LOA Is Here

God's timing is wonderful.  I can't wait to someday look at my life from His perspective and see even more clearly how He is working His plan.  We were marking our 60th day of waiting for our Letter of Approval when the phone rang late in the day.  Some adoptive parents who are waiting know when the DHL truck makes scheduled deliveries to our adoption agency.  I'm sorry, but I can't remember what I went in the pantry for let alone remember that type of information!! Hence, we were not expecting any call from Madison when the phone rang.  I heard Aleda's voice on the answering machine begin talking about some great news she had for us.  Up to this moment I was casually looking for the phone, but when the words "good news" and "LOA" came out of the answering machine's speaker, I went from casual to frantic!!! "Where's the phone?????", I yelled to no one in particular.  And no one jumped up to help! :)  Anyhow, I found it all on my own and answered it just in time to hear the wonderful news that our LOA had shown up unexpectedly at their office door sometime this afternoon.  What a wonderful surprise!  We were told to expect to wait 60-90 days for this precious piece of paper from China.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude to the God who has all of this in His care and timing.  Such fun!  Now we have a few more hoops to jump through before we can get that all important TA (travel approval) and begin packing our bags.  Each step closer gets us that much more excited to see Elsa face to face.

While we have been waiting, we have not been completely idle.  With some time before we get to bring Elsa home, we decided to send her a care package.  The picture above shows the contents of that package. There is a wonderful service in China that will receive a package and send it securely to the orphanage. We carefully packed a box with some clothes, toys, a photo album of us, and a recordable book of Mommy and Daddy reading to her. Then we shipped it all off on the slow boat to China. Literally!  It seemed to take forever to arrive in Guangzhou.  But Ann at Red Thread took it, translated all our papers and photo album labels and sent it to our sweet Elsa.

"Come and see the works of God;  He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men."  Psalm 66:5