The eagle has landed!

Hallelujah! Matt has arrived safely (as of this morning) to the location he has been assigned to in Afghanistan. It's been a bit of a stressful last 24 hours. I knew he was leaving one location and headed to his final destination yesterday. I also knew the trip would involve one short ride in an aircraft followed by a short ride in an armored truck. So, when I didn't hear from him for TWENTY FOUR hours, I began stalking CNN, MSNBC, my email, and generally becoming quite *nervous.* I was up most of the night clutching my phone just willing the darn thing to ring already. Shouldn't he have arrived many, many hours ago? Finally, my phone rang at 5 AM with the caller id showing "unknown" which meant it was Matt. Can I get an AMEN?!?!!? While the last leg of Matt's journey was the shortest in terms of mileage (hence me expecting the "I made it safely here" call much sooner), it was also the most dangerous. Thus, my nail biter of an evening waiting for his call. What I didn't account for was the 10 hours Matt sat waiting by himself for various modes of transportation to, you know, transport him. Nor did I account for the fact that once he was actually picked up by the armored truck that he would be the last stop as far as drop offs go (even though the truck actually passed his base at one point on the way to drop someone else off elsewhere). So, Matt was afforded the rare opportunity to tour the Afghan landscape and locals via the view from the truck.

I'm OVERJOYED and incredibly THANKFUL that Matt is finally done being in transit. He has arrived! To God be the glory! He can settle into his tiny jail cell room and get this thing started. We can establish a routine for communicating with each other. He can get some sleep, start developing some friendships, and make the best of his deployment. And I can stop worrying about where he is and what on earth he's doing. I feel like we're really getting started now, which means we're one step closer to him coming back home.


While we're on the subject (sort of), I'd also like to say that the kids and I are doing great. They have their moments when I can tell they're grieving and missing Daddy, but overall we're all happy and doing well. I've adjusted to parenting them without Matt's presence and it's really not so bad most of the time. We're staying very busy and spending lots of time out of the house and with friends and family, which has also been tremendously helpful. We miss him like crazy, but we're thriving.


Thank you so much to everyone who has and is continuing to lift us up in prayer before the Father. We would be lost without his grace poured out in our lives.