November 19, 2007

We are still waiting to find out our travel dates. You know, I love Alaska 99.9 % of the time. When I don't appreciate this remote area is when I need to overnight a referral acceptance letter (RA) to China. Because it takes longer to FEDEX stuff from here, our adoption agency had us mail our signed RA directly to China because by the time we Fedexed it back to Virgina (where America World is located), the other RAs in our group would have already been mailed out to China. They can overnight things to China in Virgina, but it takes 3 days from Alaska which is much closer to China! Anyway, our RA did not arrive with the other group's, so our travel dates may be later in December than we had thought. We'll just have to wait and see. I have to daily (hourly) remind myself that it is God who is in control of when we go to get Jonathan. I can hardly stand being away from him another minute!

I tracked the RA in its process to get to China. It went from Fairbanks to Anchorage to Tennessee, back to Anchorage (this took over a day) and then to China! Sometimes I think it's best not to track packages.

We mailed our passports and visa application forms to our agency, and they are going to take care of getting us our Chinese visas. Please pray the whole process goes smoothly and in a timely manner. Scott is all up-to-date on his shots as he deployed to Saudi earlier this year. I needed to start my Hep A & B series, so I got that done Friday.

We finished Jonathan's room last week! It was so much fun. We played with all the toys when we were done. I've attached some pictures of his room. He has a toddler bed and a twin bed. As far as I know, he's still in a crib at the orphanage. I think moving him to a twin might be too much of a change. We left the twin bed up because I don't know how he's going to react to his room. He's used to being surrounded by kids in the orphanage, and he may need someone to sleep in his room for a little while. The problem will come in deciding who gets to sleep in his room. We may just cram all four of us in there!

This waiting is excruciating. Please pray we will stay focussed on God and His will, not ours. Talk to you soon!

Blessings & Love,

Julie