The Countdown Begins

Psalm 68:5 "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling."

The official countdown has begun. We are 15 hours from leaving for China!!!! The suitcases are packed, special gifts and count down chain for the girls are in place, paperwork is filled out and packed, school work is planned, extra meals are frozen in the freezer... As much as I am looking forward to the trip, I'm also going to miss my kiddos at home. It's hard to not miss them when every day they remind you, with a sad face, that you are leaving in X days. To help them with the transition, I wrote each of them a personal note and bought them a new coloring book (I love the Dollar Tree). Every Saturday, they will open a special gift (a $4 movie from Walmart) so they can have a fun family night with Wayne. I'm hoping that these little gestures will help them while they wait at home for my return. 

One specific prayer request that we have been praying over the last few weeks was for us to get in contact with DJ. It was very important to me that I get to have DJ see my face and try to feel out his feelings about being adopted. Although the orphanage had told us he was excited, I wanted to be sure for myself. After many WeChat requests and prayers, at 11:30pm on Saturday night, we got a call from DJ!! Although I was half asleep and couldn't comprehend most of what he was saying, it was evident that he was excited. He asked to see Baba (Wayne) and smiled from ear to ear. After our brief conversation, since we couldn't really communicate, he texted me that he is very excited and can't wait to come home! Since that conversation, he tried calling me again at midnight last night (which I didn't hear). I cannot believe that in less then a week, he will officially be our son!!

As long as my VPN works in China, I plan on blogging each day we are in China. So if you'd like to follow our adventure in China, make sure to follow the blog and read about what is happening each day. 

Please pray for our journey to China: both travel to China and within China. Please also pray for the boys. Adoption is a beautiful picture of our spiritual adoption and it is a beautiful thing, but adoption is also hard and messy. Our boys will be losing a lot when they are adopted - everything familiar to them. They will lose things like their friends, their foster family, smells that are familiar to them, people who constantly speak their language and understand everything they say, food, etc. I cannot imagine all the emotions they will be going through as they are excited to have a forever family, but in gaining a forever family, they have to lose all these things they have known their whole lives. That is one reason why I want to make sure that I document our trip well - from the sites of China to the emotions. I want to make sure that we have a record of memories to look back and remember this hard, but special time with our boys. I was very thrilled today to learn that we will be getting pictures of DJ from when he was younger. His file from China only had recent pictures. It broke my heart to think that I would not be able to put together some kind of memory book for him of his early childhood. Hopefully we will get something like this for Shan Chen as well.

One additional prayer request that you can be praying along side us is for the foster families. It is our desire to stay in touch with these special families that played such an important role in our children's lives over the past few years. I know that DJ's foster family is excited that he is being adopted, but they have also had a hard time saying goodbye to him. Please pray along side us that God would some how work out the details so that we can stay in touch with them and Lord willing, even be a witness and testimony to them as well. Thank you to everyone who has prayed over our boys and who is praying for this trip. We know that prayers have moved some mighty mountains in our lives and we look forward to the beautiful story that God is weaving.