What a Week!

Monday was our 7th Anniversary. Matt's brother, David, offered to take Emma for the day so that we could spend the day alone. What a gift! We saw Toy Story 3 (with our free passes) in the morning. We both cried. Loved it! Then went to PF Chang's for lunch. Loved it! Then went to Ikea to buy some fun things for our new home in Kigali. Loved it! Then went to Coldstone for dinner. Loved it! What a super day!

Tuesday I was up bright and early making phone calls. I ordered copies of our medical records to take with us. Made appointments for our Yellow Fever and Hep A vaccinations. FYI to anyone adopting from Rwanda-you need a Yellow Fever vaccination card to get off the plane in Kigali. They are pricey. $450 for all 3 of us! We were also able to get a Passport appointment that morning to expedite Emma's passport book. We should get it back within 2 weeks. We also spent most of Tuesday sending out support letters. We need to raise about $1800/month to cover living expenses/travel/Emma's preschool, etc.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent sorting boxes of everything we own. We rented a 17' Uhaul and moved everything to Matt's parents' church in Escondido for the yard sale. Friday and Saturday we spent selling pretty much everything that we own. We were able to raise $2200! We will be keeping a 5x10 storage unit in town to keep some special things in while we are living in Africa.

Next week is the HUGE task of narrowing things down to 6 suitcases of 50lbs each! Any additional bags are $200 each. We are probably going to end up paying for at least 1 additional bag. We think it will be cheaper to just check the extra bag instead of trying to ship things over or pay huge amounts of money for things there. We have been told that children's books are hard to find and when you do find them they are really expensive. Anyone who knows Emma knows that books are her favorite thing. So, we will be taking a secret stash of new books to pull out over the next 10 months...puzzles, too!

Our flights are booked! We are flying out early on August 2 from LAX. We plan to go up to LA on August 1 and stay near the airport because Matt's dad is having surgery on the 2nd. We will fly from LA to DC to Brussels and then finally to Kigali. I think it is 21 hours our actual air time not counting the layovers and time changes.

Please continue to pray for our support to come in and for our car to sell. We don't want to have to continue to cover a car payment while we are not even using it. Plus, it is more support that will need to be raised each month if it doesn't sell. Those are the 2 big things right now.

But again, God is in control!