November 19, 2007

Before I begin to update you all on this weekend’s activities, I would like to say thank you for your prayers, love, support, phone calls and comments on the blog. As much as many of you look forward to reading the updates, we also look forward to hearing from you either by phone or by blog. After being away from home for 10 days, we are feeling very homesick. Everything that you need to do here seems so much more difficult than at home, i.e. washing/drying clothes, going from one place to another, cooking. Thankfully, the Wests showed us how to dry clothes using a heater and a clothes rack and they will dry within a couple of hours (much more quickly than in the 30-40 degrees of the outside). Not many individuals own cars here. Transportation is in the form of a hired driver/car, bus, or trolley. The bus is cheaper, by far, but you must walk to the bus stop (very good exercise when weather is good-not fun in the rain). My heart goes out to those who must live here. But, I guess that they do not know about all of our conveniences of life. We are so spoiled and are not used to being without all of our comforts. Here, many of their needs are not even met, or must be postponed until enough money is saved up.
This weekend we were able to spend a lot of time with all 4 children and enjoyed it immensely. Denis was able to translate for us most of the time, which is very helpful. We are able to communicate only the most basic things without a translator. Bobby and I have been laughed at so much by coming out with the wrong item when they asked for something. Our new son (SV) is so easy-going and was very reserved, rarely smiling. That is changing and he loves just to be around us. He is very respectful, is motivated to learn English and wants to please us. If we are in another room, he will seek us out. Our new daughter, (K) is a very head-strong little girl. We have already had a battle of the wills on a couple of occasions, complete with pouting and stomping of feet!!! However, she is able to get out of these spells quickly and is all smiles again. K is a very picky eater but SV eats until everything from the table is gone. He loves ketchup (an understatement since he likes his food swimming in it). He is a very strong, muscular boy and is definitely going to take after his papa in many respects!!! Even Larissa has made remarks about it and I think that SV is in awe of his papa. We wonder what these children think/say about us. Will they change their minds about being adopted? We don’t think so as the kids are beginning to loosen up as they are around us more and get to know us. We can tell that K is not sure about Bobby. When he tries to touch her or talk to her she backs away. However, that is slowly improving and yesterday she offered him some of her snack and took her picture with him.
Our friends, the Hartsock’s, arrived yesterday and it was so good to see someone from home again. We all, together with their 2 boys, our 4 kids, Nina, Marina, Yana (English teacher), and Yana (their facilitator) ate pizza and had a great time visiting. The boys got into arm wrestling matches (guess who won those?).
We have many great pictures but do not want to put these on the blog until after our court date. We hope this will occur by the end of next week.
We should find out more about Y’s adoption status today but we are not overly worried as we have a peace about the situation and know that it is all in God’s timing and according to God’s purposes.
We love you all and miss you!!!

Matthew 6:25-34