God answers prayer

This morning in my devotions I read Proverbs 25. When I got to verse 25, I prayed, please Lord let this verse be a sign of something coming today. Proverbs 25:25 "As cold water to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country."

I just got an email from Ann. She received our package. She sent us the two pictures and wrote that our package should be delivered within the next 3 days. This is such an answer to prayer. If you remember, we had mailed Ann the blanket in the picture to be included in a package. I mailed the package to her on September 8th. I was beginning to worry that our package had gotten lost. Praise God it finally arrived! Ann also translated a letter we sent her for Jonathan's foster family, she also included the toy truck and mooncakes. The mooncakes are in celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival that begins October 3rd. We had also ordered a boys shirt from Ann. Please note, the blanket we sent Jonathan is a Thomas the Tank Engine blanket (we have decorated his room in trains). Ann picked out a shirt for Jonathan with a train on it. How cool is that? Ann truly goes above and beyond in helping moms and dads start connecting with their children even before they meet.

God is so good. Knowing that Jonathan will receive these gifts in the next few days was the cold water that our weary souls needed.

I know some of you are wondering if we have any information on our Travel Approval. Without writing a book, we will suffice it to say that we have received some indications that would lead us to believe that our Article 5 was approved and is either on its way to or at the CCAA (which is where Travel Approvals are issued).

We continue to pray for a miracle that our Travel Approval will arrive in the next week so that we can be included in the travel group leaving Oct. 22nd. If we do not make that group we will most likely travel in November.

Prayers for this week

We would like to ask you to pray for 2 specific requests this coming week.

1. I have emailed our Social Worker and asked her to find out the last possible date we can receive our Travel Approval to be included in the October group. I also asked her about the status of our Article 5. If our Article 5 has not been approved yet then the chances of our traveling in October will be very slim. Please pray that we get answers this week.

2. We mailed a package to Ann at Red Thread that she is going to forward to Jonathan for us. We mailed the package on September 8th and Ann has not received it yet. Please pray that she will receive our package this week and that she will be able to forward our gifts to Jonathan.

3. Ok- 3 requests- Please continue to pray to our miracle working God, that He would grant us the desire of our hearts and allow our Travel Approval to arrive so that we can travel in October.

My prayer has not only been that we would get our Travel Approval, but that our attitudes would be glorifying to Him even if we don't get to travel in October. I think the hard part right now is not knowing. We would really just like to know one way or the other. So much of this journey has been spent waiting and not knowing. We are in the home stretch. We pray that we would trust God's leading and have patience in the following weeks.

We need a MIRACLE

We just got home from an awesome day out with Mom-mom and the kids. We went to Sight and Sound and saw the show "In the Beginning." A wonderful reminder of the great and mighty God we serve. When I got home, I checked email and saw that Bethany has scheduled their next group to China. As of today, 4 families from Bethany are leaving for China around October 22nd and returning November 5th. We are NOT one of the families. Not yet anyway. We are still waiting on our Travel Approval.

As of right now, we think all of our paperwork is still at the US Consulate in China waiting for an approval. Once that approval is granted, Bethany will send a courier to pick it up and overnight it to the CCAA who will then issue our Travel Approval. (I know this is way too much information!) It can take weeks for all of this to occur. We need all of this to happen within the next 2 weeks. China basically closes down the first week of October for the Mid- Autumn Festival. If they do not issue our Travel Approval before they close for the festivities, we will most likely not receive it in time to be included in the October travel group.

I serve a God who performs miracles. We are praying for a miracle. We are praying that we receive our Travel Approval by the end of September so that we can be included in the October travel group. We want to bring our son home. Please join us in asking God to grant our request. We thank you in advance for knocking on the doors of heaven on our behalf.

Checking the oil, kicking the tires ...

Forgive this short, nonsensical blog post.  We are doing a little testing right now.  At this moment, I am making sure I can burn a DVD quickly off of our camcorder (gonna need that in China) and also I am "kicking the tires" on a blogger feature that we just might have to use if our internet access is less than 100% while in a foreign hotel.  All systems go!