, they almost always ask, "Are they siblings?" And the answer is no, but the answer is also yes. They are siblings, and they will always be. It was an encouraging reminder to us today that God is with us.