A Prayer for Coming Home

Kim's dad substituting for the usual bloggers again ... their access is limited and their hands are full with more important tasks.

I talked briefly yesterday by phone with Kim from their hotel room where they've spent the last four nights with their boys. Kim sounded much like a new mother who'd been up most of the night nursing a newborn ... something I've observed a few times, though it was over 30+ years ago ... she was exhausted! It is confirmation that taking care of two toddling boys in a small hotel room is hard work, especially with the limitations of language and without the routines of structure so important for that age.

There is a nine hour difference between Addis Ababa and Kansas City so as I'm writing this blog at 5:30AM they are in the middle of their last afternoon in Ethiopia stuffing their backpacks and toting two wonderful bundles of adventure and joy who have no idea where they're headed nor what lies ahead. The Lovitt trek home begins at 10 minutes to midnight on a Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) flight to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit (where the boys will become U.S. citizens as soon as they are on American soil), and then finally touching down in Kansas City around 2:30PM CST (almost 24 hours in transit!). Given the challenges of flying in a heightened security environment for that many miles for that many hours through that many airports with two small boys, a prayer seems in order. Join me, if you'd like.

"God. Creator of the skies and the earth, Giver of every good and perfect gift ...
Grant to John and Kim your gift of strength so they, like the airplanes in which they shall fly, can 'mount up with wings like eagles', so they may 'run and not be weary and walk and not faint' as they tend to their sons down cabin aisles and airport corridors. Grant them the gift of rest, however brief the moments may be, to fill them with your restorative power. Grant them the gift of increasing love, which you placed in their hearts from the moment they first saw the boys' pictures last summer, to sustain them in the stressful task of parenting during extended travel. And grant them all the gift of your traveling mercies to bring them safely home to the warmth of Lovitt Manor. Through Christ, your most perfect and complete gift, we pray. AMEN.

There are many more prayers in their futures, I know. But for now, getting John, Kim, Seth and Colin safely home with body, soul, and mind reasonably intact will be enough.