I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

It is right now 11:53 p.m. on August 9, 2011.  In just seven short hours I will be in the car headed to the airport ready to check in for the first of my three flights toward Beijing.  By the time most of you read this I will probably already be checked in and may even be winging my way toward Atlanta - Stop One of my official Travel Journey to Jack.  I know that I should be upstairs asleep in bed, but for some reason I just felt I needed to do this first.

For the last several days, well, really since I got our Travel Approval over a week ago, I have wanted and needed to sit down and blog, but somehow time has simply gotten away from me.  Go figure!  There are so many things swirling around in my head though that I really wish I had been able to sort them out a bit better and put into words exactly, or at least partially, how this feels or the steps we're taking to make it all fall into place.  But the reality of it all is I simply don't know how to convey it.  Surreal is the only word that I can come up with and even it does not do the situation justice.

One year ago today I was also packing to head to China, and I was repeated telling friends and family that I was NOT going to China to bring home a child.  And yes, I was 100% sincere in my statements.  Yet, here I am exactly only year later packing to head to China for the sole purpose of bringing home a child and it just feels... well, surreal.

I suppose some of that is because Dan is not here to travel with me.  I have found my self wondering often this week if this is how he felt four years ago when he headed off to China without me to bring Becca home.  Did it feel odd to go alone?  Did it feel right to go now even if it meant flying solo?  Was there a sense of urgency about matters, yet a slow, steady pace to the whole thing?

I remember when we went to get Jolene and the simple excitement that ran fluidly through each part of getting ready.  The anxious arrival in Beijing, but also the fun times had while stopping in Hong Kong to play tourist first, and the newness of it all.  This time things are strangely similar and different all at once.  That peace is there.  It just feels right.  Natural almost.  Like this is the way it was always meant to be.  But going back to China this time is so very different as I've been before.  More than once.  And there just seems to be so much less mystery to everything.  I mean I've even made dinner plans for Beijing with a friend who resides in China and a Show Hope team who will be on their way home from a week's stay at Maria's.  Now that is definitely different!

And then there is Jack.  Sweet, lovable, almost mine - Jack.  With the girls we had pictures.  We had medical forms and a few comments from the orphanage.  Not much to go on, but still love at first sight.  With Jack in many ways it seems that this time around I have just enough information to be dangerous.  I know he likes puzzles - I've sat next to him while he played with them - so I want to take puzzles.  I know he likes Matchbox cars - he's driven one right up and down my very own leg - so I want to take him Matchbox cars.  I know his sweet smile.  I've heard his laugh.  I've even let him use my camera - the same one I will be using on this journey tomorrow.  And yet there is so much more that I do not know. 

How will he respond to me?  How much does he understand?  Does he know that come Monday his whole world will change?  Will he ever realize I came to him with a dozen people sending him hugs through my arms?   Will I seem strange with my non-Asian features, my English and hotel room, restaurants and Wal-Mart trips as I am continually warned by the adoption agency and parent training books and power points?  Or did his time at Maria's prepare him a bit better for this transition than typical orphanage life would have?  Will the lack of "surprise" typically brought by first encounters with Westerners be just one more blessing God has granted in this journey?

I don't know.  I am not worried.  I am not concerned.  And I am not awake at midnight because these things are keeping me up at night.  =)  I am, however, ready.  Ready to travel.  Ready to hug.  Ready to bring this boy home.  And, most importantly, ready to see what absolutely amazing things God has planned for us next because I have not a shadow of a doubt that He has great things in store for our family - all seven (yikes!) of us.

Thank you all for your prayers and support over the past twelve months.  It has been a wild ride - sometimes smooth and sometimes not - but we have kept our eye on the prize and we're FINALLY approaching that finish line.  I'll blog as I can and post pictures too.  Just five more days until I can stop counting things down and finally say "Gotcha!"

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."  Hebrews 12:1-3 

 "Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 3:13-14

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."  Romans 8:28