Our Cramazing May, Episode IV

On the morning of May 14, we woke up bright and early (Okay, it probably wasn't that early; then again, I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep!) to finish up the packing and be gone on our incredible adventure.  There was so much to do still, in spite of all the work and prep we had already done.  Packing for that many people who were going to be in such different places was quite challenging:  Neil with 2 families, one where he needed school uniforms and the other where he didn't; Beth with my parents; Rex with us in 3 different climates; our clothes, and, of course, clothes for Tom in three different sizes!

Thankfully, our faithful and available friend and intern, Noel, came over to help with the kiddos and with just about anything I asked of her.  I can't even remember all that she did now, but all I can say is THANK YOU!  Noel, you blessed us so much that day...it was fun having you around to cheer me on and you were super duper helpful!  I can't even say how helpful....we probably would have left a lot later than our already-late leave time of 3 p.m.

One of the things that Noel did that day is that she became our chief photographic documentarian.  Here are some of the images that she captured....

C000847 was Tom's passport application number.  Here, I am pointing to India's passport application update website and noting that it says, "Passport has been granted and is expected to be dispatched by 20-05-2011.  Subject to all documents being in order."  It was a very big deal when it was updated to this status from the previous one, which had said, "Application has been received and is expected to be dispatched by 10-05-2011.  Subject to all documents being in order."  The date was 10 days later, but in the newer update, it actually stated that the passport had been granted.  Now all we needed to do was to get there and find it!  I had gotten very familiar with this passport website, so much so that I am pretty sure that I knew more about it than the Indian passport official we eventually spoke to.

Our travel partner, Scott, helped me to make our hotel reservations for our arrival in India.  For some reason, I was having trouble, and Scott and his expertise with all things business-in-India came in quite helpful even early on.  A sign of things to come.  I spent moments in between packing doing all sorts of last-minute computer things as they would come to mind.

By this time, I had moved upstairs to print.  The Hub was busy, too--paying bills, organizing things for while we were gone, making sure we had our traveler's checks, etc.  We were in task mode for sure!

I had the thought that maybe I should print out a screen-shot of Tom's application status from the Indian passport website.  This became a very important piece of the puzzle on the day we appeared in person at the passport office.  I am so grateful that the Lord gave me the idea to do this, as I'm not sure that we would have been able to move forward in the process without it.

After printing Tom's, I decided to print a screen-shot of L's application status as well.  Later, it would be extremely important that I had paid close attention to her application as well as to Tom's.  Praising God for making me just a little bit OCD about stuff like this!  ;)  I say that tongue-in-cheek, but the reality is that every member of our travel group had strengths that came in handy and that God used to bring our children home.

Another thing we had to do was to print out a copy of our Show Hope grant application, as it had to be mailed before we took guardianship of Tom.  We were blessed to receive a grant from Show Hope (Shaohannah's Hope at the time) when we were adopting Neil, and we are praying that God will use them to again provide for some of our unexpected travel costs.  Either way, though, we love Show Hope, as they are a blessing to so many families and have been used to bring so many orphans around the world into forever, loving, God-centered homes.

Here is our packing list, with lots of it crossed off!  We would buy the food once we got to my hometown.  Mom and I needed to have a reason to go to Target after all!

 Many bags!

 Rex and Beth spent lots of time on the couch that day watching Saturday morning (and afternoon) cartoons.

The Bible to the left of our wedding picture and bouquet belonged to Thomas, paternal grandfather of Hoffbeast.  Thomas was an immigrant from Ireland and a minister of the gospel.  Tom is named partly after his great-grandfather Thomas and partly after Thomas the apostle, who is oft-credited with first taking the Good News of Jesus to India.

At 3 p.m., we locked the door and headed out.  Rex and Beth were safely situated in the car seats, and Noel, Jeff, and I stood at the car and prayed.  We prayed that God would protect us, that He would provide for our needs, that He would go before us with the passport officials, that Tom would bond well to us.  It was a special time, anticipating that there would be a time a few weeks from then, when we would stand in the same place, holding our son and introducing him to our neighbors.

It happened.  It really did.