Mission Accomplished!

A leisurely breakfast, some packing, and the purchase of just one more item from China comprised our morning activities, right before we checked out of the hotel and prepared for our U.S. Consulate appointment in Guangzhou. A 45 minute bus ride later, and we were joined together with 44 other families from the United States and their sweet little Chinese children, all waiting to be sworn in as U.S. Citizens. At that moment, after months of paperwork, waiting, more paperwork, waiting, and more paperwork and more waiting, Wu Hui Xuan became naturalized and is now legally able to come into the United States as our daughter and heir to all of the rights granted to us in our country, but rarely do we give them a second thought. Our mission is accomplished, and now the lifetime privilege of loving Willow for the rest of our lives, but now as a Kruggel just begins.

More than raising Willow, it's the marathon trek home that causes us the greatest consternation at the moment. It already started today when after Willow was sworn in, we hopped onto a bus, went to the Guangzhou train station and worked our way through the complicated process of trying to catch a train to Hong Kong in a foreign country where we don't speak the language. After barely making the train, dragging too many over packed bags for any of us reasonably handle onto the train, and traveling another two hours, we made it to Hong Kong. But that was just the beginning. We then had to find our way to a bus station to catch a shuttle to yet another train that would then take us to the hotel near the airport. We made it to the airport, and then walked for what seemed like forever to the hotel, again with all of our heavy bags hanging off of us. What a sight we must have been to all of those that were not foreigners. And through it all, our girls were very helpful (in spite of Willow's double ear infection that we just discovered this morning). It's now about 12:45 a.m., and we're finally in our hotel room. I ran out and grabbed a couple of burgers for the family, and we're going to get some shut-eye before we head out to the airport in Hong Kong tomorrow morning so that we can meet up with our two eldest, who we miss to death. They'll pick us up at San Francisco International on Saturday morning. (Odd, we leave Hong Kong on Saturday morning and arrive in San Francisco earlier in the day than when we left.) We'll need your prayers as this will no doubt be our most difficult leg of the trip.

I'm going to sign off, and we'll go "radio silent" once again until we arrive home. Until then, thank you for your support, love and encouragement. This has been the trip of a lifetime for us. We love China and are sad in so many ways to leave it behind. Zaijian China!

Warmly in Christ,

Tom