The end is in sight. We were out doing last minute shopping this morning and began discussing what it "feels" like to be a parent. Since we did a special needs adoption, we have know for about four months that we would be adopting Julianna and have had her picture to stare at. We even call her our child and consider ourselves to be her parents. But it has not really impacted our lives. There is a small amount of inconvenience related to the safety latches on the cabinets and drawers, but for the most part, our lives go on as if nothing had ever happened. It made me think about Christianity, how we go around saying we are Christian, but does it impact our lives? We can have the "inconvenience" of going to Church, but does our faith change our daily routine? Are we striving to live our lives in a manner that glorifies God? Or do we put up the pictures on Sunday and go back to regular life on Monday?

Tomorrow is the big day. We are mostly packed. Now we just wait. We have an afternoon flight, which means half a day of staring at our watches.

One thing that really irritated me during this whole adoption process was seeing pregnant teenagers. It would just set off something in my brain. To combat this, I decided to memorize Psalms 73. The purpose was to remind me not to envy them. But I realized that I was turning it into an accusation against God—I would recite the part about swift judgement and the psalmists commentary on living pure yet still suffering and puff myself up and say "that's right, they deserve swift punishment and I deserve better because I do the right things". Yet I would miss the part about God's mercy, about His constant presence and guidance. I was asking for Him to be merciful to me, while at the same time, sitting on a hill like Jonah, I was waiting to see the fire reign down from heaven. I forgot the more important verses, the ones that say no one is righteous, that all have fallen short and that everything I have is a gift from God. Even His patience during my stupidity.

Richard J. Mouw wrote a book called Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. There is a chapter called "Not a Stranger" in which he recounts a story of a Dutch Calvinist congregation facing a tragedy. They tell the minister trying to encourage them "No stranger did this to us". They realized that God was sovereign and in control of what they were facing. They were like Paul, perplexed, but not in despair.

It is easy to think of God as distant and not involved. It is easy to think of Him as a Celestial Santa Claus—leave your wish list and He will grant it, if you are nice. It is hard to think of Him as sovereign; as concerned with my holiness and not my happiness. It is hard to trust that the difficult parts of the journey are for my good and ultimately (and most importantly), for His glory. God knew when Julianna was born that we would be her family. He also knew that a snow storm in Memphis would delay our LOA returning to our agency. It is easy to thank Him for the birth, hard to thank Him for the snow.

The reality of going to China has finaly kicked in and we vacillate between excitement and fear. We are going to be parents!!

I've found the jump drive, but we are out of printer ink. The "go to China" pile grows daily. The suitcases are out of the attic. Now I just need my paking list.

Today was serious work day around the house. We had a bunch of little projects we wanted to get done before we leave. We did a fair job of finishing. It did, however, keep us from watching tennis.

Today we went to the travel medicine clinic and got shots. Also a prescription for traveler's diarrhea, if we are so unfortunate as to contract it. Remember that five page packing list? I saved it to a jump drive and now I'm not completely sure where the jump drive is. Haven't reached panic mode quite yet and still have the 3 page excel one that I could borrow, but I spent a lot of time on that and now I get to spend a lot of time looking for it.

Tonight is the very last night we will spend in our house alone. Tomorrow the relatives begin to descend and then we go to China and return with a permanent addition. To celebrate, we cleaned the bathrooms, because, tomorrow the relatives will begin to descend.

We have our itinerary!! Our Gotcha Day will be 4/2/07. We will be visiting her orphanage on 4/6/07. Wow!

I realized today how little we know about parenting. We had received two tubes of toddler toothpaste as shower gifts. They had this very cute bear and duck on the box. Who knew toddlers needed their own toothpaste? But worse yet, the cute bear and duck are from a book series, one I have never heard of. Yikes. Our poor kid would have been using the fluoridated toothpaste with no cute bear...

We have not heard anything from our travel advisor in two days. It is strangely frightening. Somehow seeing an email about nothing made us feel like we are not forgotten.

We tried the new courts last night. Very nice. The tennis world has turned to Miami. I learned this morning that the Nasdaq-100 is now the Sony Ericson Open. Strange.

One more of Sarah. The blanket was a shower gift. I love the green and pink ladybugs.

Today our paper tickets for the international portion of our travel arrived. Not much else happened. Hopefully we will get an itinerary soon with our Gotcha Day on it. Right now the agency is saying 4/1 or 4/2.

In the tennis world, Raphael Nadal won the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells. Federer was knocked out in his first match. They now move to Miami for the Nasdaq-100. Our favorite courts have been completely refinished. They are now the blue/green combination the US Open has gone to. Should make it a lot easier to see the lines. Hopefully there will be an open court tonight and we can try the new surface.

This one pretty much speaks for itself.

I packed Julianna's stuff today. Sarah was kind enough to supervise my progress. It's a good thing that we are flying straight to Guangzhou. If we were going to Beijing, we would only be allowed one checked bag a peice and her stuff pretty much fills one suitcase. Yes, I do realize that I can buy stuff in China.

From the irony files, Julianna's information sheet said she liked to sleep with a towel. We have a photo of her in a Hello Kitty bib. We came upon a Hello Kitty towel and thought it would be perfect for her. For all you Douglas Adams fans, our child will now be traveling with a towel. Don't Panic.

Another slow day on the adoption front. It felt strange. Since we received our TA, the travel advisor at our agency has sent 4-8 emails a day with information or items needing responses. Today there was very little. Just waiting. For those of you concerned about my paltry packing list, it has now expanded to five type-written pages. Not an Excel file, but at least more extensive than the original. I can see how it will be helpful to mark things off as they are packed and not be rushing around at the last moment hoping the laptop cords are packed. I still may be a little freaked out on the day we fly out, but maybe less so.

Not a lot happened today. I officially let the office know I would be gone in April and called the Travel Medicine Clinic to set up appointments. Phillip's bosses signed off on his vacation time yesterday. It seems like we have flurries of activity followed by more waiting.

Here are two more photographs of the room. On the left is her rocking chair, with two stuffed animals and framed bugs. Notice the ladybug. On the right is her bookshelf with her ladybug purse.

Hello readers, this is Phil talking. I just wanted to say that we have our plane tickets and dates for travel to China to pick up Julianna. We'll be leaving on March 30th and the Airport Party will be April 14th at 9AM—so ya'll come on out!

Sheesh, I sound like I'm doing a radio remote broadcast from Palmer's Toyota don't I? Anyhoo, them's the dates. For the airline geeks out there, I'll be recording the Airlines, tail numbers and types of plane we'll be flying on. Probably won't blog about that, but you can email me. Crossing my fingers for a 747.

Now then, what else.... let's see....well I guess that's the problem with blogging, if you do it every day there isn't much to say. Don't forget to pray for us and especially for Julianna. Thanky!

The room is finally finished. Here are a couple of photographs. I have more, but I'm having trouble getting them loaded. The one on the left is the crib with the bedskirt that took way too long to make. The cross above the bed says "For this child I have prayed" 1 Sam 1:27. It is probably one of the most precious gifts we received. On the right is the quilt made by my grandmother and the dolls made by Phillip's mother. Sarah is there too. She is my first baby. When we went in the room this morning, she crawled out from under the crib. I think she has taken over the room.

Our consulate appointment has been confirmed. We should have final travel dates by the end of the day, or at least by the end of tomorrow. Let the countdown begin.

Still no final travel plans. Still haven't finished the room either. I'm beginning to feel like I'm painting the Sistine Chapel.

Now that we are almost to the end, it is much easier to reflect on the lessons we have learned over the last year. I think the most important lesson was the mercy of God. He has been merciful during our pity parties. He has been merciful during our expeditions down the wrong roads. He has been merciful to forgive us. We have received compassion, patience and mercy and are profoundly grateful.

We are still waiting for the consulate to confirm our appointment so that we can have definite travel dates. Our pastor gave a sermon yesterday about the sovereignty of God--how God in His infinite wisdom will have you where He wants you and when He wants you. The pastor talked about the perfect timing of God, how He had Esther become queen at the perfect time to save the displaced Jews from Haman and how He had Christ come at the right time to be the Savior. It was a great sermon and it makes the wait a little easier to think of it as the perfect timing of God. There is a link on the sidebar to our church, where you can find a link to the sermons. I highly recommend it.

While I worked on curtains yesterday, Phillip started baby proofing the house. It is a little strange. We have cats and the only thing we worry about them getting into is the house plants. We have had baby gates up since we moved to this house, but their sole purpose was to keep the cats out of certain rooms. We have crystal vases on bottom shelves and cleaning liquids on top of the counter in the laundry room. Our entire storage plan has to be re-thought. Which is driving the cats crazy because we keep changing their house.

I'm still working on the room. It is almost done. I finished the curtains today and now only have the bedskirt for the crib left. I've started working on a packing list in earnest. I had started one, on a 4x6 notepad, small print, one and a half columns. Then I found one on the internet, Excel file, 3 and a quarter pages. Whoa. I seriously underestimated the potential meticulous detail of packing lists. Anyone know how to use Excel?

Today we worked on the paperwork for the next part of this adventure. Paperwork seems to define everything about adoption. We have a tentative travel date. Our agency stresses that it is tentative, with bold type and underlining, just in case we weren't paying attention. I think they have also said it about six times. Hopefully we will get confirmation of our consulate appointment early next week and can have a definite travel date.

Lamentations 3:31-33: For man is not cast off by the LORD forever, though he brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. For He does not willing bring grief or affliction to the sons of men.

I wore this sock to work today. Wore the pair, actually. Phillip says my sock looks dingy. Notice the ladybug, which is the symbol of good luck in China, and has been become the symbol of the China Adoption Community. One of the nurses pointed it out to me right after I got found out that our TA had arrived!! Yes, it has arrived and we can finally see the end of the road, we can start our preparations in earnest for going to China to adopt our precious Julianna Claire. To celebrate we ate Chinese and bought three new outfits.

This is my favorite photograph of Julianna.

I have been dragging my feet about posting again, hoping that I could post exciting news about our TA arriving and us frantically making arrangements to travel to China, but no, just more waiting. I may break the fabric moratorium and buy more. My favorite fabric store has new spring fabrics.

I am reading through Luke and read the story of the woman with the issue of blood who touches the hem of Jesus' cloak. I find that story amusing because the account in Matthew says "she suffered under the care of many doctors". Ouch.

Looking out the window.

Sometime in the last year our associate pastor gave a sermon on Genesis 22, which is the story of Abraham taking Isaac to offer him as a sacrifice. He pointed out a part of the story that I had not realized--the journey to the place of sacrifice was three days. So, for three days, Abraham walked on, with all his doubts and concerns. Three days to think, this can't be right, God cannot want me to sacrifice the child of promise, surely I misunderstood. Yet he walked on. When it seemed wrong, when hope seemed lost, he got up everyday and walked on.

Wednesday was the official one year anniversary of our adoption journey--one year since we did the first part of the paperchase. Looking back, I've spent more time on the side of the road whining and complaining than I have walking on, but I have never forgotten this sermon and it has given me great encouragement. Walking on.

We continue to wait for the TA. The room is almost complete and the clothes are all washed. We have diapers and sippy cups and pretty much everything else a toddler could need. I have put travel wipes into the diaper bag and have started a pile of "this needs to go with us to China". The wait, however, is exhausting. Every day we awaken with the hope that, maybe today, the TA will come and every day we are disappointed. I was reminded this morning of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, how every day he looked out his window for his son. And waited, and waited. Did he ever want to skip a day? Did he want to give up completely? Did he plan the party he eventually gave when his son did return? What amazing faith and perseverance. What amazing love.