Second Chances

Hello friends and family, we are officially posting from Scotland. I know it's been a while since we updated everyone but it was very hectic and awesome how we got here.

First things first let us tell you how it all happened. As many of you know, we still didn't have our passports (with visas inside) when we moved out of our apartment on August11th. We had our tickets set for the 14th which was very nerve-wracking to not have our documentation. We went up to Oregon to visit our in laws for a few days while hoping that our passports would arrive before we needed to leave. All the while Cynthia was trying to contact the embassy requesting any information they had regarding our problem. It was looking like we wouldn't be able to go in our time frame if at all! 

The 13th rolls around and we still had no answer and no visas. At the 11th hour, Matthew's dad had a last ditch idea on how to get our passports back to us. We did what we could, prayed and cried. We basically resigned ourselves to postponing our trip indefinitely, even going as far as attempting to cancel our tickets, when we got a phone call. 

Our passports with visas inside had been found and could be over-nighted to us if we could get the embassy a UPS shipping label within the hour. Wow! After some minor hiccups and a extremely helpful embassy employee, our passports were on their way! This was one of the most emotional roller coasters of our lives. God had come through for us in His way, in His time and we had the opportunity to trust Him for a miracle. This will forever be a testimony of what God can do with the "impossible" things in our lives.

After picking up our passports at a massive UPS shipping center in Sacramento at 8:30am, we were off to the airport with 2 hours to spare. WHEW! We said our goodbyes, shed a few more tears and made our way through security and on to our terminal. 

As we were waiting to board the plane a young man came up to us because he noticed our Osprey backpacks and we had a short chat. We found out his name was Chance and like us was an adventurer and carried an Osprey. The plane started boarding and we quickly parted ways and found our seats. Just as Cynthia was remarking how funny it would be if we sat next to Chance, here he comes down the aisle and stands next to us. Turns out he had the window seat in our row. What are the "chances"? We had a great conversation all the way to Dallas about community, the way God works and how amazing life seems to turn out.

We arrived at the Dallas Airport and after a short connection made our way to London. Our plane was wonderful with all kinds of built in technology to help us pass the time. The only thing we were not able to do was sleep, and after 20 hours of traveling it was greatly needed. We arrived in London and made our
connection flight to Glasgow. The scenery was beautiful! The English and Scottish landscape was such a patchwork of beautiful fields and hills, take a look below to get a bit of an idea.

We were picked up at the airport by Brian and Isabel and it was such a blessing to not have to worry about transportation, lodging and food! We spent the next few days attempting to break jet lag, getting us to riding on a different side of the road, taking a hike by Loch Lomond, and getting use to drinking lots of tea and eating many "meals" a day. Our ever thanks to our gracious hosts!

The next blog will cover our first week here at camp, but thank you for all you have done to get us here!

Love,
The Shedds