Departure from the States

No reason to be up until the wee hours this time, so we enjoyed a very good night’s sleep until Dennis developed a hand-washing fetish in conjunction with the foaming hand soap at 5 AM. This resulted in much movement of the step stool placed just for his use and my foggy brain thinking Christine was moving the chairs down in the kitchen an awful lot, especially at that hour. This was followed by a few visits from both boys asking if it was time to be up yet.

At 6:30 Nick informed us it was okay to get up because Katie was getting up. I stumbled down after them thinking to referee, but there was Christine cooking up eggs and muffins, the three Engebrecht cousins all delving into the day’s school work. By 6:47 our two had joined them (talk about positive peer pressure!) and the newly expanded Engebrecht Homeschool Academy of Excellence was in full swing. By the time we left at 10 AM Dennis had worked on the colors blue, brown and green, and Nick had practiced writing the numerals 1- 9 and all of his “popcorn” words from kindergarten using red pencil/marker and his red-green glasses (meaning he is done with vision therapy exercises for the day) and had talked Aunt Christine into one short movie.

My (Jean) separation anxiety including leaving behind our thousands of digital photos on the hard drive of my laptop because I will only be using a Netbook for the trip. I decided to transfer the past year’s photos onto USB jump-drives, but apparently I have simply too many photos (even when trying to be selective) and I don’t know the most efficient way to move them because several of the windows indicated 5, 6 and even 22 hours remaining until completion. Good practice learning to live with less!

Ben had to stay home for an Internet History class and test, Brian was off to work, and the rest of us headed to the airport. Although we have all been very excited about finally getting Daniel, and about staying with Uncle Brian and Aunt Christine and Ben and Katie and Caleb -just Nick and Dennis, not Mom and Dad - and going to the library on Monday and getting five library books each, Dennis started having quiet sad times on Sunday. Nick was wilder than usual at the house, and then got mad at the airport, refusing to hug Daddy and even kicking when it was time to leave. Thankfully John kept his mobile phone handy, and before they were even off the airport grounds Christine let Nick call us to say good-bye, letting him (and us) depart on a much more pleasant note. Brian and Christine are two of the most capable people I know, and I know they are in terrific, loving hands. But when it came right down to it, leaving was even harder than I expected. They each have a wallet-sized family portrait to carry with them and a stack of sticky note ‘tickets’ to turn in for ‘Mommy-hugs’ from Aunt Christine when they need them. Of course, Aunt Christine hugs are also abundant and available at any time.


Getting the luggage checked was a bit of a to-do because we opted to pay extra for two overweight bags rather than try to maneuver four pieces. I would imagine the Quad City Airport doesn’t have to confer with Lufthansa about flights to Kyiv, Ukraine very often. By the time that was finished, however, two seats adjacent had opened up so we were able to sit together. I had to wait at security until someone had time to pat down my sweatshirt (never mind that I had offered to remove it). The 22 minute flight was uneventful.

At O’Hare it was pleasant not to go through security again. We found the Chili’s restaurant we had grown fond of en route to previous mission trips. The difference is that as the years pass we have learned to share one burger and the accompanying fries: one last extravagant American calorie splurge. A stop in the restroom and it was time to board the plane.