Sz-Yin, Hyo-Jeong, and Sang-Hun

Yesterday was the arrival day for three of our AYUSA students, but as sometimes happens with international travel, things didn't go exactly as planned.

The other Community Rep. and I met the three host families at the airport to greet the students and welcome them to the area. On the docket to arrive was Sz-Yin from Hong Kong, Hyo-Jeong from Korea, and Sang-Hun from Korea. We had a nice welcome sign and the host families had welcome gifts for their students. It was a fun moment of anticipation as the plane landed.



One advantage of the North Bend airport being so small is that you can actually watch the people step off the plane and walk into the terminal gate. With great excitement, we watched the passengers begin disembarking the plane. Off came Sz-Yin! It is such a fun and exciting feeling to experience that moment when pictures and emails suddenly turn into a real, live person! Sz-Yin was adorable, although completely exhausted from her 18-hour flight.



I ushered her to meet her host family, then watched for the next student to step off the plane. American. American. American. Little old Japanese woman. American. No Korean kids. We weren't too worried since missing a flight during international travel is quite common and can occur for a variety of reasons. I followed my AYUSA training and called their headquarters as I went to the ticket counter to attempt to track down these kids. The lady at the ticket counter said the kids had been put on the next flight, arriving in 3 hours.

Caleb and Elisa were at VBS in Coquille, so I came back home to pick them up, grab some lunch, and was just getting ready to head to the airport when there was a knock at the door. It was my friend, Debbie. I'd forgotten that I'd agreed to babysit her three kids for awhile that afternoon while she went to the doctor. I loaded up all SIX kids and headed to the airport. I arrived to the news that the Korean kids had been bumped off of their flight for some unknown reason. The news got worse. The flight from Portland to North Bend was completely booked for the rest of the day and all day Thursday. The airline suggested we fly the kids to Eugene and pick them up there--a 2 hour 15 minute drive.

To make a veeeeeeeeeeery long story shorter, after hours of discussion and phone calls between ticket agents, host fathers, community reps, AYUSA headquarters, and the airline, we finally realized we didn't have any other choice. So both host families headed to Eugene to pick up their kids. Quite honestly, this post is a pretty brief summary of a much longer chain of frustrating events.

The bright side is that the kids are now with their host families and finally getting some rest. I'll give them a couple days to settle in before I pay them a visit to introduce myself.

This fiasco brought up some concerns, since all of our remaining Korean students are scheduled to arrive on the exact same itinerary. Marie is in the air now and should be making her connection in Portland in a couple hours. We're praying that she's on the plane when we go to pick her up!