The Best News Ever!

We can hardly believe it, but WE HAVE TRAVEL DATES! YEA! We are very overjoyed, but I can say without a doubt, that this has been the most stressful week of my life! I'll start from the beginning because even though it's only been two days since the call, I think I have acquired many gray hairs and a heart disorder!!!!

Monday, July 6-We were driving home from a vacation in PA with my parents, when we received "The Call" from our agency. She told me that she had heard from our facilitator that our dates had been made and she would know more concretely on Wednesday, July 8. She then said to me "They want you in Warsaw on Sunday, July 12 so you will have to leave on Saturday." After picking myself off the floor of the car I then responded "This Sunday? Are you for real?!" After her "Yes!" response, I got off the phone and proceeded to tell the rest of the family that we had 4 days to pack for a 7 week trip. Needless to say, we all about went into panic attacks! I never imagined we would only have 4 days to pull everything together!

After the call, we all went into overdrive trying to think of everything that had to be done in "4 DAYS!" One thing we thought of was our dreaded finger print renewal. After discussing this with our agency, I realized that we had really made a mistake rescheduling our fingerprints (due to being out of town) because our prints were due to expire Wednesday, July 8! Our agency said to not let them expire as it could land us in a world of trouble and possibly cause us to lose BJ!

Tuesday, July 7-We flew to the post office to see if our renewal fingerprint appointment was in the pile of mail. Sure enough it was, but the appointment date was July 22. To late! I called the number and all she could say was "Drive to your CIS office with your letters and they might try to fit you in!" So we got in the car and drove 3 hours hoping they would accept us. Once there, I told them that we really needed their help as we were due to expire and leave the country on Saturday. After about 20 minutes and a bunch of questions later they informed us that they needed "proof (an itinerary)" we were leaving the country before they could do it. So I had to contact my dad to access my email to get a phone number of the travel agent I had contacted the night before. Luckily he had already reserved a flight for us. After giving this information to the CIS worker, we sat and waited for another 10 minutes. He then comes out and says that it wasn't good enough, we needed to actually pay for the tickets. So, we go back outside, call the "WONDERFUL" travel agent and booked our flights. We then go back into CIS, tell him that our travel agent will fax him our flights and within 3 minutes they finished our fingerprints and out the door we go. All this excitement took about 2 hours!

Wednesday, July 8-We received a call early from our agency telling us that our travel dates had changed. We are now leaving on July 25 and we are much relieved! Our fabulous travel agent changed our dates right away! I'm so glad that is one area we don't have to worry about. He has really taken care of us. If you need a good travel agency for your adoption or mission work, I highly recommend Golden Rule Travel. They are Christian based, very accommodating, and can get some very good prices.

This is it for now! I will try to update you later on more info about our travel! Thank you for your prayers! God has heard them and has done so much for us in the past 48 hours. God Bless you all!

Love,
Melanie