Off to South Africa

This morning at 3:30 AM Alan and Kirsten departed the Rieck home for South Africa. They left Eau Claire at 4:00 AM and should arrive in Cape Town, South Africa around 1:00 PM our time tomorrow. Long trip...

Please be praying for their safety and that they would be a light of the glory of God to everyone around them. Also pray for my peace of mind (which hasn't been a problem so far) and safety for Andrew and I as we are visiting grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousin Matthew during the week that Alan and Kirsten are gone.

You are more than welcome to view the trip blog at WOCOsouthafrica.blogspot.com

Whirlwind of Activity

Crazy days!! Now that we have received our RA, we wait for the TA. In the process, however, we are now allowed to send some things to Jadon. One of the things that we hope to send this week is a small picture book with pictures of the family and the house. One of the pictures that we hope to send of the house is of the room that he and Andrew will share. In order for it to be accurate, we needed to paint the room the color that Andrew selected (blue to match Penn State). Guess what we did this weekend!!

On top of all that, Kirsten and Alan leave for South Africa (and 33 hours of travel) on Thursday morning at 4 AM. Lots to do to prepare for that as well. Please be praying for them and Alan's choir on this trip from March 12-22. If you wish to follow that journey, you may check out the trip blog: http://wocosouthafrica.blogspot.com/

Pray also for Ruth and Andrew as the family is separated during this time. We have come to really enjoy being together and will miss that during the trip.

We have our RA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Waiting for a child you know is yours is harder than I even imagined it would be. It has been about two months since we sent our EA (Electronic Acceptance) to China, requesting that Jadon become our son. Today, around one o'clock I received a call from our family coordinator stating that our RA (Referral Acceptance) arrived from China. What this means is that we now know that Jadon will be home in a very short time!!! We should receive the RA paperwork in the next couple of days and will have yet something more that we need to sign and return. Once our agency receives the paperwork from us China will be contacted and the orphanage will be given permission to inform Jadon that he has a family waiting for him. (This is so encouraging for my heart. I have grieved him not being able to know!)

Our next step is to wait for a TA (Travel Approval) to come from China. At that point we will be free to travel to get him. Our agency guesstimates that we will probably travel between mid- to late April. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!! Alan may be right...he will be on three different contintents within a month!!!

Please pray for our continued perseverance in the process. We still have over a month to wait until we will be able to hold him! Also be praying that God will provide the money necessary to complete the adoption. We have some monies available in our Eternal Family account with our agency (AWAA), but it is not enough for travel and for all the final expenses our family needs to complete the process. We estimate that we are still around $7000 short of what is needed. As we have prayed we have felt assured that God has in mind how He will provide....we just don't know it yet!! We are currently working with our church to make arrangements for a support mechanism for this--stay tuned!!