Minor and Major Crisis Averted

No kidding. As I mentioned in an earlier post, today (our Wednesday) started with sitting in the room while Connie (the guide) took our paperwork to the US Consulate for our Visa appointment. “If you don’t hear from me by 10:30 (pronounced tin sirty) everything OK…you can go do whatever you want until 2:00 when we leave for oath.” So at 10:28 the phone rings. “Kevin, there is a wrong date on the English translation of the adoption registration…we must to go to office around the corner to fix and take with us this afternoon…should be ok.” Well, in the process of fixing the date that 5 different people missed when checking our documentation, Connie noticed an error on the original certificate (Chinese version) as well, which 4 Chinese people checked. “Hopefully they won’t notice that mistake this time either BECAUSE WE HAVE TO MAIL BACK TO BEIJING, THEY HAVE TO FIX AND MAIL BACK…AND IT’S ALMOST CHINESE NEW…” Connie literally trailed off when she saw my face come to the realization that she was saying MORE TIME in China. You want to talk about a few hours of begging, pleading, on the knees, in the shower, on the bus prayer time…this was it folks. And all our prayer warriors at home were worthless to

us…seems like all you people do is sleep . It felt like just us against all of China. BUT, we had a secret weapon on our side…yep…our great, Holy, magnificent God. Connie threw us a quirky, doubtful look as she walked up to the window to take care of our discrepancy prior to the oath. A few seconds later she turned around and gave the universal OK signal (two big thumbs up). Marcie & I screamed a little bit and gave each other a huge hug…as the other 4 Madison families began to wonder what was up. They were dumbfounded that we hadn’t been in tears the entire trip over to the consulate (so were we a little bit). But in

the end, God provided again, as He has done soooo many times before (and particularly on this trip). Thanks to anyone who might have been thinking about or praying for us, or just felt like something might be wrong somewhere in the world and said a prayer for whatever it was around 1:00 AM Wednesday (Paducah time)…when the people behind the glass wall said OK and Connie whirled around with her thumbs up!!! Whew.

18 down…3 to go. Blessed by every step.

Maggie is still doing wonderful and just gets sweeter and more beautiful by the minute (as evidenced by the picture…just before the eyes disappear when she smiles ).