We have made a decision about the house - it is getting listed! We have a trusted relator who feels we should put the house on the market mid-February. Yikes! That is only 2 weeks away! There is no way my house will be ready to be listed in 2 short weeks. We are looking for a possession date of July 1, 2012. I would really love to remain in this house until the end of the school year. I'm not sure I will budge on the possession date. I have started a mini online/Facebook garage sale of our 'not needed now' items. We have to sell everything. Nothing can really be moved with us. I have some things put in my parents basement, but not much. I cant believe we are going from a 2400 square foot home (including basement) full of 'stuff' to only keeping what will fit in a 10' x 4' corner of my parents basement. I must admit, it feels REALLY freeing to sell/give my things to others. I am feeling less stressed, the kids are actually playing with what toys I have not taken away and I feel happy! Me. The 'pack rat'. Happy to purge. Yay me!
This past month we have finalized our partnership list and our partnership letter. They should be in the mail by the end of the weekend (some have been hand delivered). We thought we had the letter finalized the other week. So, I had Andrew go and make 250-odd copies. We gave some out. Then we talked to the ICC office in Vancouver and they said we needed to make some wording changes - the content was fine, just a few words needed to be changed. Easy enough, true. But, the other letters were printed and stuffed in envelopes. Now I had to un-stuff all the envelopes, print more copies of the final final letter and re-stuff all the envelopes. I un-stuffed, Andrew re-stuffed. Now there are 200-odd envelopes ready with the proper letter just waiting for address labels and stamps. I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.
This month also had me looking into renewing our passports. I am going away next week, so my passport has to wait until I return on Feb 13. The twins passports have to wait until I get the paper stating their new legal name so I can then get them new birth certificates with their names on it. So, 50% of us can get new passports. I wanted to be able to do them all at once, but I dont know how long it will take for the twins names to be legally changed. Oh well. Another lesson in patience.
We need the passports for me & Andrew done quite quickly, but I know thats not going to happen now. We need to have everything together for our visa applications in place by April 1, 2012. We need to get all our paperwork to Vancouver by the first week or so in April. There are a few people from ICC in Vancouver going to Changsha mid-April. They will carry our documents into the country and hand deliver them to Ruth. Much safer then mailing them! We hope to enter the country on a work visa rather then a traveler's visa.
We have continued with our Mandarin lessons. We have a basis of what is going on, but thats about all. I am sure when we are immersed in the language we will pick it up quickly. At least I'm hoping.
I think that is where we are right now. House for sale. New passports in the works. Letters ready to mailed (almost). Visa requirements getting checked off the list. Slowly, but surely, things are getting done. Yet, there is still a million things left to do.
Prayer requests as of today:
- Peace for us all in this stressful, exciting phase of preparation
- That those receiving letters will have an open heart and mind when reading them
- For Brendin & Jacquelyn - they are not too eager to move (I dont blame them). Peace for them.
- Health for all our kids - Satan is attacking them with sickness to get me & Andrew off track for preparing for this move - having to take care of sick/cranky kids keeps us away from getting China stuff done
- That we will remain united as a family and continue to what God is asking us
Thanks, again, for support and for reading. Love you all!!
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