Days 51 & 52 - More Fond Farewells

Saturday, January 28th

Today it was very cold outside and we chose to spend the majority of our day hanging out inside. When we awoke, the weather widget said it was -16C/3F outside with a windchill of -24C/-12F.  Too cold for this thin-blooded Texan gal! :)

We finally did venture out only to get some groceries and to return to our apartment. We only have to walk about 3 blocks to the little market, but that was plenty.



Sunday, January 29th

Our last "waiting day"!

As we usually do on Sundays, we readied ourselves and headed to church at Calvary Chapel.  This morning was a little bittersweet as we headed out knowing that this will be our final Sunday morning among these new friends of ours.  We both can honestly say that having a church family, or two, here in this city made a huge difference in the adjustment to staying here for so long.  If we had come here and not been able to have wonderful, personal Christian fellowship for these 8+ weeks, we would probably be a grumpy mess. But, alas, we are not!  All is well!

We will also miss those folks we came to know at K Christian Center as well. Brenda and Willard took us under their wings and connected us with some fantastic people who are serving the orphans and children right here in their communities.  We will miss each of them as well.

I just love how the family of Christ can have such an amazing connection across the miles and across culture.  God adopted each of us, first, into his Kingdom family through Jesus.  Then He brings our hearts together with other believers as we worship Him and serve to those in need.  Sometimes you find friends in places you never expected, simply because you share the same Spirit of God in you.  What an amazing God we serve!

Diana and Nate with Lee and Carrie

Vika and Pastor Victor, Vieta and Nika with Lee and Carrie

After church we shared lunch with Nate & Diana, Max, and Nathan & Amber.  Good food, good friends, and good times!  Max, who is 15yrs old, had a great time trying to teach Lee how to pronounce the Cyrillic letters and was coaching him to read Russian phonetically.  I think Lee's Texas/American accent was causing him some trouble and was giving Max a good chuckle!

Lee and Max (the new Russian tutor)

Tomorrow morning we will stop by the court building to get the official court decree for our adoptions.  Then we will head to the orphanage for our last "official" visit. Unfortunately, we cannot start the rest of the paperwork until Tuesday morning.  So the plan is to start early on Tuesday to run around and complete as much as we can in one full day.  As far as we know, we don't have to travel to any other cities or towns so it should not be too hard to accomplish. If all goes well, we'll be able to sign them out of the orphanage on Wednesday.

We will still have to wait a few days for their passports to be made before we can complete their US immigration visas. After that, we'll head home!  For those who are wondering, the best we can estimate right now is that we will be in Austin sometime around February 9th.

So now we go to bed to complete this last "waiting" day!!! Slava Bogu! (Praise God!)