WE HAVE NEWS!!!! TA! TA! TA!!!!

Praise God for the news we received today!  To HIM goes the GLORY and honor!!!!!  This will be a long one  :)  Some straight talk....We had been hoping and praying we would receive our TA (Travel approval from China) this week, knowing it wasn't "likely".  Tuesday of this week, a bunch of TA's came in and ours was not included.  Yesterday, I was somewhat hopeful, but no TA.  Then yesterday when we didn't get a phone call from our agency, I called and was talking to one of my friends sharing my disappointment and she gave me some very candid advice.  She said, "Robin, if you WANT your TA, why not just pray specifically, "God, if it does not go against you or affect your ultimate plan, I pray that we receive TA on Friday"...I never thought of it that way! Ultimately, we just want to be in line with Gods plan so I decided, that's how I'm going to pray!!  And I did.  Well TA's typically come in early in the morning and the Tuesday TA's that came in this week were posted very early (around 10A.M)...So, 10:45 today came and went and I was beginning to lose hope.  12:00 came and went and I had given up completely and thought to myself, well today is not our day and that's ok.  Then (12:15), Brandon pops in for 5 minutes during the day, my phone rings and I see, "MADISON ADOPTION ASSOCIATES" across the screen.  I looked at it for a second and paused...It was our TA!  I answered the phone to hear a very kind voice on the end say..."I have good news for you, Robin, you received your TA".  PRAISE GOD!  He had answered our prayer!!!!!  At this point, Brandon who popped in from his day at work is dancing around the living room.  As if news of TA was not good enough...There's more!  I'm going to go backwards a little bit so that I don't leave any of this out....(keeping it real) Early this morning, before we received TA, I was going through a guilty period of thinking to myself and talking to God saying, "are we doing the right thing, is this fair to Wyatt, is this going to affect him negatively in any way?"  I was playing the doubt game, which is never good.  I asked God for confirmation, even though he has given that to us throughout the process time and time again!  So ashamed to share my doubtful heart but it's real.  So now back to the present...Not only do we get TA on the day we ask God for it BUT, you may remember that it was very important for us to travel before my mom went back to work.  For various reasons...My fathers health has not been perfection over the last 2 years (battling cancer, still and having a heart attack).  If we traveled to China and were not back by August 22nd my mom would be back at work and my father would be at home caring for Wyatt, primarily by himself.  I had been asking God over and over for mercy on my family as they were so willing to help us and support us by taking care of Wyatt during this time.  Well we were beginning to run out of time.  Now back to my conversation with our agency...So after the good news is shared with me that we have our TA (travel approval), I say..."So what's next, what do we need to do now?"  The person on the other end says, well we are looking at possible CA (Consulate appointments in China) dates and we are thinking the 23rd of August...Would that work for you?  I pause for a minute and am thinking, uh-oh.  I start to stutter out a pitiful, frazzled story trying to put all of this together and explain that if at all possible could we get a date any sooner, it would be HUGE for us and for my family.  She says, "tell me what's up"...So, I proceed to explain what you all, already know (the situation about my mom going back to work and my father home with Wyatt).  She says, "well, let me see, we can request it but that means you'd have to leave very quickly.  I explain that that's ok we'll figure it out.  So she says, well let me look at something....Then I hear, "oh wow, this is good news, there is another family traveling to YOUR province (Nanchang) requesting the same dates you all would like to travel, so that would make it easy on the people scheduling travel!"...I'm thinking, WOW!  Not only is there another family going to the same Province but they want the same dates!!!??  Then she says, but we'll have to see if her (Hadley's) TB test results will be back in time for you all to have the same Consulate appt date....Then I hear, "oh wait, this is great, because Hadley is under 2, you don't have to wait for the TB results and you should be able to get the same Consulate appt date!"  By now, I'm getting chills over and over!  The icing on the cake of this story is....As of right now, we have a tentative ticket booked to leave to go to China on August 6th and return on August 18th!  That means that not only will my mother and father be able to watch Wyatt together but they will have time to fly Wyatt back to Indianapolis (from FL) over the weekend we return home. meet Hadley and make it back to Orlando in time for my mom to go to work on Monday!!!!  ONLY GOD!  AMAZING!  Could the timing have been any more perfect!?  The reason our tickets are on hold and not formally booked is because our Consulate appt needs to be confirmed late Sunday night, early Monday morning in China (they are 12 hours ahead of us).  Our agency is pretty sure the Consulate appt will work out and we will continue to pray that everything falls into place.  I believe God will finish what HE has started!  We'll keep you posted!

We plan to blog while we are in China and we invite you all to follow along as we go to get our daughter; Wyatt's sister!!!!  Here we come Hadley!!!!!!

Hugs and lots of love!
Robin, Brandon and Wyatt