1 Day to Go

That's right by this time tomorrow we will be posting up the results of the court appearance! I can't believe we have finally gotten to this point. The Stewarts went home last Thursday; the Deihls went home Sunday night and we FINALLY have our court date tomorrow. When we were leaving for Ukraine we were the last ones to the airport. Lori said to Kathy, "Well we live the closest to the airport and we are the last ones here." Kathy replied saying she hoped it wasn't a sign. Apparently it was.

N is back from Russia. She said the trip was fine, but I'm not convinced it was. It is good to have her back and she seems glad to be with us as well. We gave her the teddy bear we brought with us last night as a Christmas gift and she was extremely pleased with it. (Every girl needs a teddy bear, I don't care how old you are!) N continues to work on her English and Sveta seems please with her progress. She is quite different from Gideon. Where Gideon wants to be the center of attention, N is rather shy and doesn't seem to want the spotlight at all. We will have to be careful introducing her into the youth group so she is not overwhelmed by all the attention.

Gideon continues to be the life of the party. He likes to be picked up now especially if there are some acrobatics involves (airplane rides, flying, etc.) He is quite comfortable crawling on us now and recognized N immediately. He even came up with a close proximity to her name. Quite impressive since all other young women are "ana"

Yesterday we visited a Russian Orthodox Abbey that is about 30 minutes from here. It was quite beautiful and there was definately the sense of the "Holy" that hung about the place. The abbey itself was built in 1500. It makes you realize how young our country is. The door into the church (and the grounds themselves) were very short. Sveta says this is so you have to bow and humble yourself to enter. The people were definately humble and reverant as they worshiped, but it did make me sad that they basically just watched -- no listened as the priest and liturgist performed the rituals. I say listened because most of the actual actions of worship occur behind the large screen (anastasis) that seperates the main room from the holy place. There is much to be admired about orthodox worship but I just can't help feeling that they left the people behind. (unfortunatly we couldn't take any pictures)

Well, I guess that will do it for now. We miss everyone so much! We look forward to the day when we will be home again! We look forward to being able to post good news about our court date tomorrow. Please continue to pray for us, that the judge will move things along swiftly (remember they have never done an international adoption in this region). Thanks you so much for your love and support, they mean the world to us!

Peace of Christ
BLN&G