Travel itinerary and other 'deep thoughts'

Here’s our itinerary for our trip to Taiwan:

Thursday (6/26): Flight from Cincinnati to Los Angeles – leave at 8:50am, arrive 10:27am. Leave from LAX to Taipei at 5:00pm.
Friday (6/27): Arrive in Taipei at 9:50pm.
Saturday (6/28), Sunday (6/29): Sightseeing and general bumbling around Taipei
Monday (6/30): Gotcha day!
Tuesday (7/1): First AIT appointment
Wednesday (7/2): Second AIT appointment to pick up Christian’s visa
Thursday (7/3): Flight from Taipei to San Francisco – leave at 11:30pm, arrive 8:00pm. Leave from SF to Cincinnati at 11:20pm.
Friday (7/4): Arrive in Cincinnati at 6:45am! Drive back to Columbus.

Some other thoughts...
To preface, it should be obvious by now that I’m not a great blogger. I have read blog entries that made me cry because they were so touching and powerful, and others that have made me laugh out loud. Personally, I'm aiming for basic competence, as it is so difficult to properly express myself in a powerful, amusing, or even grammatically correct way. In other words, I should have started this whole entry by saying “Rude am I in my speech...” - but unfortunately I am no Othello, so what follows will not be a masterpiece of eloquence. (On the other hand, if I were Othello I would be dead after smothering my wife in a fit of jealousy, so…er…right, going off on a tangent here. This is why I'm no good as a blogger.) However, as we approach the zero hour before we actually hold Christian in our arms, I wanted to try and write down some of the ‘deep thoughts’ that I have been having in the few moments away from the craziness.

Proverbs 16:9 says that “[i]n his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” I have seen other adoptive families use this quote from Scripture and have to affirm how true it has been for us! When Jeff and I got married almost seven years ago, adoption wasn’t anything more than a vaguely positive abstraction to me. And although I always knew I wanted to have kids, I couldn’t have imagined that this would be the way we would become a family. But what we have been blessed with is so much more than anything I could have wished or hoped for in my puny imagination. There is a beautiful, precious little boy in Taiwan that is waiting for us, and I am so humbled by this incredible gift that we have been given. People have said to us that Christian is so ‘lucky’ to have us as parents, but to be honest, I feel it should be the other way around: Jeff and I are so unbelievably lucky to be able to be parents to Christian. 1 Corinthians 2:9 comes to mind: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” Jeff and I can certainly attest to that! I also love the quote by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.” God has graciously answered our prayers for a family in a way that is beyond what we had dreamed of seven plus years ago.

This journey has been tough, to put it mildly. It has been emotional, it has been long and difficult, there have been many tests along the way (and I have miserably failed many of them). There have been many tears and struggles in our quest to become a family. However, we look back on everything – the circumstances, the people God has placed in our lives – and we know that this is how He intended for us to become parents. Or, as Douglas Adams put it, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” (As a side note, I expect that I will also be thinking of the following quote by Douglas Adams during our 6+ hour layover in Los Angeles: “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘As pretty as an airport.’”)

I want to say thank you (such inadequate words!) to everyone who has supported us, cheered for us, prayed for us, and helped us during this time. We couldn’t have made it through this without you!

Thank you so much! And know that this is only the crudest approximation of what is in our hearts right now as we prepare for the biggest journey of our lives!

Some prayer requests:
• That Christian would not be too traumatized by the sudden change and that Jeff and I will be able to bond quickly with him.
• For our travel – ESPECIALLY coming home on the long flights with a new baby!
• That Christian will not pee all over me when I have to change his diaper, especially if we are still at the foster family’s house (seriously, this is a recurring nightmare that I have been having). :-)