A Warm Welcome

We arrived in Rostov safely last night and after checking into the hotel we went for our usual "first night" dinner at Micky D's for a burger and a shake. It is not our favorite, but it is good comfort food after a long day of travel.

Our facilitator said he had not visited Samuel while we were gone, but he had called a few times and the caregivers say that when they ask Samuel "where is mama?" he points to the gate. What a smart boy! When they ask "where is papa?" he answers only with a big smile! That made Daddy proud.

We have just come from our second visit with Samuel. Ryan and I had been wondering about how Samuel would respond to seeing us again. Questions like "will he remember us?" and "will he be happy to see us?" were among the most important. Well, we did get the warm welcome we were hoping for. He did remember us and seemed very happy to see us. Relieved may be a better word. As we came around the building at the baby home, there he was charging out to the playground, leading his group of course! We both called out his name and he turned to look and then hesitated for about a second. Very quickly then he came to me and gave a long drawn out hug. Still and quiet, but definitely wanted to be held. He stuck like glue. He was wearing a purplish blue jog suit with bright pink stripes down the sides. His forehead has a big ouchie on it, with a pretty thick scab. His hair is much longer now and wouldn't you know it, they had cut a little chunk out of his "bangs" right where the ouchie is. So he isn't looking his best. We had to laugh. Let's just say he couldn't look any more like a little orphan boy than he did today. That's ok because very soon he will be losing his orphan status! We had lots of fun with him today and got lots of giggles out of our sweet boy. No pictures today for obvious reasons. Maybe tomorrow after court we will post some. He did squirm and cry alot when we left him this evening. Boy was that hard.

We were told by our facilitator that he does not believe there is any way we will get the 10-day waiver. This means we would not leave here until the 22nd (of course then we will go to Moscow for 4-5 days). We wrote a letter, our personal plea, to the judge asking her to waive this waiting period. And we told our facilitator we are praying and we have many at home praying. He smiled and said "I don't know maybe something will happen in the Heavens". So please continue to pray. We have been told the judge is in a good mood and is pleased with our paperwork. But, she wants to know why we want another child since we already have 4 at home. She has searched our dossier and cannot find our reason. It is so uncommon for families to have more than 2 children in Russia. Pray for grace as we attempt to answer that one face to face. She also will want to know why we school our children at home. She will probably not accept Deuteronomy 6 as an answer.

We are confident God is Sovereign over court decisions and He is more than able to move our judge to make this decision. His days in the orphanage have already been numbered. Please pray that we would be accepting of God's plan instead of getting stuck on our own. Those of you who like specifics, our court hearing is at 10am Tues. morning our time, and that's 11pm Monday night your time.

Lots of love from Rostov!