One week!!!

Okay - we'll be in Colorado to get the girls in ONE WEEK. We leave next Saturday morning, and will get into town around 2:00 or so. The going away party for Nikki and Emily is scheduled for around 4:00, where they'll get to say goodbye to the members of their adoption team along with their teachers and friends from school. Speaking of school, they'll start this coming Wednesday at their school in Colorado. It's nice, because they'll get a chance to make some closure with their friends there (the ones who won't be able to make it to the party on Saturday, that is) before starting up at a new school here in Washington.

Some prayer requests come to mind - please pray as you feel led:

Transitions. For all the hoopla and grandiosity going on, and despite the fact the girls are finally coming to their forever home, we still have to remember that they are eight and ten years old, and that while transitions are often difficult for adults, they can be mind-bending for kids.

Spiritual Protection. We spent the better part of our time in the van playing the 2005 Vacation Bible School CD, which I've written about at length. The girls attended not one, but two VBS's, back to back, two weeks ago. Many, many seeds have been sown in that fertile soil - pray that they would be given a chance to grow.

Special Protection. For reasons of confidentiality, I'm not going to go into any details with this, but suffice it to say the Lord knows what kind of risk I'm referring to. It is definitely short-term, and (very most likely) lacking any real power. But still.

Final Preparations. The girls' bedroom is done, the garage sale to sell off the baby stuff is done (as of 42 minutes ago, in fact), the new flowers and landscaping are in in the front, and the family room carpet has been steam-cleaned. There's still so much more to do, much more than I'd care to list.

Travel Safety. The ever-present bugaboo of getting places in a timely manner in one piece. We drove down to Colorado to see the girls; to bring them home, we're flying. It'll be Nikki's first flight, Emily's second. We'll be chasing the sun home, arriving in Portland about 6:30 Sunday night, which means there'll be plenty of daylight left for them to see their new home with. (I'm overcome at the moment with visions of millions of Israelites crossing over into the Promised Land... although, since moving to Vancouver from Southern California in 1995, I've come to think of this place as just that myself).

Time as a family. My school year starts on the 29th, the day after Emily and Nikki get home. I'm going in that first day, then taking the rest of the week off so we can be together. (We only go four days that week anyway, so it's not so bad, missing three days - my contract says I'm allowed up to A YEAR OFF for an adoption, so I figure I'm being quite reasonable and professional only taking three days). Pray that our time together would be good and profitable for us as a family, and that my classroom wouldn't spin off its axis without its teacher for three of the first four days of school.

That's about it for now. Love and peace to all.