Leaving on Thursday

Well here we go! Tomorrow we will take the kids to their grandparents house in preparation for our very early flight on Thursday morning. We will fly to Portland- 3 hour lay over- then to Vancouver, BC- 4 hour layover- then to Hong Kong. We will arrive on Friday evening- local time. It will take us almost 23 hours to get there. This would stress me out if we were taking our kids but it seems very doable without them. We will go through all of the customs and hoopla in Hong Kong and hopefully get to our hotel by 10pm local time so we can sleep. A guide from our adoption agency will meet us outside customs to help us navigate all of this. It will be a much different experience for us than our other international travel where we could figure some of the language out- we will truly be at their mercy. We will spend Sat. getting accustomed to local time and maybe go on a tour of Hong Kong- this will be very interesting I think. On Sun. we board a bus to go to Guangzhou- over 3 hours driving in China (I am a little scared of this part). We will get there in the afternoon and check into the hotel that we will be staying at for the rest of our trip.

We will get Olivia on Monday afternoon- that is the middle of the night here in the states. The best way to think of the time is flip am and pm and add 2 hours (mountain time) so if it is 9pm Tues. night here it is 9am +2 hours= 11 am on Wed morning in China. (Well at least where we will be) From this point we have a few meetings here and there but it is mostly waiting for different government agencies to do their job. So we will get out as much as possible and go see things in Guangzhou (population approx 6 million). There is supposed to be a wonderful wild animal park that I would love to see!

Our current concern is leaving our children tomorrow night. They are both very emotional and needy right now- as you can imagine. I feel emotional and needy too! We are doing lots of cuddles and loves right now but there is just no getting around the fact that we won't get to put our kids to bed for 17 nights. My head knows in the big picture this is not much time at all, and that God loves them more that I can possibly imagine and He has their best interest at heart including their emotional needs, but my heart is having a hard time with this.

Prayer requests:

1. Peace for us as we leave our kids.

2. God to watch over them and comfort them while we can't put His love into words for them.

3. Travel mercies for us.

4. Both Patrick and I are fighting a cold- we need to be well for this trip.

5. Olivia's emotional state as she prepares to leave everything that is familiar to her.

We will not be able to access any social networking- no facebook or blogs- while we are in China. We will be sending an email to a friend each day so that she can update our blog but we will not be able to read comments until we get back. If you need (or want) to get ahold of us while we are gone please email us- we will be checking this everyday. Our first update will probably not be until Saturday.

We love you all- thanks for joining us on this journey!

Patrick and Donna