What a difference a day makes

On Tuesday, we made final decisions on which flights to purchase and to leave the girls home. My sister also decided to remain home to help care for the girls (bless her heart!). We were leaving on Oct 9 and returning on Oct 24. On Wednesday, I had a meeting with our SW to go over paperwork and she started the meeting by telling me she just got off the phone with the China coordinator in Grand Rapids. They were hoping we purchased adoption fares...

Apparently, Liaoning now requires families to be in province for 10 days rather than the standard 5. That means, in order to make our Consulate Appointment on Oct 22 We need to be in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, no later than noon on Oct 10. In order to make that, we need to fly out no later than the 8th. However, there is not a flight out on the 8th that guarantees we will be in province when we need to be. Therefore, we are now leaving on Sunday, Oct 7. We will fly to Beijing, arriving about 9:30 p.m. and overnight there. We will catch a flight out the next day, the 9th, around 3:00 p.m. to Shenyang, putting us there in good time to make our deadline. We will not tour Beijing at all.

It is a wonderful thing when God shows you why he asked you to make a difficult decision you did not want to make. He has given us a reason to be thankful we chose not to bring the girls. If we had, we would have bought non-adoption fare tickets (much cheaper) that would have steep penalties for changes. My sister would have paid even more with the penalties for a trip that already was more than she expected, and she would have been gone even longer from work, and she would not have seen the part of China she was probably most looking forward to -- everything in Beijing. The girls would have missed more school.

So, what a difference in our travel plans a day has made. It is too bad that we will miss sightseeing in Beijing and meeting up with our Bethany travel group there. But, as Steve said "that's not why we are going to China." We will still get a chance to be with the group in Guangzhou. But the best part is that we will have Zach on the 10th (most likely) or the 11th (rather than the 14th/15th)! We will have him for 2 weeks while in China!

God is good. God has plans that are perfect.