Our gift from God today

The most amazing thing happened today. I received an email from my yahoo group that is specifically people who are or who have adopted from Joseph's orphanage. Anyhow the email said to go out to a website and check out their daughter's birthday pictures. It also mentioned that there was a boy sitting with her daughter.. so I thought well I will go out and check out her pictures.. Well when I pulled up the picture I looked a the little boy sitting next to her and guess what!!! It was Joseph.......... not only was I looking at the most up to date picture of him but he was wearing the sweatshirt Robert and I sent him in his care package. I almost fell out of my chair. I quickly emailed Robert the picture and we both just sat there on the phone saying.. "That's him" and "That's the sweatshirt". I can't tell you how BLESSED we feel... This was such a God moment.. I mean what are the odds of them taking a picture, having Joseph be in it and on top of it have on the sweatshirt we gave him.. Thank you Lord for this wonderful and amazing blessing!!!Thank you for showing us that you are in complete control and your plans are perfect!

I hope you enjoy the picture as much as we are..

China here we come..

Hi,
Well, we officially have our dates for the trip. We are leaving on February 18th and returning on March 1st.. Can you believe it!!! We actually have dates =) On the 18th we fly from Columbus to Chicago and from Chicago to Beijing. I believe we get to Beijing at 4:30 pm the 19th.. About 2:30 am your time. It is 13 hours and 30 minutes .. At this point I don't care how long it is I just can't wait to hold Joseph.. Hopefully we will have all of our information in the next week or two.. I will post our Itinerary as soon as I get it.

Thanks again everyone for your prayers, encouragement and love.. couldn't have gotten through this wait without you!!

We Got TA!!!!!

Huge sigh of relief... we got our Travel Approval!! Thank you everyone for praying!! We don't have any specifics...probably on Wednesday we will have that. I will keep you updated. We are one step closer.. Praise God!

Where in China???

Here is a map of China. I am posting it so you follow us as we travel through the country. Our first stop for a few hours will be Beijing. We will then fly to Xi'an which is Southwest of Beijing. This is Joseph's province. We will be there for a week or so and then off to Guangdong for the reminder of our time.. Still no TA!! Praying it will come this week..

Still Waiting!

Well.. yes we are still waiting to hear the news from our agency that we have travel approval.. it is really hard !! Since we are still waiting we now face the challenges of Chinese New Year.. apparently the government shuts down for 2 weeks..yes you read that right 2 weeks! Our agency told Robert that if we get our TA by the 20th then we could leave by Feb 2, however I don't know how that will work when CNY is Feb 7th! I know God has a perfect plan and He has perfect timing but it is hard to grab a hold of that when we have waited so long and are facing yet another delay. Please just be praying for us.. I am heartbroken.. I just want to hold my son... I am posting the pics of him.. so you can all see those sweet chubby checks of his!

Waiting on our TA

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, I finally did it.. I created our blog for China. Kateri and Jane I know you are so happy that I have completed this task! It has been pretty easy so far.

Anyhow as all of you know on December 14th Robert and I received our LOA ( letter of approval) from China. This was such an exciting day!! We waited 107 days to get that wonderful call from our Adoption Agency ( Living Hope). Now we are waiting for our TA ( Travel Approval). We are expect to hear something next week! If that is the case we could be leaving as early as the week of January 21st!

I have created this blog so you all will be able to follow our Journey while we are in China. Hopefully we won't have any signing on problems. If we do have problems getting onto the blog Kateri has offered to keep everyone update on our trip. (Thanks Kateri)!!!

Robert and I are busy getting things for the trip and trying to pack it all in 2 large duffle bags! We also have some last minute room decorations to complete.

Here is a picture of Robert and I holding our letter from China.

Bye for now!

Kelly