Travel Dates - Leaving Tomorrow!!!

It's official...we're heading to China. TOMORROW!!! 

We fly out at 5:55 pm. Our route is Birmingham to Houston to San Francisco to Hong Kong. We'll arrive in Hong Kong at 6:25 am on Thursday morning, and we'll actually spend the night there. Then, we'll fly to Kunming (where Grace is) on Friday at noon. It will be nice to have a day and a half in Hong Kong to explore, rest up, and enjoy some couple time before our lifestyle changes for many months.  (ie. no date nights for quite awhile because I won't be able to leave Grace until she's fully bonded to me) When we get to Kunming, we'll get to see one of my college friends, Joy, who is in China with her family for a year, on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. We can't wait to spend the weekend with her!!

We should have "Gotcha Day" (an adoption term for the day you meet your child and they become yours forever) on Monday, April 12th.  It gives me chills just thinking about what an emotional day that will be! We will spend the rest of the week in Kunming.  While we'll tour the orphanage and the city of Kunming, we'll also have lots of down time when we can just play and bond with Virginia Grace.  We have no idea how she'll respond to us. She may grieve and be unresponsive at first.

Over the weekend, we'll travel to Guangzhou. This is where the US Consulate is located. Grace will have a mandated medical exam and required immunizations, and we'll have a court date where the adoption is finalized. This will happen on Tuesday, April 20th. We then have to wait until Thursday to receive Grace's visa. We'll take a train to Hong Kong that evening and fly out at 12:30 am Thursday night/Friday morning.  We're set to land in Birmingham at 10:04 am on Friday.

It's going to be a long 18 days without our son, Carter. Please pray that he will do well during our absence. My mom is coming in town tomorrow, and she'll be the primary caretaker. Primarily, we want to keep Carter's schedule as normal and routine as possible.  On certain days and for one of the weekends, Scott's parents will keep Carter.  He'll be having so much fun and attention, he probably won't miss us! We do plan to Skype with him daily, so at least we'll get to see each other's faces.

I'll be posting daily to the blog once we get to China. While blogger, Facebook, and many sites are blocked there, we downloaded a software (mainly for Scott's work) that will allow us to go around those firewalls. 

I'll post some more specific prayer needs and requests as we go. But for now, would you please pray that God would begin preparing Virginia Grace's heart? She is going to be scared and sad and lonely when she is brought from her foster home back to the orphanage on Friday.  And I can't go into much detail (at least until we have her safely in our arms), but let's just say that her orphanage is not a safe place.  It is very atypical among most Chinese orphanages.  Please pray against physical, emotional, and psychological damage during the few days she will be at the orphanage. In just a week, she'll be safely in our arms.  A moment I've dreamt about for years. It's very surreal. 

Thank you for walking through this with us. Your sweet comments and emails have been so uplifting and touching. I hate that I can't respond to all comments, but know how much they mean to me.  I also love that Grace will see how many people were praying for her during this journey when we turn this blog into a keepsake book for her. We are eternally grateful for your support and love!

 More to come soon!!!