We Made It!

This post is a little bit delayed.  So we have actually been here two weeks now, but getting settled into our new home and our new responsibilities has taken some time.  Our travel to Malawi was great, though full of its own challenges.  We were able to say goodbye to our family at the airport in Houston and have one last meal before leaving.  They were able to help us check in our 7 checked bags (at 50 lbs each... or should I say 49.7 lbs each!) and unload our 6 carry-ons (around 30 lbs each), the stroller, and car seat.  Ya... we may have gone crazy on the packing.  Anyways, we landed in Toronto, Canada and had to unfortunately pick up all of our checked baggage since we had an overnight layover.  Figuring out how to carry all of that around was a puzzle to say the least.

God definitely came through for us in Toronto because when we went to check the bags in at the airport storage, we found out that we had to provide information that we didn't have.  The lady finally let us store them anyways, saving us from trying to get all of these to the hotel and back.  The next morning we got to the airport 3 hrs early! (A very rare thing for us).  During check-in, we were informed that we were mis-informed about their regulations.  Apparently, we were only allowed 1 carry-on each, and they could only be 23 lbs! After 2 hrs of discussions with the supervisor, God came through once again and the guy increased the allowance of our checked bags to 55 lbs so that we could repack our carry-ons and throw some heavier items in the checked baggage.  We were able to make everything meet the "revised" regulations with only paying for two extra checked bags and one extra carry-on (that he looked the other way for).  Yay God!  With 45 minutes to spare, we were blessed to have no line in security and got to the gate as the last line was loading.  Success.  To Malawi we go!

After a very long flight we landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 15 minutes after our connecting flight was supposed to leave.  Stress definitely set in as we were landing because flights to Malawi aren't common... at most once a day.  Luckily, this is Africa.  Everything moves at its own pace in Africa.  So even though we finally de-boarded 30 minutes late, we were shuttled over to the new plane only to find out we were the first people to board it!  The other passengers were even later... haha!

We finally arrived in Malawi on Wednesday, January 14th, two days after we left Houston.  After checking through customs and collecting our bags, the only casualty of war was the stroller.  I guess M.I.A. is a better term.  For as many bags as we had and what we could have lost, that is considered a win in our books. The stroller would later be located and returned to us on Friday, which is a Godsend because we use it daily now.