It's A...Wonderful TA Day!

Not only is it a beautiful day outside today with spring-like weather, but it is a beautiful day in our world as our Travel Advisor called this morning at 8:39 AM to let us know that she had just received our Travel Approval (TA) from China, which is the final document we need to be able to travel to China to adopt our daughter! We just couldn't be more happy and totally over the moon with excitement! At times, we thought this day might never arrive and now it is here! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

We won't know our actual travel itinerary until next week, but our tentative dates for travel are March 13th thru March 27th with a "GOTCHA" day of Monday, March 17th--WOOHOO!! In the adoption community, "GOTCHA" simply means the day we will finally have Jaidalyn in our arms forever! We will celebrate this day every year and will refer to it as our Forever Family Day--the day we became a Forever Family to our Jaida!

As we reflect on the past year of this journey called adoption, I am reminded of this "step of faith" that God called us to take in our life. On Saturday, March 3, 2007, we took our 3 children to a Christian concert looking forward to spending some quality time together and hearing the music of many of our favorite artists that we listen to everyday on the radio. Little did we know, that this was not the main reason for our presence at this concert. But rather it was God's avenue for opening our hearts up to the idea of adopting an orphan from China. WOW! When I relate this story to friends they immediately laughingly say, "Boy am I glad I wasn't at THAT concert!"

It is amazing to me that God can accomplish His purpose even through the means of a concert with a man and woman walking away from it asking each other, "So what did you think of the concert?" To this man and woman expressing to each other that God had spoken to each of them at this concert, "I have ONE for you." Of course, you can read all about this process in previous posts on our blog, but I still stand in awe of our loving God!

This one-year journey has definitely been a "step of faith." A step into the unknown. This step that God called us into was something beyond our experience, knowledge, and control. When we said "Yes" to God and took that first step into the unknown, the plans that God had for our lives and for our family, slowly became revealed to us. Look at what we would have missed out on had we said "No" to God, not willing to take that step, find someone else. A beautiful little girl called Lu Na Qun! God has given us the blessing of raising this litte girl as our daughter; he has entrusted her life to us...I am humbled.

We pray that God will use our journey of faith to somehow reach out to someone else who may be afraid to make that "step of faith." I promise you, you will not be sorry that you took that step of faith. In fact, you may find yourself extremely blessed indeed!