We have TA!!!!

We received a phone call around 5:15 PM Monday evening that our TA (travel approval) had arrived in Oregon! Our agency confirmed that we get to travel next week to pick up Maeve! We had a flurry of activity yesterday afternoon trying to book short-notice international flights. God has done a great job of working out the details so well. We leave St.Louis at 6:15AM Thursday, January 9th and will return to St.Louis at 6:15PM on Thursday, January 23rd. We are grateful that we will be traveling before the Chinese New Year holiday. We are thankful God worked it out to go pick up Maeve sooner than February.

Please pray for the details to come together smoothly for the Tianjin, China leg of the journey: we are waiting confirmation of those pieces of the travel puzzle. Please pray for God to prepare Maeve for all the transitions the next few weeks (3 airline flights, 2 weeks in a hotel, a new family, all she knows as familiar will not be familiar now, etc.) and for her to allow us to comfort her. Please pray for our family and those helping us out to remain healthy the next few weeks. Please pray for Maren: with her foundation of loss and trust issues, we pray God will be her comforter and heart-healer as this next few weeks will shake the stability and trust that has grown in the past 2 years; pray for God to protect her heart and mind the next few weeks (as she will remain at home with her daddy and grandparents while her mom and sister travel to China).

Thank you, thank you for your fervent prayers!