Il Postino

Hallelujah, our letter has arrived!

Aisha, our adoption coordinator at HOPE, called today to say she got our LOA (letter of acceptance) from China.

And there was great rejoicing!

Once we sign and send it back to her, it heads to China, and we begin our wait for Travel Approval from the Consulate in Guangzhou. Lately travel approval has taken about 3 weeks.

Special note: There is a worldwide Trade Show in Guangzhou from April 15-30. Travel into or out of that city to finalize adoptions at the Consulate would be impossible. Therefore, Jason and I would not be able to get into Guangzhou until that first weekend in May.

So this is theoretically how things MIGHT go (please keep in mind this is dependent on travel permission being granted in 3 or 4 weeks):

• Week of April 20th – head to Beijing to sightsee for several days. See the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, etc. Eat lots of spicy noodles. If we can swing it, we’ll also visit the city of X’ian, where the Terracotta Warriors were found. Amazing historical site.



• Week of April 27th – We’d head to Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province. Zhengzhou is 2½ hours from Dang Yong’s orphanage in Nanyang. We would meet Yong at the Civil Affairs office, and he would stay with us from then on in!!! Sometime during that week, we would (hopefully) be allowed to visit his orphanage, collect stories and pictures of his life there.



• Week of May 4th – From Zhengzhou we’d head to Guangzhou, the capital city of China, and where the Consulate is located. We could theoretically have our Consulate Appointment on May 5 and our swearing in as Yong’s parents on May 6.

Then we’d head home to begin Phase II of our great adventure…