This week was a busy week in the adoption process!  It all began last Friday when we received Caleb’s long-awaited for passport.  Only for Kelly to realize that his middle name was spelled incorrectly!  To have waited so very long and then to have an error was just about beyond reasonable.  I quickly called the representative from US Senator Portman’s office, who called the National Passport Center, and I received a call from a VERY nice lady from the Passport Center Re-Write office (Kelly noted that it isn’t promising when they have an entire department for fixing mistakes) who was committed to helping fix the problem quickly.  She told me to overnight it to her, then she would fix it first thing Monday morning and get it back to us on Tuesday.  On Monday she called to tell us that it was done and on its way. We received the correct passport for Caleb by 9:00 AM Tuesday morning and it is off getting a Chinese VISA added to it right now!  We should have all of the passports back with VISA’s by mid-week.

This week I had to travel to Cleveland as part of a temporary work assignment.  Kelly and I had talked about the risk of my being in Cleveland so close to the adoption, but realized it was a good opportunity and we could work around any issues.  Tuesday was an issue in that our final LOA came for Katelyn, but it needed my signature and I was 350 miles away!  What seemed like a problem turned into an opportunity as I drove down from Cleveland to Columbus and Kelly drove up and we had a nice little “date night,” having dinner, signing papers, and putting everything in the overnight drop box.

Finally, early Friday morning, we received our National VISA Center letter from the US government approving our VISA appointment in Guangzhou China!  That is the last US hurdle, and now we just have to keep praying for the final Chinese pieces to quickly fall into place.  By the time this weekend is complete, we should have airline flights booked and travel plans well on their way to completion.  The next two weeks until we leave will go by in a flash…

All of this prompted Kelly to start gearing up and she spent this afternoon getting all the kids suitcases in shape with the items we have been buying over the last several weeks.  It allowed her the opportunity to really see what we have for each of the kids and what we still need.

Don’t stop praying now!  The enemy will only fight harder as our departure date gets closer!  But God is and will continue to guide the process and His intentions will be known.  Thank you all so very much for your support in the quest.

Cameron