One more step

Many people have asked, Do you have a blog? No we don't...until now.  Lauren and I finally sat down and started a blog.  Why now?  Because we only need our CA and we will travel.  Hopefully this will be the best way to share all of our adventures as we travel to China to add two precious children to our family.  I hope to know later today if we will travel December 18, December 22, or January 1.  It overwhelms me to think that one week from today I could be on an airplane heading to China for Christmas. Through the adoption journey I felt like this day would never come.  Because the price of airfare has increased so much Lauren and I will travel alone, leaving the kids with her parents, Roger and Dottie.  It's a little sad knowing that we won't be with our 4 biological children on Christmas.  They are okay with it though.  They know that they are getting the best Christmas presents ever in a brother and a sister.  Lauren and I really pray that the first set of dates work out.  We know however that God has a plan for our travel dates and that his plan is so much greater than our plans.  He has proven that over and over to me in the past year.  At a time last week when I really needed encouragement God provided me His Word in Ephesians 3:20-21. "Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us - to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generatiions, forever and ever, Amen."  So please pray along with us as we prepare to take an amazing trip.  Pray that everything will fall into place for the dates that God intends for us to travel.  Pray that God will prepare hearts of our two children, Elisabeth Ming Yu and Davidson He Yi.  In our minds we are bringing them to a family, something they have never had, but to them we are taking them from the only thing they have ever known.  I can't imagine what they are thinking right now.  Pray for our family that waits for us in Gadsden, and pray for us that we will stay healthy through the myriad of flights, hotels, car rides, and govenment offices that are in front of us during the next three weeks.