All is well! God is faithful! Macie is home and doing fantastic!

Finally....a confirmed travel date!!

Wow, I guess I really need to apologize for not keep this blog updated. So much has happened and so quickly over the last week or so and I have failed to keep it updated. First, on July 29^th, we received our TA (Travel Approval)!! That was the final paper we were waiting on from China! Once our travel guy confirmed a Consulate date for September 1^st, we were able to purchase airline tickets to travel (a full $1,000 less than anticipated – thank you Lord)! We are leaving for China on August 19 ^th! I can believe it! Only 17 more days!!! It looks likes we will be traveling with at least 2 or 3 other families, one of which is going to the same province! Our room additions are nearly complete and we have been gathering furniture, clothes, and other items for Macie. We requested an update on her measurements several weeks ago, but have not heard back. That is ok. We will know soon enough. We are planning on letting her pick her own clothes (within reason) when we get there. We are not sure if she has ever had that opportunity. We plan on taking our mini laptop with us so that we can Skype with the kids and hopefully keep our friends updated. The next step in the process is to wait for our travel guy to schedule our final travel meeting and to send a copy of our in-country itinerary. We don’t exactly relish our 14 hour flight to Beijing, but what are we to do – lol. I guess a few Tylenol PM’s will help – lol. One good thing about the flight itinerary, we get into Beijing at 2:20pm instead of the midnight that we experienced last time! That’s gives us some time to rest fore getting up at the crack of dawn the next day!

Another Miracle!

Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles He performs for people - Psalms 66:5

Just when we think that God has done all that He is going to do, He steps in and demonstrates His faithfulness to carry out his promise COMPLETELY! At my last post, we still needed to raise approximately $8,500 for our remaining in-country expenses. As always, we didn’t know how we were going to come up with it, but we trusted that God would again fulfill His promise to provide. And provide He did! We have had an "anonymous" donor that gave us $10,000 to take care of the specific needs as well as a little "buffer" money just in case the costs are more than anticipated! How awesome is our Lord!

All glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20

Haven’t written in a while and so much has happened! Probably the most significant is we now have a tentative travel date! On August 19th, we should be departing the US to go get our daughter! We were hoping for July, but our Lord knows what He is doing. That week is the week that school starts back and we will hate to miss it. We have mailed off our travel Visa applications as well as our USCIS I-800 forms. We have also found out that Macie is in the 4 th grade right now, but we are not so sure that it is equivalent to our 4th grade or not. It looks like we may only traveling with one other family that lives in Korea. Our last travel group had 8 families. I don’t know if a much smaller "group" will be more beneficial or less. They may pair us up with another group, that would be fine as well. We also have another answered prayer! We have had another grant agency give us $1,500! Thank you Lord! We will definitely need it. During our first travel meeting last week (conference call), we found out that the airfare has went up significantly than was estimated by our agency. But, it doesn’t matter if it triples or quadruples, we are going to go when the time comes and the Lord will continue to provide!

LOA!

LOA!!

We have it! Our LOA has arrived! 58 days after our LID, we now have our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China! How awesome! We were told that it could be 60-120 days before we could get it, so I wasn’t really looking for it yet! What a great surprise! This doesn’t change our tentative travel dates, but its soooooo great to have this huge milestone behind us. We could travel as early as July, and as late as September (if current date statistics hold true). Thank you Lord!!

Two items of interest and praise!

Great news! Actually, I have two items that are definately worthy of praise! First, we found out yesterday (throught a credible source) that Ling did get her birthday box!! Thank you Lord! Second, today we found out that she has been attending a public school for several years and probably already knows "some" key English words! That fact was good news in itself, but the best news is that the orphanage has agreed to arrange for a tutor for Ling within the month!! That is wonderful news! Thank you Lord!

Almost a teenager

Her birthday came and went. I would have loved to have given her a birthday hug. She turned 12 on March 21st. Almost a teenager. We did have the opportunity to send her a birthday box, which we did. We mailed it on March 6th and according to the tracking slip, it was received at its destination on March 16th. Not sure if that means it made it to her specific orphanage address, or if it was just received in a general location within China. Either way, we are trusting in the Lord that it made its way to her. We were told that she needed and wanted clothes, so we sent 4 pair of Capri's style pants, 4 matching shirts, a Hello Kitty shirt, and a light jacket. We also sent 2 more disposable cameras, a jewelry box craft kit, a picture album with over 120 pictures of family and friends, a photo magnet with the families picture in it, a birthday card with all of our signatures, 2 reading magnifiers, a Happy Birthday flashing button/pin, and a beautiful necklace that a friend of ours sent us for her. In the photo album, we placed pictures of family members holding "Happy Birthday" signs with pictures of BD cakes/balloons etc. so that she could see what we were saying without needing a translator to tell her.