Counting Blessings

We've made it! This is actually happening! Right now I am sitting inside a nice (small) hotel room, looking out on downtown HongKong! Right in front of us is a building thats built to look upside down...weird...

This trip has been long, yet ideal. We had our first (and believe me it was minor) complication last night with our transfer from the airport to our hotel, but other than that, it has been so obvious that God is guiding us through all of the lines, waits, delays, etc to meet Caelyn... so yes! This is really happening!We decided last night that to keep us aware of God's presence, we'll say "blessings" when we see God's hand in something, or something is better than we expected. Keep us in your prayers though, because I know this trip will not be perfect the whole time. Pray that even when we experience some turbulence (sorry, I've been on airplanes for the past 26 hours) that we would rest assured in God's eminent presence in our lives and appreciate all that he has done for us!

I began thinking last night that this would never stop feeling surreal. I have been looking forward to this for so long that I'm not quite sure how to finally accept that its here. Well, I know these things- everything is written in Chinese, everyone looks Chinese, and the air is extremely smoggy (though not as bad as Chongqing). Yes. This is happening.   :D Now its time to get excited.

We got into our hotel just past 12am (China time). Carli had too much energy, and the rest of us were drained- not too patient. But we made it! Some of us have this thing- no sleeping on anything moving. So I didn't sleep for 2 days and the weariness was catching up with me.

We appreciate your prayers! We are so close to meeting Caelyn! Thanks!


In Him,
    Chelsey :))

P.S. Carli keeps saying "welcome to the future!" because we are 14 hours ahead of what we're used to. :))

Bye Bye Bama...

We are packed, the suitcases have been tied into big black trash bags (its pouring right now), and the house is clean and ready for us when we come home! I can't explain how excited we are! Though right now the stress is hitting home. My mom and dad are currently trying to figure out the carry-on situation and where to put our uber-importante paperwork. When we get to GuongZhou on Saturday, our guide Rebecca will pick us up and we will hand over our paperwork. (sigh) Then we begin the 2 week long process in China, and will meet Caelyn on Monday! I hope to be able to update this blog, but I'm not sure if that will happen. We'll see. :)

Please keep us in your prayers! Pray for safe and stress free travels! Well, we're leaving now! My mom is litterally calling me to leave. oops- now dad too!!!

In Him,
   Chelsey :)

Tickets and Pics!

My mom has been in constant communication with our Travel Agent for the past 3 days. We have finally decided to travel Delta and leave from Atlanta. What this means is that we will be driving to Atlanta Wednesday, January 20 (after school), staying in a hotel overnight, leaving from Atlanta at 7:30 am, Thursday January 21. Our itinerary (which we dont have yet) requires us to be in China on Saturday January 23, which is why we will be arriving in China on Friday late at night (which is good for jet lag!) Here are our Flight details:

Atlanta, GA -> Minneapolis, MI
Minneapolis, MI -> Tokyo
Tokyo -> HongKong
HongKong -> 2 hr train ride over to GuangDong
TOTAL: (about) 26 hours... (Not including time-change....)

So- with a 14 hour time difference, leaving Atlanta on Thursday the 21, will put us in Guangdong, China on Friday the 22. Thats a lot of earth to cover! :)

As you can see we are all very excited! We have recieved a few more pictures of Caelyn as well from Laurie (which are not on this computer, I will upload them later). We have multiple websites that my mom is trying out because we are not sure if Blogger will be available in China. Because of their government, many websites are blocked- Facebook is one (so we will not be updating our statuses for a while). I will also post the addresses to those sites.

Please PRAY for
1) school work to get done while we are in China. I am already losing what minimal motivation I had in school, simply because I have so much else that I could be doing (and would rather be doing- speaking of which I have to read 100 pages of 1066 by tomorrow...) I will be missing almost 2 weeks of school- which is a lot of work- especially Junior year at Westminster!! I will be writing my huge thesis/semester paper while in China... (though it is on adoption...)

2) Travel. I travel well. I've done it alot. However, I don't know how my family will handle having 14 hours of jet lag. I know its part of Travel, but we will be meeting Caelyn on Monday, January 25th, and none of us want to be "out of it".

3)And finally, we have 3 great praises!
First, thank God for providing some financial help! Some friends of ours have given us a BUNCH of skymiles! There were enough to cover all four of our tickets (round trip)! Caelyn's will be the only one we have to cover. How wonderful is that! Thank you Brian and thank you God! :D
Secondly we are meeting Caelyn on my mom's 45th birthday! How neat is that!? My mom loves telling people that (and tears up every time). We realized yeterday it was her "birth"day. haha
Lastly- we had a shower for Caelyn yesterday! I can't tell you how blessed we are to have so many gracious friends! It was a tremendous blessing! Caelyn has clothes for the next year ad toys for life! haha. Thank you everyone who helped out, came, or gave anything. We truly appreciate all of it! She's gonna be so excited!


Thanks!
In Him,
Chelsey :)