Journey to the other side of the world...

If you are following my blog, you have realized by now, that I did not write the whole story leading up to the present. The post before this one shares the VERY IMPORTANT news we received on May 4, 2010. Now back to my story...

Just days before the departure date of the trip, I raised enough money to buy my plane ticket. I had to fly alone since I got my ticket so late, but I would meet the rest of the team in Taiwan. After two days of flying (to S. Korea, and then on to Taiwan) I arrived a few hours before my team. When they arrived, Linda came to pick us all up. I got to ride in Linda's car with her along with one other teammate because there wasn't enough room in the taxi. Even this was ordained.

I asked Linda how she came to Taiwan--how she came to be a missionary in this country. As I remember it, she explained that she had come to Taiwan with a heart for children and came to work in an orphanage. My heart leapt. "An orphanage!" I exclaimed. Then, realizing I had rudely interrupted her, I refrained and listened to the rest of her story. When she finished, I asked if the orphanage still existed. She informed me that it did, indeed, but was run by someone else now, a missionary couple named the Skiles. Disoriented from having been awake for over 24 hours, I began, "You might think I'm crazy, but I had a dream..." I explained the dream in detail. When I finished she responded with something like, "I don't know that I believe in dreams--who am I to say God can't speak through them. However, you are on a bridge right now!" Dumbfounded, I asked, "What do you mean?" "Well," she continued,"first of all, we are driving on a bridge, but, the county I live in, where you will be staying is 'Banciao.' 'Banciao' is 'The City of Bridges.' You can't go anywhere without crossing a bridge here." The cold chills came again, as did the tears. I knew God had something planned, but I did not want to jump ahead and try to figure it out. So I waited.

This just in…
Today, while I was at work, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. I silenced it, then realized, it might be Taiwan. I called back and ran into the teacher’s office. Ted Skiles answered saying it was time to discuss a baby. He wanted to know if it was a good time of if he should call back. I told him it was fine. We have been waiting—anticipating this, I couldn’t wait another second! (Brandon is out of state and we had discussed a plan for when/if we got the call while apart.)
Ted said, We have a baby girl here. She was born March 13th at 6:20AM—on my birthday. She was 6 lbs, 5 oz. and, let’s see here, 20 in. long. So she was tall and thin.” Through joyful tears, I exclaimed that she sounded perfect and we are both tall and thin! He proceeded to tell me more information about her background and birth parents. I listened intently. Then he paused and asked, “So, do you want her?” Surprised, I exclaimed, “YES! Yes, of course, yes, we want her. Yes.”
It took me over an hour to reach Brandon. I sent the message through the leadership school’s department that he needed to call me because I had urgent news. When he called, I told him we had a baby. Then I told him we had a baby girl. As any loving Daddy would, he choked up and told someone on the other end, “It’s a baby girl!”
Meet our little Princess, Mei Li…