This is how the year begins

This is how the year begins.

At 4 am.

On the first day of the year.

Lynne and I kiss our three boys good-bye.

The first day starts at 4 am and is twenty-five hours long. Twenty-five hours of waiting for planes, riding on planes, and waiting for the next plane.

Waiting to get to China.

This is not just Lynne and I.

This is a team.

This is a team effort.

Family.

Friends.

Neighbors.

The staff at our adoption agency.

The staff at the orphanage.

This is how the red thread works.

It weaves it's way around the planet. Through a hundred people. It ties them together in a story. A story that begins and ends with me holding my daughter.