Travel Approval!!

Friday we received the call from our agency that we have travel approval!  What does that mean, you ask?  Well, it means that as soon as we can get a consulate date at the United States Consulate in Guangzhou, China, we can travel to get Caleb.  We hoped to know by today what our consulate date is, but it looks like it will be tomorrow before we know anything.  We have a very narrow window in which we can travel because of a trade fair in Guangzhou the last two weeks of April and a Chinese holiday the first week of May.

We are trying to leave on Monday, March 28th, which is exactly two weeks from today.  If we can't leave then, we will have to wait until probably May 10th to travel.  That is six additional weeks.  I'm so glad that God is in control of this!  As badly as we want to travel in two weeks, eight weeks will be here before we know it.  So, we're just trying to be patient and trust God in all of it.  He brought us this far and He isn't going to leave us now!!

I thought I'd show you where each of our adopted children was born.  It's interesting to me that when people ask about the girls, they often assume they were biological sisters, or from the same orphanage.  Nope, folks.  They are from all over the map of China and were adopted in 1995, 2003, and 2005 respectively.

LACY

First Lacy.  She was born in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province.  Go a little ways inland from the port city of Shanghai and you would be where Lacy was born.  Below is the Master of the Nets Garden.

HOLLY

To find Holly's birthplace, you have to go to the VERY SOUTHERN TIP of China.  That's right.  Find the southern most point of the mainland, then go to the southernmost point of the island of Hainan.  (The little island right above where it says South China Sea.)  That is the city of Sanya, and that is where our little Island Princess hails.  We loved every minute of our stay on Hainan.

MAGGIE

Maggie's birthplace was Nanping, in Fujian Province.  Find the island of Taiwan and go straight across to the mainland of China.  This is Fujian Province and our littlest girl is from this beautiful mountainous area.

 CALEB

The red circle marks Beijing.  Our Caleb was born near Beijing, the capital of China.  The very exciting thing about that to me is that he will get to visit a lot of the most famous landmarks of China with us while we wait for his province to finish his adoption paperwork.  We will get to visit the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, etc, with our little emperor.

I'll be back soon with travel dates.

Love,