To tell this story right, I must first take you back to the events of mid-May. My Monday update of May 23 actually stated things this way: “The biggest news we have for the past week is actually an alteration to our planned travel experience. For those of you who have not heard, we found out a few days ago that Dan will again be deploying to Afghanistan for a full year and unfortunately this will keep him from being able to travel with me to pick up Jack.”
Well, there you go - that about sums it up. Now you know why Katie is going with me. Glad I could clear that up for you. Thanks for stopping by. Oh wait! You want to know more? Good news! There’s a lot more...
Dan getting notice of his deployment really just started the whole travel companion ball rolling. As soon as we knew that Dan was indeed going to be deploying before we would receive our Travel Approval I had to make one major decision – Would I travel alone or find someone to travel with me? In the grand scheme of things, traveling alone really was/is an option. The actual adoption part of this whole thing is really just a matter of paperwork and hurdle jumping that both Dan and I have done before so that really didn’t concern me. Going to China is also something I have done before – twice – so that doesn’t really bother me either. The part of the trip that did make me just a little bit uncomfortable going it alone was the actual traveling part – multiple airports, LONG flights, small child, etc. Could I handle this on my own? Yes, absolutely. But it would be much easier with two adults rather than one when you consider baggage, layovers, potty breaks, language barriers, tired four-year-old, etc. All that to say I came to the decision pretty early that I would prefer to take someone with me if possible. So the next question was – Who to take?
After thinking it through for a while I finally decided my sister was probably the one and only person that made sense. No offense to anyone else out there who might have wanted to be invited, but she is my sister and all…. And she does have an affinity for China, has traveled there herself several times, would love to see more of it than what she’s already visited, and did share a room with me for many, many years so living together in a hotel room for two weeks would be far from an unusual experience for us. But there was the timing to consider. My sister is a teacher so in order for her to go our travel plans would have to coincide with her summer break. Luckily, she resides in California where school doesn’t get out for the summer until mid-June and thus doesn’t start back up again until early September. This was a definite PLUS in the able-to-go column.
Then there was the next question – Would my sister want to go? So, I asked her. Actually, I sent her an email (our main form of communication given the different time zones thing) that after explaining Dan’s new deployment adventure read, “Here is the crazy part. I know this is insane – I mean I just told you it was a crazy idea – but would you be at all interested in a free trip to China?” Great email, huh? Well, the rest of it went on to say I knew that this might not even be a remote possibility on her end and something about our parents freaking out when they heard Dan was deploying in the middle of our adoption, but luckily she didn’t think I was insane. Quite the opposite actually as her response came back as, “Absolutely I’m interested!” Whew! At least one person out there doesn’t think I’m crazy. =)
Basically the deal broke down as this: Yes, she was interested in going. Yes, she could work it out to travel during the summer. Yes, she could work around getting ready for the new school year to begin. (Yes, that means teachers really do work during their summer days off.) But yes, she needed to be back in San Diego for any actual students-in-the-classroom days simply because not being in your own classroom for any part of the very beginning of the year is a really, really bad way to get the ball rolling with your students. So there we were. At this point in time it looked as if our Travel Approval would arrive sometime in mid-July setting us up for late July or early August travel so all things looked good. As long as paperwork kept moving on schedule my sister could and would travel with me. Hurray!
Now the question is – did you catch the problem with this plan? Anyone who has been following this particular adoption journey for any period of time should have seen the looming bound-to-happen issue I just mentioned with this whole thing. Did you catch it? You know, that whole “as long as paperwork kept moving on schedule” part? Yep – definitely NOT something to count on in this journey. Wouldn’t you know that dang paperwork just couldn’t keep up with the plan and here it is now the end of July and guess what – we still don’t have Travel Approval. Can I say I’m really surprised by this? Well, of course not. I’ve been following the paper trail of this adoption from the front lines from the first day – I don’t think anything surprises me anymore. But as our LOA arrived a good week later than expected, things began to look not so good for my sister being able to travel. So the next question was – now what?
Ironically, there was another name that had popped into my mind the very first time Dan and I started even talking about whether I would find someone to travel with me if it did turn out he could not go. But the whole idea was so crazy that I quickly moved past it and began searching for an idea that made sense – thus my sister. You see, that very first conversation went something like this…
Dan: “Who do you think you might ask?”
Me: “You know who should go with me…. Katie Green.”
Dan: “Who is Katie Green?”
Me: “Katie Green. Asher’s mom.” (Asher was a fellow MBHOH resident with Jack who came home to his forever family in December 2010.)
Dan: “Oh, okay. You should ask her.”
Me: “I can’t ask Katie Green. That’s crazy. She doesn’t even know me!”
You see, although we had began chatting often on Facebook after meeting through common Show Hope channels several months earlier, and although we had slowly branched out into naptime phone calls at this point Katie and I have never actually met in person. Not to mention, Katie is also a mother of four young children very similar in age to our own so just the idea of asking her to pick up and leave the country with me was (and may still be) a bit on the crazy side. But apparently, crazy is exactly what God ordered.
While all of the waiting for our LOA had been going on and I believed my sister would be travelng with me Katie and I had several conversations about the whole travel companion issue. In one of those interactions she had shared with me, “Do you know that my first thought when I read that he wasn't going to be able to go was? ‘She's going to need travel support. I should go with her!’” You can imagine my surprise at such a comment. I couldn’t do anything but laugh. How crazy is that? My first thought – Katie Green. Katie’s first though – I should go with her! And thus, a new plan seed was planted.
When it became clear that the travel window of this whole adventure wasn’t going to work well for my sister, I decided that perhaps I should have paid more attention to what God was telling me on the front end. Not that I wouldn’t take my sister with me in a heartbeat, but perhaps I really was supposed to ask Katie all along. So, that is what I did. I asked. And she did not tell me I was crazy. Whew! That makes two people who don't think I'm crazy. We may have discussed how this entire situation is crazy, but we definitely acknowledged that God must have had His hand in putting the plan together or we would never have randomly come up with the same plan at the same time. I must add, however, that I’m fairly certain that Katie’s take on the whole thing back then was still something about “It would take an act of God” to pull this off. Hm...
Well, as luck would have it, God decided to act. After much prayer and deliberation Katie's husband, Josh, gave her the go-ahead and let us know he was okay with her traveling with me. This came with a condition - Katie needed to make sure she had a plan for childcare while she was gone (kind of important since Josh needs to show up for work on a daily basis) - but okay with her going, he was.
So, here we are. In less than a month (hopefully) my dear friend, and fellow adoptive mother, Katie Green will be spending two weeks of her life traveling to China with me and being my travel buddy as I complete Jack’s adoption process and bring him home to the U.S. Hurray! We still need to nail down the childcare plan for her as she has several leads but no definite commitments given we are still waiting on actual travel dates, but we both feel confident that our traveling together is what God has intended to happen so everything will work out fine. That said, we would ask that you keep Katie and her family in your prayers as our travel dates get closer. As much as we trust that the situation is in God’s hands it would provide much peace and comfort to those involved to have some concrete idea of how things will play out before the last minute insanity of travel approval begins and we are rushing around searching for plane tickets and departure times.
And speaking of departures, if you are hoping to catch a glimpse of us on our journey we shouldn't be hard to spot. We will be the two American women sporting Show Hope t-shirts everywhere we go. Which by the way is a very good thing, because in case I didn't mention it Katie and I still have not met in person as she lives in Florida and I am in Maryland, but once we each reach that gateway city it shouldn't be hard to pick each other out of the crowd. All we have to do is look for SHOW HOPE!
Oh! And for those who may be wondering, my parents are coming to stay with our girls so that is all taken care of. But prayers for a peaceful two weeks would be greatly appreciated on this end too as having both Mom and Dad out of the country at the same time is already weighing a bit heavy on the hearts of some of the smaller Shipleys. Thanks!
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