The Village

Merry Orthodox Christmas!  Since we were not allowed to visit our boys today, we went for a stroll around the village.  If ever there was a prime location for a prayer walk, this is it.  This is a fascinating place to visit.  I have always wanted to travel.  And not just to travel, but to see real life, away from the big cities and the tourist attractions.  Well, let me tell you, we have found real life here.  This is a very poor village in a rural area of the country.  On our walk to visit our boys each day, we attract many curious stares from the locals as we wind our way through narrow muddy streets, seemingly walking in circles, looking for the landmarks that will tell us where to go at each fork in the road.  Let's see . . . do we veer left after the slave market or right?  And if we go down this road, skirting around that giant pothole/mud puddle, and past the Muslim Temple, will that get us to the road with the sheep?  And then we look for the dome of the Orthodox Church . . . I am just glad we brought a compass, because it is easier to get turned around than you might think!  

this may look like an alley, but this is one of the many roads we walk down
to get to the Children's Home to visit our boys

we are told that this plaque explains that this park used to be the town's slave market

more remains from the slave market:  bars still on the door of this creepy
cell . . . ugh . . . gives me the shivers.  The auction block is right across the path

there are a surprising number of small shops downtown with
plenty to choose from . . . we've found a toy store, a clothing store,
an appliance store, a hat store . . . they look quite . . . ahem . . . intimidating
from the outside sometimes, but when we are brave enough to go inside
and try out our pitiful Russian on the shopkeepers, we usually find
ourselves pleasantly surprised by the selection and the service!

stray dogs fighting down the road we usually walk down . . . we decided
to go a different way instead

Lest you think all of the town is in quite so rough of shape, we also
discovered another part of town.  Here there were Soviet-era apartment
buildings in the "nicer" part of town.  Many of the roads were paved here.

There are usually people everywhere, walking right down the middle of the street,
but there were far fewer than normal today because it was Christmas.  So in all
of these pictures, keep in mind that there are normally far more people walking
all over the village than you see here.

This is the nicest house we saw in the entire village, and there
were several houses on this block that were very neat and clean.
Then we got to the next block and it was more
crumbling bricks and mud.

statue in the village square

another very nice home

And then, surrounded by all of that, in the village square, there is some sort
of children's carnival set up.  We are assuming it is only here for the holidays?
I am posting these pictures especially for my kids back home, because after
I told them about it, they wanted to see it for themselves!

more of the children's carnival

for a fee, children can drive a vehicle around the square

Sort of a trampoline/bungee jump type of attraction that my kids would LOVE!

The man would pull her down as far as he could before launching the little girl
backup into the air.  And the whole time, Derek was watching and saying,
"I could build something like that . . . "

By the way, if any of you are wondering about the fancy building behind that trampoline, I will tell you more about that in tomorrow's post.  But first here is a video of the trampoline, because my kids asked for it!  :)

And in case if today's photos have painted too bleak a picture of this village,
it actually seems to be a very warm and friendly place.  Everybody
is so helpful here, and forgiving of our total lack of communication abilities.
And there is joy in this village, right alongside the hardship:  this morning I heard
yelling and cheering outside our hotel window.  I stepped out onto the balcony
to see this Christmas Day wedding taking place right across the street from us!  

 Have you ever watched one of those cute European television programs filmed on location in a charming, rural village, populated by eccentric, unforgettable characters?  Those are some of my favorite types of shows.  And I feel like I am walking around on the set of one of those shows.  Like perhaps we are this week's guest stars in a show that really has nothing to do with us.  We are the strange Americans who wandered into town and everybody is glancing at us and then glancing away, wondering what would bring such unusual foreigners to a place so off the beaten path.  


So you may be wondering what sort of a place we may be staying in, after seeing the condition of the rest of the town.  More on that tomorrow!  Until then, Merry Orthodox Christmas from Rachelle and Derek!

Visit Number Three

Visit number three!

It is Christmas Eve here, so we showed up with about two hundred cookies, and tried in our broken Russian to communicate to the nannies that the cookies were for all of the children in the facility.  We also had boxes of chocolates for the nannies.  I hope the message got across!  We even wrote the message down, thanks to Google Translate, and they thanked us profusely, so I think it went all right.  This language barrier is so frustrating!

We also brought some gifts for our boys: pillows and toy dump trucks.  The pillows they were not so impressed with, but then, I wasn't expecting them to be.  It just seemed like something soft and cuddly they could take back to their cribs with them after the visit  was over.  The dump trucks were a huge hit!  The trucks came with colorful stacking blocks in the back, and as soon as Gideon was wheeled into the visiting room, he launched himself out of the wheelchair, ran to me, and laughed with glee as he took his dump truck.  This kid amazes me more every day.  He knew exactly how to play with it!  He dumped the blocks out, loaded them back in, drove the truck around, dumped the blocks, stacked the blocks on the table . . . So much like my Josiah.  Give the boy a truck and he is in heaven!  Those two are going to be quite a pair!

Meanwhile Micah was brought in, crying again.  And again, he quieted down as soon as he was laying down on the couch.  We handed him his truck and told him, "Ma-sheen-ah," and showed him how it worked.  Micah doesn't really play with toys, so he just sort of pushed it away, which is about what I was expecting.  Gideon saw Micah push his truck down to the floor, so he came over, picked it up, and gently put it back into Micah's hands.  Then he sweetly patted Micah's head before returning to his own truck.  Awww!  My boys!  I can't even tell you what it means to me to see this sweet gesture.  Institutional living does not always foster such gentle compassion in children, and I was really not expecting these boys to get along well with each other without a lot of coaching!  This is truly a miracle!  I am not expecting perfection, and I am guessing there will be moments of less-than-beautiful moments between these two, but I can see that they have a bond and that Gideon looks out for Micah.  These boys are meant to be brothers.  

For those of you who may not know, these two boys are both five years old, and Micah is actually a month older than Gideon (although he is much smaller and has far fewer skills currently.)  They are not related biologically, but they have lived in the same orphanage their entire lives, and they were transferred to this institution together.  Their beds are next to each other in their room.  They are just as bonded as if they were brothers biologically.  We are so grateful that God has led us to Micah, as well as Gideon, and that He has orchestrated this entire adoption in order to keep these boys together!

Because it is Christmas Eve, things seemed to be going a bit differently than normal today.  We could hear music playing upstairs, some lively traditional song, and there was a group of children in the hallway, chattering and vocalizing loudly as their nanny led them past.  It was really nice to hear the sounds of children surrounding us today.  It seemed so eerily quiet the first two times we visited.  A children's home ought to have some signs of life, you know?  

As soon as Micah saw us, he broke into his huge grin.  He was really loving the tickles from Daddy today!  And he was so much quicker to respond today!  The first two days he wanted to stay close to his nanny and it took a bit of coaxing to get a grin out of him.  Today he was all smiles!  I just can't get enough of this boy's giggles!

Gideon spied the cookies that we brought, and was reaching for them, so his sweet nanny opened the package and fed him small bites of cookie.  Gideon eats wonderfully, and he is not grabby or desperate for food, either.  He took each bite and chewed and swallowed, then made a little questioning sound as he looked up at his nanny to ask for more.  I was very impressed!  And see the boxes of chocolates on the table in front of him?  He asked for them, and the nanny told him no, and he left them alone after that.  And see that plant behind him?  The first day I could not keep him away from that tree.  All he wanted to do was rip the leaves off and shove them in his mouth.  Today he tried once, and when I said "Nyet," he left it alone and went back to his toys.  What a good little boy he is!  He does not talk, but he is pretty good at communicating!

Micah has little red sores all over his head today.  I have no idea what they are from.  I asked the nanny, by pointing, and she shrugged and explained.  Hmmm.  Still have no idea.  She does not seem very alarmed about it.  See this thing Micah is doing with his hand on his chin?  He does that a lot.  We asked the nanny what it means, when our facilitator was here to interpret, and the nanny said it is something that he is trying to communicate.  They just don't know what.  (Micah does not speak, either.)  He does it very intentionally, while smiling and looking right at you, so it is not a random stimming behavior.  He closes his fist and hits it against his chin, several times in a row.  Sometimes he does both fists, one below the other.  Sometimes he takes my finger in his hand and taps my finger against his chin.  It seems to be a happy sign.  

Today was the first time that Micah let us pick him up.  He is used to laying down in his crib, so being picked up and cuddled is a foreign idea to him.  The first day when we tried this he immediately panicked, pushed himself off of our laps, positioned himself on the couch next to us, and then smiled up at us once he was back on safer ground.  Today he was ready to trust us.  

You can see in this picture that he is sort of smiling, but also sort of pushing away from his papa.  He was about done with the cuddling and ready to lay down on the couch again.  It doesn't take Micah long to become overstimulated.  

Meanwhile, Gideon continued to play with his toys and impress me with his cleverness.  Did you notice that the kids are less bundled up today?  A couple of people asked me in the comments about why the children wear hats and coats inside.  Well, I'm not sure why, but I am told that is the way they do things here!  They believe that children get sick if they are not bundled up like cabbage in the winter months.  The building is heated, and I did not feel cold at all inside, and we are also in the warmest region of this country, where it rarely snows.  The weather right now is blue skies and sunshine, and on the walk to the Children's Home I felt too warm even in my sweater today.  I was so glad that they did not make the boys wear those silly hats and coats today!  It really freed them up to play!

Here is another amazing moment of the day:  Micah was playing with the ball!  The nanny told us that he will not play with toys.  And the first two days, we saw that this was true.  He does not seem to have any idea what to do with a toy.  We did get him to hold a ball on our last visit (you may remember that from Day Two's video?) but he just sort of threw it away from him without even looking where it went or seeming to care.  Well, today, I kept working at it, and trying to encourage him to throw the ball to me, and after a little bit, he actually was seeming to enjoy the game!  This is a look of concentration on his face, by the way, not unhappiness.  We have a long way to go on this, but it was a ray of hope.  We will teach this boy to play!  

I tried to teach Micah to clap his hands today, and he liked it when I clapped his hands, but he did not try to do it by himself yet.  He did sit up a lot during our visit, much more than we have seen the other two days.  He was sitting upright over half of the time we were there, and a lot of that was sitting unsupported, without leaning back against the back of the couch.  We had no idea he could hold his head up for so long!  It is amazing what a little boy can do if somebody gives him a reason to try!

I am your mama, Micah!  I'm sorry it took me so long to get here.  But I am here now!  Look!  He is letting me hold him!

My beautiful little boy!

The nanny offered to take our picture in front of the Christmas tree, but you can see that this was a bit too much for my sweet Micah.  He was trying to deal with it, but by the time she took the picture he was begging us to let him lay down.  Oh well.  First picture with mommy and daddy!  And where is Gideon, you may ask?  Well, about an hour into the visit, before this picture was taken, the nanny announced that it was time for lunch, and she promptly shooed Gideon into his wheelchair and told him his visit was over.  The visits are supposed to be two hours long, but maybe this is different because of the holiday?  Without knowing how to ask, I have no idea if this will always happen or if it was a one-time occurrence.  Gideon was howling with indignation as his toys were taken out of his hands and he was wheeled away.  Poor boy!  He was having so much fun, and then all too suddenly, it was all over.  I did manage to convince the nanny to let him take his pillow and stuffed puppy with him, at least.  

They came back and took Micah a few minutes later, and he also got his pillow and puppy, and he was also royally ticked off to be taken away from the visit.  Micah does not eat with the other children, because he does not eat solid foods.  He still uses a bottle.  He also has a long list of foods he is supposedly allergic to, including dairy, tomatoes, beets, "anything red," and "sweets."  They blend up his soup and put it in a bottle for him (porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and dinner.  They make him a special soup without beets or tomatoes, since the rest of the children eat borscht.  That shows some level of thoughtfulness and individualized care, at least, right?)  They do not know why, and they apparently do not have the resources to take him to a specialist and find out why he cannot eat and why he is not growing or gaining weight.  Obviously, that and a neurosurgeon are our first two priorities when we get him home.  (Micah has a shunt, but whether or not it is working properly is unknown.)  We are going to be working on setting things up for him between now and his homecoming.  Right now I am making inquiries by email to find the nearest and best facilities for his treatment. 

So I did not get very many pictures of Gideon today, because I thought we would have longer than we would.  But I did get some very sweet cuddles with my Gideon.  I don't think he is very familiar with the art of a good cuddle.  At first he just seemed a little stiff, and sort of ignoring me, but he is getting now to where he will climb onto our laps and lean in to us a bit.  He will give us a couple of minutes, maybe playing with our ears or our hair or our shirt buttons, just generally checking us over, getting to know these strange people who chatter in a non-sense language and have lots of cool toys and keep wanting to touch his hair and look into his eyes.  Then he decides it is time to go play again.  

Gideon has a much longer attention span than I expected.  He can play with one activity for ten to twenty minutes before he starts acting bored.  Then he goes over to the backpack and looks up at me, as if to ask, "What else do you have in there, lady?"  

He obeys his nanny very well, from what I can tell.  If he is doing something he shouldn't be doing, she just has to say a few words to him and he stops what he was doing and comes back to playing.  He loves to put toys in his mouth, but we have learned how to say, "Not in your mouth," and he always takes it right out as soon as we remind him.  Now, five seconds later he might put another toy in his mouth, but still . . . he is a very good little boy!  He does have an adorable, albeit naughty, little giggle when he knows he is doing something wrong, but he also seems easy to redirect.  

I think we heard Gideon say one word today, or maybe it was just a sound.  He was mad because we were making him wait for Derek to blow up a balloon before he could play with it, and I was holding him on my lap and he was reaching out his hands for the balloon, and he said something.  No idea what it was, though.  I was so surprised to hear his little voice that I forgot to remember what the sound was!  (The nanny told us the first day that he does not talk unless something is very important to him, and then he will if he has to.  I guess the balloon was important to him!)  But then he wouldn't play with his balloon until he made sure that Micah had one, too.  

And now we will not see them again until Tuesday.  We don't get visits on weekends, and then Monday is their day off for Christmas.  Sigh.  Take good care of my boys, please, nannies!

The Taxi

We spent today in search of a notary, and didn’t get to visit with our boys, so if you only checked out our blog today to see cute new pictures, I am sad to tell you that I have none to share today.  Instead of playing with our little guys this morning, we needed to get some papers prepared for our adoption.  So we hailed the one and only taxi cab in the village:

and our amazing facilitator convinced him to drive us to the next village over.  The taxi driver told us that he was born and raised in this village, and that he doesn’t usually have reason to leave the village.  But you see, the notary in this town is not working this week.  (That is what happens when we arrive smack dab in the middle of the holidays.  NOBODY wants to work this week!)  This taxi driver’s tired little Soviet car was not sure if it could make it to the next village.  However, we were told there was a notary who was working this week there, so we squeezed into the backseat of the tiny car and away we roared! 

We found the village, found the notary’s office (after stopping a few times for our facilitator to ask the locals for directions) and found that the notary was not there.  But she may come back.  Perhaps in a half hour.  Please sit down and wait.  And so we waited.  And waited.  And less than two hours later, low and behold, she came back!  Our facilitator went into her office and they talked.  At length.  We waited.  Finally our facilitator came back out.  She told us that the notary was not able to help us with the sort of papers we needed.   Hmmm.

However, she did know of a notary in the larger city nearby who would be able to do these papers.  So we convinced the taxi driver that his car could make it that much further, and soon we found ourselves rattling and bouncing down the highway toward the larger city.  The little car dodged in and out of traffic in the city, stalled several times at crucial moments in busy intersections, and yet always managed to roar back to life.  We arrived at our destination and the poor taxi driver took off his stocking cap and wiped his sweaty brow, shaking his head in wonder.  I think he was just about as surprised as I was that we all made it in one piece! 

We went into the notary’s office.  And you will never guess what we did then . . . we waited!  (In case you haven’t noticed yet, international adoption is full of opportunities to practice one’s skills at waiting!)  We sat in the waiting room for at least another hour.  I read my Easy Russian Phrase Book to pass the time, and Derek played a game on his cell phone.  Word of advice to those coming after me:  bring a book to read, even if you thought you were just heading out to visit your children that morning and wouldn’t possibly have a spare moment to read a book.  You never know when your plans may change! 

Finally the papers were drawn up and we signed where we needed to sign.  We got back in the car and I held my breath the whole way back.  We were all very thankful when the car's engine coughed, sputtered, and quieted in its parking place back in the village.  We unfolded ourselves, climbed out, paid the driver enough to ensure a very happy Christmas for him and his family, and realized that nearly the whole day had passed.  No visit with the boys today.  But tomorrow we will be back to see them.  So be on the lookout for pictures tomorrow!  

Visit Number Two

Visit number two today!  Beautiful boys!

Micah, all bundled up in a hot pink coat for our visit, and showing us his spunky grin

Gideon was glad that we remembered to bring toys today!  And do you see those eyelashes?!?
Awww, mommy's handsome little guy!  

Gideon, bundled up for our visit

Micah was a bit more relaxed with us today . . . didn't feel ready
to sit on my lap yet, but happy to sit next to me and let me
put my arm around him and hold his hand

Gideon was much, much calmer during today's visit.  His attention span is far better than
we expected!  He loves to examine every toy very closely . . . my little scientist!

Micah loves to hold hands and have a mommy
and daddy to pay attention to him.  He is a
calm, gentle little soul.

Gideon walking on his tip-toes, with his shoe laces (er, slipper laces) untied

Gideon's giggles:

Micah's giggles:

Gideon walking:

Micah learning to play catch with Mommy:

Gideon is a strong, busy boy:

Micah's nanny is fussing over him and I can tell that Micah 

really loves this nanny, and she is so sweet with him:

This smart boy wants to figure out 

everything about everything!

Micah can sit up without help.  He can sit up without leaning against anything also, and he demonstrated that for me several times today (although I didn't catch it on camera) but his head is very heavy and his body is very small and weak, so it is easier for him to lean against  something like this:

So there you have it!  The highlights of day two!  

Thank you all for your encouraging comments!

I cannot express how much that means while we

are here, on the greatest adventure of our lives!

Meet Our Boys!

Have I kept you all waiting in suspense long enough?

Here it is!  The post you've all been waiting for . . .   

We met our boys!!!

Gideon

Micah

They are both beautiful, sweet, precious and perfectly created in the image of God.  I am so so SO in love already!  It is surreal, to finally meet these dear ones that I have loved from afar for so long!

First we got off the train, were met by our wonderful facilitator, and traveled by taxi to the small village where our boys have been living for the last year.  We met with a social worker, then met with the director, and explained to both of them a bit about who we are and why we chose to adopt children with special needs.  They all seemed very nice and kind and real.  They asked us some questions, read through our file, looked at our family photo book, and asked us if we understood what we were getting ourselves into.  We assured them that we were ready for it, so we were led into a meeting room and asked to sit on a couch and wait.  (By the way, all of this was done with the interpreting help of our facilitator.  There is nothing to take you down a few notches like not even being able to understand what anybody around you is saying.  We sure feel dumb here!  All those phrases I memorized and vocabulary I studied, and I feel helpless as soon as anybody starts talking!  They are totally not following the scripts I memorized in my Easy Russian program!)  

A few minutes later, we heard crying in the hallway behind us.  The crying grew louder and closer.  Derek and I looked at each other, trying to guess which of our boys we were hearing for the first time.  Then they brought him in.  Micah.  Oh, dear Micah.

  Scared and overwhelmed to be out of his usual surroundings.  The nanny laid him gently on the couch next to me and I crouched down and looked into his eyes for the first time.  And he stopped crying.  And looked right at me.  And smiled.  And reached for my hands.  Oh, be still my heart!  He has the absolute sweetest little smile you can imagine, a shy little smirk like he knows something that I don't know and he is still trying to decide about me, whether to share the joke with me or not.  

He is beautiful!  He is also incredibly tiny, about the size of a twelve-month-old perhaps?  But much, much thinner.  His grip is weak, and his hands were shaking.  He is not doing as well as we had hoped.  Perhaps that is a major understatement?  He is fed here, we are assured, but he has feeding issues and perhaps is not getting the vitamins he needs?  He prefers to lay down, because his head is so heavy due to the hydrocephalus.  But he can sit up.  He demonstrated that skill for me and looked up at me, as if to say, "Look, see?  Do you see that I can do this?" and then he would lay himself gently back down.  He is pretty good at moving himself around, though, using his feet to push himself around in a circle.  We held hands and stared at each other.

Then another nanny pushed in a little guy in a wheelchair.  And I would know that sweet face anywhere!  Inside those two coats, and under that winter hat, it was Gideon!  Child of my dreams!  Alive, and in the flesh!  

we took the hat off for his picture . . . not sure if
the nanny liked that or not, but look at that hair!
So handsome!

And when the wheelchair stopped, my little boy hopped right out of that chair and ran across the room!  Can you believe it?  He walks!  He runs!  He is strong and healthy and so SO SOOOOO busy!  

I honestly had no idea what to expect, because I have not spoken with anybody who has seen these children in a year.  We did not know what to expect regarding Gideon's cerebral palsy and the effects of a year in his current placement, so I am just delighted to see that Gideon is doing so well.  He is a curious little scientist, racing, always slightly off-balance, around the room on tip-toes to examine every single thing.  He pulled leaves off the potted tree in the corner.  Tasted them.  Then spread them out across the table and examined them.  Then crawled under the table and fiddled with the lever that fastens the two halves together.  

Then climbed onto my lap, hugged me tightly, pressed his face against mine, stood up on my lap, smelled my hair, pulled my barrette out, tasted it, then he was off to check out Daddy.  Smelled his hair, tried on his hat, checked his pockets, then off to explore the room some more.  And that was all within his first four minutes in the room!  Oh, my dear darling Gideon!  I have waited so long for this day!  I just could not stop laughing and smiling.  

And then, right about then, the doctor came into the room.  I was asked if I was ready to hear the boys' medical information.  Seriously?  It was a bit overwhelming, to say the least!  I was sitting there, trying to hold Gideon (a.k.a. Tigger) down on the couch next to me, and keep Micah from rolling off the couch, and trying to pay attention to my one chance at getting medical information and details about the boys' lives up until that point. Oy!  So I did learn some details that I had not known before, but I have to admit there were some questions I did not think to ask that I wish I had.  (Word of advice for parents coming after me:  write down all the questions you have beforehand, in case you get the pleasure of combining your first meeting with your child with the doctor meeting!)  Then Derek and I were given a few more minutes to get to know the boys some more before they were whisked away for their lunch.  

Micah did not want me to pick him up.  He was not quite ready for that yet, and preferred to stay next to me on the couch instead.  He wanted to hold my hands and look at me.  He is ferociously ticklish, and has the cutest giggle you can imagine.  He watches everything going on in the room, and scootches himself around so that he can have a better view of the action.  

And by action, I mean Gideon!  Wow!  We were woefully underprepared for this first visit, having absolutely zero toys with us (we had not realized we would be meeting them right then so we left the toys in the car . . . poor planning on our part!)  So we spent most of the time telling Gideon, "Nyet," and trying to stop him from knocking over the Christmas tree and running out of the room.  Gideon was obviously very over-stimulated and quite excited to be out and running around.  

We learned that the boys were transferred together on the same day, and that they are in the same groupa.  They obviously know each other well, and are close.  Perhaps my favorite part of the entire visit:  Gideon was bouncing all over the place, my beautiful untamed wild-child, and I was trying to get him to sit still on my lap, and then he saw Micah, and he stilled.  He reached down for Micah, and the boys held hands.  Ah, the calm.  The gentling in Gideon's demeanor when he was close to Micah!  They held each other's hands and smiled at each other.  Do they know yet?  Know that they are soon to become brothers for real, forever?  No, they don't know yet.  But to see that bond.  I know that God has orchestrated this journey, this day, this meeting, this moment, for me to see that these boys belong together.  Brothers.

So before long, the boys were taken back out of the room, and that was it.  The end of Visit Number One.  Stay tuned for Visit Number Two! 

the train

train station

cozy second-class cabin

our home-sweet-home for the night

coffee and tea, sold for about 5 grivna each (60 cents)

no drinking, no smoking (not so much a hard-and-fast
rule as much as a suggestion, from my observations)

the too-al-yet (I stayed long enough to take a picture,
not to actually use it!)

bathroom sink

sunrise out the train window (the camera
did not do it justice . . . it was lovely!)

lovely farmland that we passed through

Just a 14 hour train ride away . . .

We are leaving for the train station in a couple of hours.  Finally leaving K**v and heading to the region where our boys were born.  They have been waiting for a mommy and daddy for five long years.  Please pray that tomorrow their wait will end!

To God Alone

Starting off the New Year in an apartment in K**v, bathed in God's beautiful sunlight pouring in through the windows, singing worship songs to my Father (and thank you, dear Father, for YouTube; it sort of drowns out just how off-key I usually am!)  


Praising God for that wonderful jump in funding in our FSP account this morning.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to whomever you are!  (We can find out who donates to our family's account, but it usually takes a few days, so until then, it is a mystery to us!)  And silly us . . . just last night we were sitting here crunching numbers and wondering where the last of the funds were going to come from.  And we woke up to see that He is already working on it.  Why do we ever doubt?  He has gotten us this far, and we trust that the funds will be available as we need them.  He has sent us on His rescue mission.  He will not forget about us now!  


We are starting off 2012 in the middle of this amazing adventure, and what an honor it is to be a part of God's adventure!  We are letting Him lead.  And what paths will He lead us down this year?  That is a surprise He has yet to reveal to us!  This life is not my own.  To God alone be the glory!  

Christmas is coming . . .

Christmas is celebrated on January 6th here, Orthodox style, so everything is hustling and bustling and decorated beautifully right now.  We feel so blessed to get Christmas twice this season! 

Independence Square at Christmastime

We found a place to buy some necessities today!

And we went grocery shopping again!

We are not sure if stores are open on New Year's Eve and Day, so we wanted to stock up, just in case.  Then we had almost a mile walk back to our apartment (mostly uphill) with all of this, plus a big jug of water, a bottle of Coke, and a bunch of other food that I think I forgot to put in this picture.  I'm loving all the walking we are doing here.  It's a great workout!   We live almost ten miles out of town, so this is a novelty for us.  One thing about living out in the country is that you don't get to walk everywhere.  It is pretty nice to be able to just walk wherever we want to go!

We are working on our Russian as much as we can, trying to be brave and talk to people in shops.  We are really good at saying, "I don't understand."  I got yelled at by a lady today, and I have no idea why.  I was just walking along.  She seemed upset by my shoes???  Who knows.  I told her, "Sorry, I don't understand," and kept walking.  Hmmm.  Wonder what that was all about.  

Derek does not like to be doing nothing.  Give the man a fence to repair, or a chicken coop to muck out, or a leaky faucet to fix, or a shelf to build, or some kids to play with, and he will be happy as a clam.  Tell him to sit in an apartment in the middle of the big city and wait patiently for a week, and he gets a little stir-crazy!  We are going for lots of walks, and spending a lot of time in the Word and in prayer.  I think he is itching to fix that mess of electrical wires outside our apartment door (he is an electrician), but he is restraining himself!  

We finally got to Skype with our kids last night (well, morning for them!)  I tried not to cry, but I was just so so SOOOO happy to see them again!  Gracie made funny faces at herself, like it was a mirror.  It was hilarious!  She seemed a little shy to actually talk to the strange mommy and daddy in the computer, though!  She nodded when we asked her questions, and looked so sweet and confused, and I just wanted to jump out of the screen and kiss her little face so badly!  


And then we got a turn talking to my Josiah, whom I could tell was not really sure about this procedure either.  He was just really holding back, sort of talking to me like he would a stranger, and I just so wanted to hug him.  It was really hard not to just burst into tears to see him and not be able to hug him.  Oh, my little lovebug!  It really is mommy, here in the screen!  He looked like he might cry, too.  But he looked good, and I know he is in good hands.  It just hurts so much to not be with him.  He told us he hasn't been flying his new remote control helicopter because he wants to wait until Daddy gets home to do it with him.  


Now my bubbly little Isaac seemed delighted to Skype with us.  He is nine and he understands everything that is going on a lot better.  He filled us in a bit on how life is going over there, and he was just all smiles.  Oh, how I love my boy's huge thousand-watt smile.  I could have just talked to them all day.  


I gave them a Skype tour of our apartment, which probably gave them motion sickness, so they could see where mommy and daddy are staying.  I got an update from my dear parents about the news back home.  I feel better seeing that everything is still ticking merrily along there.  It was just so hard.  People keep telling me I should be enjoying the break from the kids, and thinking of this as a honeymoon.  And that is a nice thought, but I just really really want to be with my little lovies right now, you know?