Blessings From God

Hello everyone back home!

Before we tell you about our visits yesterday, we have great news! We received an e-mail telling us we received a grant from a group that is helping to defray our travel costs! Praise the Lord!

We are getting adjusted to the time change and rested from travel, thankfully. God is awesome! We had been sure that we would not get the children in our custody until after the mandatory 10 day wait following the court hearing. However, a new law has gone into place and we may actually get to have them with us during that time in the hotel. However we won't be able to leave the hotel area, since it is not “official” that they are our children until after the 10-day period. We talked it over, and decided that we still wanted to ask for them, since that will give us that time to get better at communication prior to travel.

Yesterday, when we saw the children, we thought that the oldest was a bit sad talking to the interpreter. When I asked about this, our interpreter said that it was just that it is hard for her when we come and leave again, that she is ready to come with us! What a relief; I had thought she might be sad about leaving her friends and everyone she knows.

After court on Monday, instead of going directly to the orphanage as previously planned, we will have an opportunity to do the shopping we thought we would do during the 10-day period, and then pick up the kids on Tuesday. We will be able to buy shoes for our kids, as well as the items for the other children with the generous donations from the church folks back home.

We met a couple who were adopting a baby from the baby home near the orphanage our children are at. We enjoyed talking with them and hearing how God worked in their lives in much the same way as he has ours. They are adopting a little girl with a cleft lip and palette which they have already gotten plans for surgeries to correct. They had court yesterday, and got the 10-day wait waived, so they will be able to finish up and head home shortly. We are so happy for them and their daughter! She looks like she is about 6 months younger than she really is, due to her difficulty in eating. We met another adoptive family in the motel who has custody of their new little boy during the 10 day wait. He is also about 6 months behind his actual age in proportion, but so cute!

Another blessing: we were given the big suite at the hotel at no extra charge! We are so grateful, especially now that we will have the children with us for most of the time here.

We got to visit a small Russian Orthodox Church yesterday, but were unable to go inside since we weren't dressed appropriately (didn't know we would have this opportunity beforehand). Tony was able to purchase a couple of cross pendants to give to Big Sister and Little Sister later on as a keepsake from their birth country. We will have to come up with something for our little boy! We also went to a small museum and then flew through a Chinese market, just to see what it was like! It was nice to walk around in the beautiful weather and compare the flowers here to those at home. We ate at at little restaurant which was western themed, but served pizza as the main dish. It was very good actually! We stopped at a grocery store to get some bottled drinks, and I got two small bottles of water, only to find later that I had gotten the kind that was carbonated “with gas”! Tony laughed and assured us that the large bottle he bought for the room was without gas, but alas, it was carbonated as well! We are learning!

As you see, God continues to bless us in a multitude of ways, and it is an exciting thing to rely on him and see the amazing things he does.