I wrote this months ago, but did not feel it was the right time to post it. Now that things are moving forward, I will be posting updates more frequently, both to inform loved ones about what is happening, and to help me process what we are going through.

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if the disease exploded while we were gone and left us stuck in Hawaii?” I joked to Jarek as we packed our suitcases. Coronavirus had just started growing outside of Wuhan, making us a little nervous about our home in Guangzhou. “What would happen if things got really bad while we were gone?”

“I don’t know,” Jarek replied. “But we won’t be gone very long so I can’t imagine things changing that drastically to prevent us from coming back.” With only 17 reported cases in the province where we lived, there wasn’t enough information to think much more about it. All I knew is I couldn’t wait to get to Hawaii. I felt like little third-grade Kaylee packing for my family trip to Disney World.

“This is the first time in years that we’ve packed our suitcases for the short-term,” I told Jarek. We were both thrilled to go somewhere for only ten days instead of three or four months, like we had to do for training and to have a baby.

Guangzhou, China is considered a hardship post in the Foreign Service, meaning that each employee gets one R&R to a government-selected location, which is Australia. Initially, we were excited to go to Australia and explore areas we hadn’t been before. However, there is this little detail who weighs about twenty pounds and doesn’t understand much about life. Would it be worth it to take a newborn to Australia where we would be dying to get out and explore every day?…

We are allowed to use the money for the plane tickets to go somewhere else, so we considered other spots: New Zealand, a cruise around Australia and New Zealand (THANK GOODNESS WE DIDN’T CHOOSE THIS), Bali, Hawaii, and back to Colorado to see family. Then a dear friend sent me an email that really stuck with me and influenced our decision. She told me that when making choices, we should choose things that would create memories that we would cherish forever. “Separate the things out that are of little or no consequence and those things that really are important.”

After a lot of thought, we decided that what was most important to us was seeing friends in Hawaii that we hadn’t seen in years. They were like family to us and we missed them more than we could say. If we didn’t take the chance to see them now, we thought, when would we be close enough to see them again? So that decided it. We were going back to our old stomping ground in Hawaii.

We could hardly contain our excitement. It was our first real family vacation and it was coming at a time in Guangzhou when the sun was almost always hidden by pollution. I needed sunshine and the outdoors in my life, even if only for a few days out of the month. There was a chance that it could rain during our whole trip because January is part of Hawaii’s rainy season, but I had been praying for sun for about a month. I told God how important it was for me to have just a few sunny beach days and asked Him to make it happen.

Our plane touched down in Honolulu just before seven in the morning on Saturday, January 18th. The sunrise was beautiful and there were only a few clouds in the sky. As we waited for the bus to pick us up from our terminal, one of the employees remarked, “Wow, it’s the first sunny day we’ve seen in months! I hope it stays like this for your whole trip!”

We got our rental car and drove to the other side of the island to Rand’s house (or “THE Rand” as A would later call him). Rand and Michelle were the professors who took Jarek and me to Thailand as interns. They are incredible people and welcomed us into their home to stay during our trip.

Our first few days in Hawaii were heavenly. Jet-lag hit us like a ton of bricks, but we were able to wait it out in the sunshine at the beach. We saw many of our old friends, visited Pearl Harbor, ate all the foods we craved while living in China (i.e. ice cream, hamburgers from Seven Brothers). We also spent time in BYUH classrooms talking about Foreign Service life and other career paths.

Then news about the virus started to get more intense. I kept checking the CDC’s website to see how many people were sick in Guangzhou. My anxiety heightened with each new reported case. One of my friends reached out and told me that many State Department families were taking their children and going back to the United States because of the uncertainty surrounding the disease.

Every night I got less sleep as unanswered questions ceaselessly ran through my mind. Should I take my boys back to China? Would they get sick from our travels back? It didn’t seem like healthy young people were dying from the disease, but what would happen to an infant who got sick? Would I ever be able to take the boys outside during the rest of our tour in Guangzhou? Should I take the boys back to Colorado by myself? When would I see Jarek again?…

I needed a crystal ball.

Our flight back to Guangzhou was scheduled to leave on Tuesday, February 28th. That Sunday Jarek and I had a long conversation about what we should do. There were still too many unanswered questions to make a decision, so we settled on delaying our flight back. We tried to get a flight back for Thursday, but they were all booked. We tried for Friday but they were also booked. We ended up with a flight back to Guangzhou on Saturday morning, four days after our original departure date.

I slept a little better that night knowing that we had more time to see how things would develop.

But I knew our problems weren’t solved yet. I still found it impossible to separate myself the reality that we might not go back to China or that our family would be apart without knowing when we’d see each other again. The fact that we would have to make a decision soon weighed heavily on my mind. Jarek took the boys so I could think and pray alone.

I went to my favorite spot behind the temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I cried and told God everything. I explained that I wanted my family to be safe, but I also wanted us to stay together so the boys could have their dad around. I asked if it was possible.

My mind turned to the sunshine. Despite weather reports and a pattern of intense winter rain, we had sunshine every single day. If God could give us the sun, then surely he could keep my family safe and give me strength to face the uncertainty.

That was my answer. I decided to take my boys back to China.

(To be continued…)