Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...

Man, I thought waiting was hard before we had ever seen Grace's picture. It is a very odd feeling to have a child on the other side of the globe, whose care you have absolutely no say in. How is she doing? Has she been sick? Has she had surgery? Did she sleep well last night? Did she laugh today?

If anyone out there is in need of a lesson in patience...I can tell you where to find one.

This week began in China with the Dragon Boat Festival. Any of you who have young children may have seen the Ni Hao Kai Lan episode about this celebration. All government offices were closed Monday through Wednesday, so very few approvals have shown up this week.

We are on the 55th day of waiting for our LOA from China, which is the final step in the approval process. Then there will be a few more hoops to jump through regarding her citizenship paperwork and our travel appointments. I'm excited to have found an online community of people that are in the same *dragon* boat, waiting at various stages of this process to go and get their little ones. We all compare our time lines...hoping that we might gain insight into when we might see some forward progress. Though it could come at any time, I am trying to tell myself to not expect anything before the end of July. Thankfully, the next couple of weeks will be pretty hectic as we go on mission to the Gulf Coast to continue Katrina relief. My mind will be filled with feeding hungry mission teams, so there will be little time for worrying about the paper chase.

That said, I am ready with the next step. And, our agency is on alert to call us for info on where to overnight the paperwork, depending on where we are at the time. So, who knows, maybe we will have to track down a notary while we are there!