Almost there!

Melanie is trying to pack for our trip to Hanoi, so I get a shot at my first post here. As most of you probably know, that means you won't get nearly as many of the great personal insights, but you will get the facts.

I believe Melanie last updated everyone shortly after we returned to Ho Chi Minh City. Since we then, everything that had to happen for us to return home on the 4th has occurred flawlessly (largely due to the efforts of Mr Minh and the Dillon staff here in Vietnam). Mya's health check went great, she received her Vietnamese passport, and we were able to be interviewed by ICS in time to schedule a Wednesday flight to Hanoi. We were also able to schedule our final interview for Mya's visa early enough that we should have the visa in hand Friday by 4:00 pm. Lastly, and probably most surprisingly, I was able to walk across the street to the local Vietnam Airlines office and purchase 5 tickets from Hanoi to Tokyo, so we can catch our scheduled flight home Saturday afternoon. That may not sound like much considering that the ticket agent spoke English, but there are apparently some concepts that I just can't seem to articulate well to those of another culture (think one-way travel and adopted child without a passport).

Enough of that, on to the important stuff. Mya is doing great. She is still very fearful of baths, bedtime, and unfamiliar clothing; but, Melanie discovered that a strategically used Oreo helps greatly. Not that we advocate bribing children (unless they are ours), but Melanie amazingly communicated to Mya that if she changed her clothes she would get an Oreo. The little thing stripped immediately and put on clothes that we had been trying to get her into since Thursday.

My biggest short-term concern has been the communication barrier. As I have already mentioned, our non-verbal communications are coming along very well. On top of that, Mya has learned all of our names as well as the English words please, thank you, cookie, walk, breakfast (I think), and ready (to be used to tell me that she is ready for me to repeat something that she found enjoyable). Each day brings a handful of new reasons to believe that she understands us almost as well as Mason and Mallory seem to, so I think we will be just fine. As Melanie said in an earlier post, we are continually reminded in so many ways how covered in prayer we have been, and this is just one more example. Thank you all!!!

Our last hurdle comes in Hanoi as we hope to be interviewed at 2:00 pm Thursday and then receive Mya's visa 24 hours later. If that works, we will board our flight from Hanoi to Tokyo at 11:55 pm Friday, lay over in Tokyo for nine hours, depart Tokyo at 3:00 pm Saturday, and land in Detroit at 1:30 pm Saturday.

Hope to see you all soon!