In a few hours.....

What a ride we have been on over the last seven days....oh, my goodness!!! To go from thinking, on 9-1-10, we may get to leave 9-12-10 to get Emma, to finding out on 9-2-10 there was no possible way because the Consulate appts. were booked for September...

and not even knowing for sure if we could leave in October...because we were having to wait on other AWAA families to get their TAs so we could make a nice little Travel Group. In 2004, we were part of Travel Group 99 (TG 99)..and oh, what fun that was!! About 26 crazy families and a boat-load of children...it really was a blast..and we've been able to re-connect with many thru Facebook. Many of them have also adopted a second child from China. God did many special things in a lot of families on that trip, that's for sure! I remember thinking, even then while we were there, something special indeed, is up with the people on this trip...you could sense His hand all over it.

So here we sit, a few hours from finding out if we finally get to leave Sept. 12---aaaaaggggghhhhh, in 3 days, I may be in China!!! Have I packed....um, NO!!!!! However, let me say this, with a 'disclaimer', (that's prob. not the right word, anyway)....if we can't leave Sunday as we hope, I have finally come to a place of peace, where I know that His plan is best and perfect, as always. BUT, I sure do hope we can leave Sunday, even though I feel like a crazy person at this moment.

In a nutshell....this is what happened and how God moved..over the weekend I decided to email Sen. Shelby, Sen. Orr and Sen. Sessions, to see if they could contact the Consulate, to beg for an appt. for our family.
Of course, throw Labor Day in there, and on Tues. morning, I received a phone call from sweet Lindsay, in Sen. Sessions' office. She requested more info. from us and I typed the memo like mad, drove like a maniac down the Beltline to church, obtained Matthew's signature and faxed her the info!

Soooo, this morning, I am back to the classroom, so I pass Lindsay's number off to Matthew and ask him to call her. Guess WHAT???? There were 3 cancelled Consulate appts. the last of Sept. Had the Consulate bothered to notify our agency, even though AWAA specifically asked them to do that for us???, uh NO!!
Matthew contacted Teresa at AWAA, who I'm sure she thinks I'm completely nuts-O after the 20 emails I've sent her in the last 6 days, but that's okay...my sweet daughter is waiting on us!! He FWD the info. the Consulate sent to Sessions office (I think I'm gonna frame that doc) to Teresa, and she quickly requested 3 more appts. for us, 2 on 9/27 and 1 on 9/29. Because of the time difference, the Consulate received her request after business hours on 9/8. They should've responded the morning of 9/9 there, which was Wed. night here (which means their answer is sitting in Teresa's email right now!!)
That's how it went down...and now we wait....