Our agency received our travel approval yesterday! They have already requested our consulate appointment, according to the travel options we were given yesterday morning. With that information sent, we should hear back from the consulate Monday or Tuesday of next week - at which point we'll know for sure when we're traveling and finally be able to book our flights. We may be leaving two weeks from tomorrow, and meeting Ellie just a few days after that!
We also have a terrific opportunity to help the Hope Foundation, the charity that has cared for Ellie since last summer and provided her with expert surgical care and lots of TLC. There is a woman named Rebecca who lives in Tennessee and is the U.S. contact for the Hope Foundation. She has some medical supplies that need to be sent to China, and it is far more economical (and secure) to have travelers bring them over as baggage than to ship them. So once we're certain of our travel plans, Rebecca will ship us a couple of suitcases full of much-needed medical supplies, and a Hope staff member will meet us at the airport in Beijing to pick them up and take them to the Hope Healing Home. We wish we could visit the Healing Home in person, but since we are traveling with a group (and probably not spending that much time in Beijing), it seems unlikely that we'll be able to do that. But we're very pleased to have a chance to help them in a tangible way.
Woo-hoo!!!!!!
ReplyDelete