T-Minus 4 Days (To Lift-Off)

This is a relatively quick post to keep you up-to-date on the latest and greatest surrounding our impending rendezvous with Xiao Qian:

1. Yesterday I purchased an electronic translator, which has already proven to bring some comic relief to our family. When I brought it home last night, Barret and I tested it out. We were quickly reminded that our Mandarin is deplorable, our writing of Chinese characters completely debauched, and we're totally tone-deaf when it comes to deciphering the four Mandarin intonations. Xiao Qian will either laugh her head off at listening to and watching us, or she'll completely fall apart wondering who these goofballs are that are now her immediate family.
2. Tomorrow night our wonderful son, Austin, and his sweet wife, Meagan, arrive from Colorado to stay at our home and hold down the fort in our absence. We keep telling them how over-the-top appreciative we are of their sacrifice and love. What a tremendous thing they're doing. And they keep telling us it's no big deal, but they may feel differently in a couple of weeks. (Poppy and Willow, and Barret, are really looking forward to seeing them. What an answer to prayer.)
3. Thursday I travel with Austin to his satellite office in San Jose to drop him off while I go to Palo Alto, CA to pitch some new business for our firm, Hines. We'll have a lot of good time in the car to catch up and just pray for one another. I'm really looking forward to that. Victoria will have the whole day to give Meagan the "lay of the land" around our household.
   
4. On Thursday evening we'll have a nice meal together (we'll have everyone but Annie - boo hoo). I am hopeful that we'll be able to dedicate some time in prayer together and commit our next two-plus weeks into God's care. We'll probably finish up our packing that evening too.
5. Friday morning we'll get dropped off at BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) for the first leg of countless to get us to the other side of the globe and back. Our flight leaves at 11:44 a.m. from San Francisco International Airport and arrives in Hong Kong at 6:35 p.m. the next day (their time, which is 2:25 a.m. - PST - our time). It's almost a 15 hour flight, so it's long and grueling (but we've done this before). I think Victoria and I are least looking forward to saying goodbye to Austin, Meagan, Barret, Poppy & Willow that morning (and even Annie all the way from San Luis Obispo).
6. We'll spend the night in Hong Kong that evening, and then have a nice breakfast there and slowly make our way to Guangzhou, China by way of train so that we can get there and check into our hotel on Sunday evening (the middle of your Sunday morning, while you're probably sleeping - which is what we'll wish we were doing right about that time while recovering from copious amounts of jet lag).
7. The next day (our Monday) we'll connect with Xiao Qian between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. our time (that's between 10:00 and 11:00 on Sunday night - PST - for you). So, if there was ever a time to pray (provided you're still up and awake) that would be the time.

I think that's it for now. We'll try to make another post or two before we cross the Pacific Ocean. While in China we're going to do our very best to post Blog entries, but we're told that "Blogger" is blocked. We think we've found a way (through a fellow adopter that's recently returned from China) to circumnavigate the "block" and post anyway. The posts may not look as clean and formatted as the ones from the U.S.A., but at least the information is coming through.

Many thanks to all of you. The flood of support, encouragement and love is starting to become overwhelming. Our facebook accounts are overloaded and we cannot respond fast enough, and sometimes not at all. Please know that's not an indication of our appreciation and gratitude.

We love you all,