A Fight to the Finish

Merry Christmas! We hope that you and your family had a wonderful holiday! We will always remember this special time when God delivered us from Bangladesh to celebrate the birth of Christ with our family and to start our life with Kalina here in the USA! Until the last moment, it was a fight to the finish to come home. The day before we left, Nadeem went to the Emirates office to pay for the tickets he had reserved. He had to wait until we had Kalina's visa to do this. When they saw her visa, they said that he couldn't purchase a ticket to Dubai for her because the visa said "America". There are no direct flights from Bangladesh to Atlanta! He said that he could see everything crumbling before him, so once again he surrendered all to God. After spending over two hours talking to the Emirates employees, Nadeem finally got our tickets home!
We have seen God's hand on us in so many ways as we journeyed home. First, one of Nadeem's uncles sent his co-worker, an airlines employee, to help us navigate through immigration and Customs at the Dhaka airport. We had heard that they could give us a hard time, so we were grateful for this help. Prior to our trip, I had prayed about our travel home. Nadeem and I were both worried about traveling with a baby. Kalina was the perfect traveler-better than Nadeem and me! She thoroughly enjoyed the experience-smiling at everyone, looking out the window at all the sights, and wearing the flight attendant's hat for a photo. The passengers on both flights complimented her on being such a good baby. Our luggage all srrived safely in Atlanta. Kalina immediately went to Atlanta time and understood that her nighttime had now changed.
The day that we left Bangladesh, the violent riots started. We've received daily emails from the US Embassy in Dhaka advising Americans to leave the area if at all possible. God delivered us at the right time!
Our homecoming was glorious! My mom and Hasan met us at the airport, and we felt like a dream had come true! When Nadeem and I first walked into our house, we felt like we had stepped into a fairy tale. Our house looked so bright and warm and cozy that we could barely believe that we live in such a beautiful home. Since we've been home I have cried tears of joy so many times. We feel like we've been gone a million years and only a day all at once. We've marveled over everything-warm showers, our own bed, a washing machine, a dishwasher-seeing everything through fresh and grateful eyes. We were both so excited to see our cats who gave us shocked and hesitant looks initially but soon realized that truly we had returned. They have both welcomed Kalina as part of our family. Our younger cat, Tabitha, has had the role of the baby of the family, and she has shown jealousy when visitors have brought their babies. I was a little worried about her, but she has licked Kalina and bumped her head against Kalina's tiny hands to get Kalina to pet her.
Kalina absolutely loves her new home and the family and friends that she has met so far. If you haven't seen us yet, we hope that you will visit soon. We are still planning the Celebration of Praise and Worship which will be in the Gwinnett area during the first part of January. Stay tuned for more news.
I've received several questions about whether or not I'll continue this blog. Only God knows the answer to that question! I have some photos to post in the near future, and I'll give details about the upcoming celebration, so be sure to check for the next week or so. After that, I'll see how God guides me.
We're so thankful for the prayer support you all gave while we were gone, and we're equally thankful for the warm welcome we're receiving as we adjust to being parents in America!