God's Stop Signs

This whole adoption has been one step of faith at a time.

The first one when we sent in the LOI. We didn't qualify (income). We also didn't know if we were just reacting to a cute face and personality (there was video). Was he really the right kid for our family? I never looked at lists for our other adoptions. I was very happy to let someone else do the matching.

So we filled in the LOI knowing that we did not qualify and prayed "God please stop this adoption if it is not your will"

In the five weeks we waited, my heart didn't know which way to lean...relief...OK the answer is "no". Now we can get on with life as we know it.

But what then?What was in store for that little boy?

So we reminded God again...

Well, we got the PA, we got the home study, we got the I-8**, the fingerprints went wonderfully.

Originally we thought we would travel in June or July and when the wait stretched I became impatient.

But THEN I looked at plane ticket prices!  Ouch! OK God, now we know why we are waiting.

Last Monday morning I went online and checked the plane tickets again $777 round trip!!

I prayed "God this is the time, you know our finances better than we do"

That evening about supper time I got the call "your TA is in"

We also were working through another "problem". Our 19 y.o. would really like to travel with us again BUT he has a job and is taking college courses part-time.Was this the right thing for our son?  The boss was on vacation for a whole week and we waited for his decision. Finally Saturday AM the boss reluctantly said "OK". 

We had already agreed that if Big brother goes along he will come home after the Be*jing portion of our trip (10 days in our case).  

I was not really happy about putting my oldest son on a plane all by himself (yes I know there are a couple hundred other people on there too) in an airport in a foreign country.

Well Mon morning I got up and called the airline to confirm our tickets and order Big Brother's round trip ticket for the shorter version.

We confirmed all the tickets  $1081 including taxes and booking fees. Then we got to Big Brother's and his ticket price comes to:

$3551

GULP!   Ummmm.....Is that a stop sign God?

We decided that was a stop sign. It didn't make anyone real happy, but I do feel a calmness about our decision and Big Brother is OK with it. Did I ever mention he is a great kid? (Thanks Dude! I do love you)