We Have Tickets!!!

David booked our tickets today!!! We leave GR on January 14, arrive in Shanghai January 15^th, visit with the Cere Care Center kids (and my beloved Liu Li Wei!) on the 16^th, and then to Kunming either late on the 16^th or early on the 17^th. We will depart from Hong Kong with our daughters on January 30^th, arriving home on the “same day” (although we will have endured a 15 hour plane ride!!!).

It’s official! We are going to get our girls!!!

Doing the happy dance,

Amy

Please Pray—Again

I am requesting prayer on three different fronts today.

Our I-800s were delivered at 9:38 Thursday morning to the USCIS lockbox—and they are still there. We need a quick approval since we need to travel in a little over 4 weeks! Once we get that approval we can buy our tickets, even without the Travel Approval. I contacted our senators in an attempt for someone with “muscle” to get this governmental agency to move things along. I have contacted my senators SO MANY times in the past months about changing the US Hague policy that makes our adopted kids toxic pincushions…but that soap box is for a different post. I just hope they don’t see my e-mail address and just push delete. Please pray for the approval of the girls’ visas.

Yesterday we received our second "denied" form letter from a grant agency. It seems that, even with our second adoption happening at the zero-hour, we don't qualify. There are two more applications out; please pray that at least one comes through with either a grant or a no-interest loan. We don't have our first adoption even near covered and the second is requiring many payments already. We travel in a little over 4 weeks, and the in-country costs are obviously twice what we originally planned for. We will need to buy tickets within the next few days too. Has anyone seen a money tree in bloom despite the winter weather?

The final thing I really need prayer for is my own heart. Probably coinciding with the denial letter, I started "looking at the waves" instead of focusing on Jesus, became overwhelmed with fear and worry, and started to sink. I KNOW these adoptions are of the Lord, I KNOW that he will take care of the details, I KNOW that I am not alone. It just doesn't FEEL that way right now. Please pray that since "I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day." (2 Tim. 1:12) Since we act on what we believe, pray that I would believe that "the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed".(2 Tim 4:17)

Thank you, my fellow prayer warriors!

Amy