One more week!

Wow – only one week from right now and we will be at the airport! I can hardly believe it! I’m starting to get really nervous – all of our lives will be changing forever! We’re confident, though, that this is God’s plan for our lives – we love being parents and can’t wait to bring another child into our home.

We will leave Grand Rapids at 1:10 pm next Saturday, the 21st. We will arrive in Hong Kong (after layovers in Minnesota and Tokyo) at 10:30 pm on Sunday, the 22nd. Monday morning the social worker will pick us up and bring us to Laiya’s foster home, where we will finally meet her! After spending the day together with the foster family and social worker, we have to leave her and go to our hotel. We thought she would be going with us right away, but found out yesterday that she won’t join us 24/7 until Wednesday or Thursday. I guess they know what’s best.

We are still working on the plans for the remainder of the week. We will hear this Monday what places Laiya would like us to see while we are there. One plan we have is to visit Mother’s Choice orphanage. We know quite a few families with children that spent years living there, so we’re anxious to see it. We recently met a family that is waiting for word to travel to pick up their 9-year-old son from the orphanage, so we’re hoping to see him and take some pictures too. We will return to Grand Rapids on Saturday, the 28th, which is already a special day. It was 24 years ago that Emily came home from Korea.

Laiya will be spending this week saying her goodbyes. It’s going to be very hard for her, but she knows this is what she wants.

We are planning an open house after Laiya has been home a couple weeks so that all of you can meet her and see pictures of our trip. We are so anxious to see her country, but even more anxious to bring her home.

Again, please pray for Laiya as she goes through this huge transition, and also for safe travels. Thanks!

Until next time - Marva