Our Coronavirus Story

What a whirlwind the past 24 hours has been! (I wrote this blog on Friday sitting in the Newark airport heading home). My brain cannot fully grasp what has happened because it’s been so fast and I didn’t sleep at all last night.

Everyone is going to have a Coronavirus story, so here is ours. Over the past few weeks the virus has grown rapidly and we began to watch it more closely. I have a friend that lives in Italy and she was keeping us updated on what all was going on there through the country shut down. The German numbers started to double daily and the Chancellor made a comment saying that up to 70% of Germany could become infected.

I had a flight booked to fly home in April for 12 days before the football season started, I was so worried that flight would be effected with all the travel bans going on. Then on Wednesday night (2am German time), Trump officially made the announcement that he was banning all travel to and from Europe. In the end, there was more clarification saying American citizens could still travel but we didn’t really want to mess with that.

Randy and I had briefly discussed the idea of coming home but it didn’t make sense yet because we had made a commitment to the team and the season was still a go.

Thursday we lived our normal lives, went grocery shopping and to the pharmacy to stock up on cleaning supplies. Thursday evening Randy had a football meeting scheduled and then practice was to begin at 8:30pm. Right before his meeting he got word that the AFVD and the GFL was canceling football practice for the German football leagues.

I was starting to be concerned a bit… Trump announces this travel ban. The case numbers are jumping drastically. Randy’s English teaching has been canceled till at least May. We weren’t really concerned for our own health because Germany has good healthcare, but we would rather not get the virus. Then we were just wonder, what happens if we try to leave and it’s too late?

Randy went to his meeting and then walked in the door and said, “We are going to go home, and like tomorrow!” Note that it is 8:30pm in Germany, just last night! Which would make it 3:30pm at home. We called and talked to our families and they agreed going home would be the smartest idea and within 30 minutes we had a flight booked, and it was the last two tickets available! It’s now 9:30pm and our flight was less than 12 hours away, leaving Munich at 9:20 in the morning!

We felt so bad to catch the team off guard with this news but practice has been canceled till at least the end of the month and the higher GFL levels are talking about the season not starting till May or June the earliest!

Did you ever think it was possible to move across the world in 12 hours? I didn’t! But we just did it and it was the craziest thing! 7 suitcases later, my worst packing job ever, only possible by pulling an all-nighter, and we then headed to the Munich airport!

We got to the airport, checked in all 7 of our bags (they all successfully were under 50lbs, I don’t really know how). We got on the plane and settled in for our nine and half hour flight. The flight was completely full.

We are now officially on American soil! I wrote this waiting in the Newark concourse overlooking the NYC skyline, what a beautiful view to welcome us back into the States.

I now am finishing this blog back home in North Carolina! Wow, what craziness the world is going through. It was the hand of God that we made it out of Germany when we did. We heard from other people trying to leave Germany a day or two after us and their flights kept getting canceled. Also, the picture of the airports are insane!!!

For the next 14 days Randy and I are self quarantining for precautionary measures. It sounds like the majority of the United States is doing the same thing as well. We have been reunited with our families (from a distance) and it feels so good to be home.

Thank you for all the prayers and support. We are continuing to pray for the health and sanity of everyone. Do all the you can to social distance yourselves, as much as you may not think this is a big deal, it is a big deal to some other people.

We so look forward to reuniting with all of our friends and family and eating at our favorite restaurants once all of this calms down, whenever that may be.

Kinda crazy that last April Randy moved back home from Czech due to his visa. Then this year we come home in March from Germany due to corona. We are trusting in the One he holds our future.

The Schroeders hope to take Europe again soon!