Travel Date: January 1!

It'll be one week tomorrow since we passed court and it'll be two weeks today that we leave for Ethiopia! Wow! We were originally told our embassy date was January 14 but that is Ethiopian New Year so it has been moved to January 7, which happens to be Ethiopian Christmas. What a whirlwind. Instead of having 4 1/2 weeks till travel we now have two and of course, our Christmas falls in the middle so I am trying to prepare for this trip, gather paperwork, Christmas shop, home school, and oh yeah, make dinner, do laundry, vacuum, grocery shop, work out...I could go on and on. Hey, and I'm not stressed. Not yet at least. Next week, who knows.
Adrian and I made the difficult decision today not to take the girls with us. We tried everything we could think of to make it work but it wasn't enough. Our tickets are $1800+ each and to take the three of them would have wiped out our savings. Once upon a time I would have been willing to do that but now with the economy so shaky it just wouldn't be wise. It breaks my heart though. They prayed every day and night that we would be able to go as a family. This week Teagan put a $5 dollar bill in our adoption jar. "Do you know what I want more than money, Mom," she said to me. I was afraid to ask as I saw her standing with that jar in her hand. "I want this adoption." I had to turn away I was going to cry. Henley asks every day how much money we have. She more than the other two wants to go so badly. "Do we have enough money, Mom, do we have enough money?" I don't have the heart to tell her no, we don't. I don't know why we didn't get any grants. I don't know why all our fundraising efforts fell short. I don't know why God doesn't want them to go. It's hard to write this even now because it hurts so much to think of leaving them behind when they've been as much a part of this as I have. I want them to be with us when we see Rowan for the first time. I want them to see where he comes from. I want, I want, I want. It doesn't matter what I want. It doesn't matter what they want. Some prayers get answered the way we hope they will and some don't. This one didn't. Oh how it hurts. I know I have to trust God about this and I do but I sure don't understand. I suppose that is what trusting God is all about though; leaning on him when you can't see and don't understand. It is so hard though to watch a child (or two) try to be brave and try to fight back tears and have no words of comfort for them. I cried myself.