We Leave To China Tomorrow!!!

I wanted to let you all know that we leave tomorrow for China. We leave late tomorrow night and will be flying LAX to Hong Kong. The flight is 14 hours and then once we get into Hong Kong we then take a 3 hour flight to Beijing. We are going to Beijing to acclimate to the time change as well as to do some sight seeing. We actually loose over a day in flight so we don’t get to Beijing until Thursday and then we leave to go to Changsha, Hunan on Sunday (about a 2 hour flight). We check into our hotel on Sunday and then Monday morning we get Mia (Gotcha Day). The area she is from (Yueyang County) is about a 2 hour drive from where we will get her. She will have been taken from her foster parents that morning and then put on a long van ride to Changsha with nannies and then will be presented to us that morning. It will be a horribly hard day for Mia as all she will have ever known will be ripped away from her. She will now be with these people that don’t speak her language and don’t look like her that she is totally unfamiliar with. Not only will she be mourning the loss of her foster parents (the only people she has ever known to be mommy and daddy since the day she was born and placed with them) but she will also be totally confused. Please pray for her and this difficult day.

After "Gotcha Day" we will stay in Changsha to finalize the adoption in China's eyes. On May 26 we will fly from Changsha to Guanzhou (about 1 hour flight) where we stay to finalize the adoption in the United States eyes. We have medical exams and a US consulate appointment and a swearing in ceremony. We stay there for 6 days and on June 1 we fly from Guanzhou to Hong Kong (little hop lie 20 min flight) and then fly Hong Kong to LAX and arrive before we left at 2:20pm on Friday June 1.

This has been a long process full of bumps and turns and finally we are at the point where we are actually going to get our little girl. Please pray for this whole journey. Pray for safe travel and that Kev and I will adjust to the time change well. Also pray for Mia that this will be as easy on her as it can be. Remember, we have had 2 years of prep and anticipation but she has known nothing. Please pray for her and the adjustment and to help her through the grieving phase. Also, the boys are not traveling with us and will be with my parents and kevs parents the whole time. Please pray that they will do well and that they will feel comforted. This is very hard to do leaving the boys for so long. They have mixed feelings in that they are excited that we are going to pick up their little sister but they don’t want to be apart from them for so long. Pray for comfort and that they will feel connected to us through phone and video (we have a live video feed- skype- on our computer and they will be able to see us live--cool). Also pray for the childcare in general. Pray that all the people involved that the whole 2.5 weeks will work out well.

Anyway, please follow our journey on our blog. Everyday we will be posting pictures and video of our day. You can follow our journey on this blog. If we have trouble posting on our blog we have a backup site at

www.bock.redthreadkids.org

Thanks for all your prayers and we can’t wait to get our Mia home. Thanks again and we will see you all soon.

Love tons,

Kevin and Christy :)