As my family and I prepared to move countries for the second time in our 12 year history I have been blessed with a couple insights. One that it's not about me and two it's a good thing. Before I get into the details of the first steps in our new adventure though let me share with you some things that you may or may not know about me.
My name is Adam and I am the third child in a family of four and I am a perfectionist by nature. I like to have every little detail planned out and taken care of before I move on to something new. I detest feeling out of control and unable to complete my own expectations especially when they affect others. I am a pleaser and desire not to be a burden to anyone. I like things my way!
Okay, so with that out of the way lets start the preparation part of this journey. As many of you know we have been planning on starting this new adventure for at least 3 years and have been praying, planning, and preparing for it. Even with all this time and planning we left without everything done and wrapped up in a nice bow. The house was almost ready to rent or sell but there was much left to move to storage alone with cleanup and some packing. Although I knew that it was near impossible to get everything done we still stuck with the June departure date. We knew that was what God wanted for us even if we weren't clear why and still aren't. This was so very hard for me knowing that I would leave things undone and for someone else. Even as I write this now I am crying.
Tired and worn out physically and emotionally my family and I headed for Chicago for the first leg of our flights. After a 3 hour car ride (thank you Lambs for the use of your vehicle) we arrived at O'Hare airport and started the check in process. This first flight was a 16 hour flight taking off at 12:30 am and although boring and tiring went well. The boy watched movies and slept on and off the whole flight. We then landed in Taipei we got off the plane and had a 2 hour layover then boarded a flight to Cebu in the Philippines. This flight was only 3 hours long and had some amazing views of islands and ocean.
After landing in Cebu at 10:30 am we collected all our baggage without a hiccup and found Joy's brother and sister in law wait for us. Then we loaded all of our luggage into a taxi who drove us to our hotel 45 minutes away. We spent half of the next 24 hours sleeping and the rest getting supplies for our final destination. Ezra was so tired that he slept for 16 hours. After running around buying a phone, fan and a few other items we caught a taxi at 10:30 am and made the short 15 minute drive to the pier.
We then unloaded the 16 pieces of luggage from the taxi and began the check in for the 4 hour boat ride to our Island. It is very similar to the airport with luggage scanning and the whole nine yards. Once on the boat we ate lunch, rested, and enjoyed the scenery. Upon arrival we moved our luggage from the boat to a truck for the final 30 minute leg of our trip. We were pleasantly surprised to find over half of the road paved now instead of the pothole riddled dirt road that was there before.
Arriving in our village we could see that there was rain coming and now no road for vehicles to get back to our house about a quarter mile off the road in the middle of rice fields. A quick prayer and some help enabled us to get all our luggage to the house and sort of settled (everything under a roof) before it came. It turns out that this was the first rain of the rainy season and it has rained everyday since.
Much has happened since then but this is the first steps in this new adventure that we are on. We have been amazingly blessed by people who helped work on the house, visited with us in those final weeks in the US and helped us start our journey. Thank you dad and mom for all you have done so far and are still doing to finish what we weren't able to!
With much love and joy
Adam and The Folkertsma 4