Day 4 - Beijing to Nanchang

By Steve

So here we go again

I'm sitting in the van driving to the airport and thinking. Always a bad idea. Thinking that is. I'm looking at the three beautiful children in front of me and thinking wistfully how wonderful things are right now. I mean the boys were pleasantly conversing with each other, Sasha was dutifully sitting on her pockets in her seat and giving me a sweet smile, and Jamie was resting her head peacefully against my arm and making those little sleepy mewing noises. It can't get better or more peaceful than right now for this family. Everywhere we went in Beijing people would refer to our happy little family. We've got this little synergy going right now where things are just really good. I mean it feels like it can't be any better than it is right now.

And then it hits me. HOLY CRAP, does it hit me. We're about to add one more to this family and mix up the dynamics again. Once again, the things that were will forever change and we will no longer or ever be the same again. This happy family is adding someone who will change how we all interact with each other. The boys will just be adding another sister to annoy and be annoyed by, but Sasha will now be sharing her little princess throne with someone else. Her new roommate who she has been wishing for, praying for, and dreaming about for the past three months will be with us.

The thought that keeps from holding my arms around my legs, rocking back and forth in the fetal position is this. I've had this same exact feeling before. Once before I remember thinking "I've let this change come into our lives and now there is nothing I can do to stop it from happening." That was the moment that Sasha became real to me.

It was real for me that morning on the floor of a cold hotel room in Kazakhstan just like it became real to me in a boxy european van with rear facing seats, driving towards Beijing airport. And looking at where we are now, speeding towards a foreign airport and an unknown future with a little girl who will soon become the next member of this pack of crazy adventurers, I know that God has sent us down this road for a reason. What happens to us is just the next chapter in the great big book of Morningstar family adventures. I want to say that I know it'll all be great, but I can't really say that. I expect that there will be some great things that happen to us all, but I know that dangers and troubles could befall us at any time as well.

So instead of being fully in charge of what is coming next, I'm sitting in the rear passenger seat of a van that is deftly weaving and swerving towards our destination. And I am good with that.

And now I really want one of these Mercedes vans. They've got way more style than what we see at home. But I think I might install some seat belts. I think I'd feel safer that way.