Arabella

At last

At last Arabella is finally with her family, well her dad right now and the rest of us hopefuylly by Thursday evening. She will never again spend a night alone or without the love of a mom, dad and two brothers. We are beyond greatful for everyone on this journey that has helped make this happen. But mostly greatful to God for putting us on this path and helping us climb every mountain and open every door. This has undoubtly brought me to deeper levels of faith and a closer relationship with Jesus. I feel forever changed and am so, so greatful.

Update

There is so much I want to say, so many emotions swirling. I have a big huge post I want to write but have not been able to put it in words yet. I feel a level of gratitude and emotion I have yet to had in my life. I have felt God work in ways in myself I have never thought possible. My heart has been touched by all these children and stories in such a way that I am saddend but yet greatful. The blogs and stories I have read have been heart wrenching and have touched me to my very soul that i can not help but want to do more. To scream out for these children, to beg for them to also find families. To beg of anyone that can to open there hearts and homes especially to the ones that are considered by the harsh society we all live in to be "less than perfect". But for now this is all I can put in to words.

Court Passed

We just had our court date and passed!!!!!! We are so happy!!!! So we begin the ten day wait now. We will be heading home tommorrow morning so any prayers for safe travels would be appreciated. Then Michael will return Nov 22 to complete everything and bring home Arabella. So happy and so thankful to God =)))))) I will post more pictures once we get home!

More Pics

Some more pics =)))) Once I have more time and quicker computer I am going to try to blog back tracking from our flight on our day to day process/trip. Both the boys and Michael have been sick, but are now better. I really hope I do not get it. We found out today that in Arabella's (Evelyn's) group the caretakers call her Ella as a nickname and she responds to it. It even sounds like the way we would pronounce it. So as we are changing her name to Arabella, we decided as a nickname we will call her Ella. She is already used to being called that so it will be one less change for her. We are shocked with her attention span. She will sit and look at a book for about 20 minutes, literally. She seems very calm but very curious. Please all pray hard about the voting about adoptions in this country. We recently found out they passed the first of 2 votes to I guess ratify adoption here. Which would in turn stop adoptions here temorarily or who knows for how long. In US Gov website it states that it looks like it will also include suspension of people in process now. This law in general will greatly effect the children. There are so many loving families in the process or starting the process to come adopt these children. With out going into much detail I will say it is emergent that some of these children get home and quickly. The need is critical. Bieng here and seeing this is truly life changing, like nothing I have ever seen before. i have been to others countries and seen adoption ect but never really taken it in like this. These children penetrate to your soul and the longing and desperation in there eyes is life impacting. Life is VERY tough and to say we are fortunate is a huge, huge understatement. I pray that as all this resonates with me it stays with me. That I don't go home and quickly fall into the all to familiar state of consumption and poor me and my poor life. Because I am blessed beyond means and measures that are to difficult to put into words. As an American we are very used to things coming easy and smoothly. We have made friends with an Italian couple here and they have told us also how much easier the adoption is for Americans. We come in and have a much easier and quicker process. Whether this is true or not I don't know, but to them this appears to be the case. We have also met a very nice couple here from Madrid that are adopting. Sorry I went on there there is just SO much emotion to all this and I wish i could write openly so much more. But for now we pray to have court and get home and in return back to get Ella very soon. This will be her first Christmas home and with Santa, how amazing for us to be able to witness this. She has the cutest expression when she is suprised, she will look sideways at you with the BRIGHTEST and most BLUE eyes I have ever seen and her eyes appear to just sparkle, literally. She is loving having the boys and she will also have a little cousin MJ close in age to her. Ok I just went on again, Sorry. Enjoy the pics =)))))

Pics, Pics, Pics

Finally figured out how to put pics on blog from here!!!! We are loving Arabella (Evelyn), She is very sweet, but has a bad cold right now =(. We are hoping to have court this Thursday and head home Friday, please pray that all the paperwork is in place. This will greatly move the process along. We have met an Italian and Spanish family here adopting little boys that are both 2! I have lot's more pics and will post more later. Thank you for following and all prayers =)))))))))))))

Arabella

Enjoying

We have finally met Evelyn, and she is so sweet =)) Very, very cute, smart and observant. She seems to be pretty calm. All the children at the orphanage are so beautiful. The apartment we are staying in is really nice and we have a Mcdonalds close by which our boys love. So the court date is scheduled for November 11th, as long as interpol clearances are in. Please pray for us on this, we really want to get our boys home and also this will mean Evelyn will get home quicker. I can not post pictures for some reason but am going to try to fugur out how to later. Thanks for following =)))))))

Update

This is going to be quick because I keep losing internet. Our service has been very sketchy here, but we got the referral of Evelyn ;)))) We are headed to our region by overnight train with Yulia and our boys right now. The train ride is such an experience and the boys are loving it. The food here is also really good. We were able to meet up with Sara Summers, and Mellisa lorenz and go out to dinner, it was lots of fun =)))) I have so much to write but am afraid I will lose the connection. Hopefully in region we will have better internet and I can upload pictures to. We can not wait to meet Evelyn tommorrow. Thanks to all for following this blog and any comments!!!!! Will update soon!!!!