a day in Beijing

Well, I wanted to take a minute before we head out for the day and first tell you how wonderful it is to hear from each of you here in China! (Yes, that is an exclamation point, Barton, and there will be many more!!) I am so excited to be here. I can't quite describe the feeling. I find myself staring out the window at the people doing their morning exercises, and I am so intrigued about them and their life. I know we have not seen or experienced much yet, but I am so ready to embrace my daughters home. I have never felt such peace or certainty over anything in my whole life! It is such a peaceful confidence of being right in the moment you are to be in by Divine design. My biggest crisis has been not having a hairdryer this morning. :) What a crisis. Depending on the situation with the hair it could be major...anyway, I love being here with my "big guys", but I am missing my little men back at home. Thank you to the Shaw's for loving on them. Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers. If you struggle to post you can use my email: amymarnold@comcast.net

We are off to see the Great Wall!!! I cannot wait. Tonight is a big dinner and Chinese acrobats.

3 more days to Libi Faith!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in a constant state of thinking and praying for her, wondering how close in proximity I actually am to her!! I can' think about that too much or I'm going to have to go get her!

We're Here

For two weeks, Amy asked me if I was going to purchase the Economy Plus Access fee that would get us an additional 5" of leg room on the Chicago to Beijing route. I delayed, and Ray Sanders prayed. Guess what? We got the seats for free. We boarded the plane and looked up to see ourselves in the section we nearly paid $700 more sit in. Praise the Lord.

Our drive up to Chicago was excellent, thanks to the Starbucks and fellowship. Don't tell Barton, but we were plenty early, and had time to walk around looking for a movie rental shop. At one point I actually stopped and asked someone for directions. She looked at me as if to say, "You must be outchor mind!" We eventually found one, but neither bought nor rented anything. We grabbed some lunch and boarded the plane. After our praise for the extra leg room we waited on the tarmack and back to the gate for a total of 2 hours of delays. Not to worry, because we really had nothing urgent to do once we arrived. The flight went well overall, we cleared customs quickly, and we were met by Angela, our Beijing based travel coordinator, once clearing through customs.

We are aleady amazed by the people and the culture. We are a little sleepy, fairly hungary, so food and bed sound like great options about now. Thanks for the prayer, love and support. Talk to you all soon.

Libi Faith...here we come!

Little one in purple hearts! What a precious baby!

So here is the timeline....

KEEP IN MIND THAT CHINA IS 13 HOURS AHEAD OF US!!!

May 7th 12:43 PM fly out of O'Hare

May 8th 3:30 PM arrive in Beijing

We will see the sights of Beijing and then we will leave for Fuzhou, the capital city of our sweet little girls province, on the 10th. We arrive in Fuzhou on the evening of the 10th.

May 11th...GOTCHA DAY!!!!!!!!!! Mother's Day, our sweet Libi Faith Jia Qi will be birthed into our arms forever! What a day of rejoicing that will be! It should be in the AM hours. Specifics on that will come later.

Also, on May11th the Olympic Torch is to pass through Fuzhou. Our hope is to see it with our little girl in our arms.

May 12th- 16th we will continue our stay in Fuzhou filing out paperwork.

May 16th or 17th we will head to Guangzhou. Here is where we will finish it all and finalize the adoption.

May 21st fly to Beijing in the morning to spend time at New Day Creations, Libi's foster home.

May 22nd 4:20PM leave Beijing for Chicago...arrive in Chicago one minute later! Figure that one out?

Once again, I find myself at a loss for words to express my gratitude to all of you. The prayers and support continue to blow us away! We have never experienced anything like this. We hope and pray that God will give us opportunity to bless each of you in the way you have blessed us.

I feel like I am taking hundreds with me on this journey. I have said before, God has given us an ARMY! So we go forth to rescue our precious babe, and we take each of you with us. We covet each prayer and look forward to your encouragement while we are in China.

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ."

Ephesians 1:3