Well, our travel plans to Israel have been delayed.  After a very intense 45 minutes earlier this morning in which we had to quickly reassess and change all the plans that have been in place for weeks, I was able to change our family’s tickets to Weds.  However, that didn’t include the ticket for ds18, since as an aliyah ticket it’s handled differently.  The real estate agent needed an answer right away to tell the people who were considering making their apartment available to us as a short term rental, the van driver needed to know what was happening, and the person helping us arrange transportation to Karmiel was literally in the middle of his calls when everything shifted!

At exactly 9 am, literally one hour before we were scheduled to leave our house for the airport, I got all ten of our tickets changed to this Weds.  I’m pleased with the flight we’re getting, which is leaving from Newark instead of JFK (I don’t care for JFK), it’s a shorter drive there from our home, and it arrives at 7 am on Thursday rather than 5:30am (the time the morning JFK flight arrives).  Our original flight was a night flight, which I prefer when traveling with children since it makes it much easier to have them sleeping significant parts of the flight, but at this point we’ve got to take whatever flight will get us there as early as possible on Thursday, so we’ll have some small amount of time to get situated for Shabbos.  I hope we can find a take out place to buy some kind of food, since we won’t have an oven (or  a fridge) to prepare anything ourselves.

It was kind of hectic to make these plans since we were in the throes of last minute packing and had to be ready for the van to come for us at the predetermined time in the absence of other plans.  I wasn’t initially able to reach the person driving us to the airport or the airlines, and it took another half hour after trying to call them that I finally reached them both.  My first concern was that the driver not incur a financial loss, since he might have turned down another job in order to take our family to the airport today, and didn’t want to change tickets until I knew it was okay with him.  When we finally reached him, he said it was fine, and he would be available to take us on Weds instead.  What a nice guy.

We are really fortunate that because we purchased the tickets as returning citizens, we were issued tickets that allowed for a change without a penalty fee – otherwise the change fee would have been exorbitant for the ten of us!

“Would you be able to leave your luggage in your new house and stay elsewhere? Perhaps the renter has already started moving his stuff out and there’s place for yours?”

The challenge with this is that the current tenants for whatever reason aren’t ready to leave.  I know that the apartment they’re supposed to move into is ready, so I ‘m assuming they weren’t able to get themselves packed in time.

We had asked the real estate agent a couple of weeks ago if we should change our tickets when it looked like our loan wouldn’t close until Monday or Tuesday.  I was apprehensive about getting there with all of our stuff and not having a place to go once we had arrived.  She said it would probably be fine, and to leave the tickets as they were.  The owner agreed that we could go into the house a day before the loan closed, and since being able to get into the house when we arrive was my concern, I was reassured that even if the paperwork took an additional day, we’d be set.

This ended up not being the reassurance I thought it was and today was an uncomfortably close call. Dh is apprehensive about continuing to trust the reassurance of the well-meaning professionals involved in our mortgage process – they keep saying not to worry, everything will work out.  Today we were told that the mortgage paperwork has been further delayed, 80% that it will go through on Thursday for one set of papers, 50% that the second set will go through.  Though the tickets have been rescheduled for Thursday, dh is apprehensive about another last minute delay or difficulty based on reassurances that don’t pan out that compromise our family.

The reason our mortgage was delayed until this point was because the appraiser needed proof that the two bedrooms and bathroom on the upper floor were built legally so it could be included in the appraisal value. This meant that we (and our representatives) were constantly calling different Israeli government offices to get proof, something that was actually the seller’s responsibility to show, not ours.  It seemed to me that since it was his not doing what he was supposed to that caused the loan to be delayed, the seller should be taking responsibility for us being able to enter the apartment as agreed upon.   But the agent said that we’d have to take it up with a lawyer and the seller could argue that we didn’t complete the final payment (although it wasn’t completed because he didn’t do his part!), so he’s not obligated to get his tenant out by the agreed upon date.  Kind of a circular argument.

For the most part, I’m pleased with how this is all working out. it was pouring rain today when we would have been leaving, and I’m glad we didn’t have to spent thirty minutes taking out luggage to and from the van!  I felt worst about dd16, who was so much looking forward to our arrival that she burst out crying when she heard about the delay.  Otherwise, this travel change gives us a breather from the intensity of the packing and moving experience. There are some odds and ends to take care of, but for the most part everything is done.   Several friends came to say goodbye just as I got off the phone with the airline this morning, and when they heard we’ll be here another three days, they offered to have us for meals until we go.  So we’re getting so much support and now we have extra time with friends when we can relax and really just enjoy being with them without all the thoughts of what we need to accomplish before we go.

Tomorrow is my father-in-law’s 75th birthday, a friend’s goodbye party, and a bris for another friend, and now we’ll be here for all of that.  We’ll be able to get all of our recycleables out in time, drop off all the remaining items for Goodwill, give the boxes that will be shipped when my mother comes in a few months (basically books) to a friend whose keeping it here for us, and be here for the inspector who is coming on Tuesday.

Fortunately, we still have most of our mattresses, our dining room table, and chairs, disposable dishes, and toilet paper.  🙂   It’s strange; I kept delaying posting the mattresses for sale, and kept wondering at this atypical( for me) resistance to taking care of it, while I was easily selling/giving away everything else.  Now it makes sense – we still have a place to sleep, even with the last minute change.

I said before to someone that we’re being given the chance to trust Hashem (G-d) up to the very end, and that was before all of this happened, so we’re getting even more practice!  It’s scary to have spent almost all of our savings on this move, to have sold all that we have, and to be depending on this apartment, and not to know that this piece is firmly in place before we leave.  I very much hope that there won’t be a need for any further changes to this plan!

Avivah