Talked to the Girls!

We were able to talk to the girls this morning! They were so precious - they got on the phone and said "Hi, how are you?" Then "I miss you very much" All in English! They are coming along in their English and most importantly are excited about learning and working hard at it - so proud to show us what they have learned. They talked about what they've been doing and are very excited that they have Spring Break this week. They told us "Happy Easter to you" but their Easter is not until April 27th. I wish I could record their voices and our conversations. You can tell Katya is the oldest - she talks more than Nastya - and we know that Nastya is quite the talker! But I guess with the two talking together, Katya takes charge - a typical big sister! Not pushy, just older... It is always good to talk to them and just know that they are okay. On Friday I was feeling especially burdened to pray for them. We hadn't talked in over weeks and for some reason I was concerned.



I was in the midst of praying for them nearly in tears as I was driving down the road and my phone rang. It was a woman who works with the orphanage. She is an American and told me that she is bringing some children over this summer for hosting - for the WHOLE summer! I explained that sounded wonderful and that of course we want them here - especially for the lovely summer months when we enjoy lots of family time and things are less busy than in the school year. BUT the big problem is finances - we are bit tapped out from hosting at Christmas and are trying to save as much as possible toward the costs of adoption. Things are so uncertain about timing for adopting them - it could be as early as October but more likely Christmas or even much later... So impossible to know how things will go because just about everything in this is out of our control. So I told her that we really wanted to but were not sure if we could. She called back a little later and said that she could give us a pretty nice discount since there were two. This woman is personally 'in process' to adopt one of their friends in the same orphanage and so understands where we are coming from. Her organization is small and run by just her and her husband and provides a lot of aid to this particular orphanage.



Anyways, the bottom line is that even with the discount - it is still expensive along with everything else. Can we actually make such a decision based on finances when these girls, whom we hope to make our daughters, could spend the summer bonding with us, learning English, getting much needed dental work done, and just being loved on? Just pray for us that we will be wise about this decision - if it is critical for them to be here this summer, then we want to bring them, but if we need to wait then for the patience to do so. I know that as in each decision in this process, God will direct our steps and will provide for what we need. Just maybe not always what we want! But He knows better that we....



In the meantime, guess what we did this weekend - I mean besides our nieces birthday party and Easter? We got fingerprinted for our 171 approval. That is huge step in getting our paperwork together - now we are just hoping the approval form comes quickly and with no snags in about four weeks. That can often be the most time consuming thing!