Last day before court

Naomi feeding Sean yogurt (Sean if he could he would say "yum!" :)

After days of searching when the babies came outside, we finally found Ludmila! She is sooo cute! Here's Naomi and Ludmila.

Haylee with Ludmila (Ludmila in a big crib outside)

"Mama and "Papa" with Sean

Today was our last full day at the orphanage. We have court tomorrow morning at 9 am –the day we’ve been waiting for! That is where we seek to get the official approval for adopting Vladik (Sean)…please pray for us. Our translator is coming back tonight to help us tomorrow. I don’t know if we will get to go to the orphanage or not, as Jonah, Naomi and I will head to Odessa by taxi sometime tomorrow to catch the overnight train to Kiev. We’ll arrive in Kiev early Friday morning the 1st, and our flight is not till the next day—early—at 5:45 am! Our hope is to stay again at the house where we stayed when we first arrived in Kiev and for Yuri to take us to the airport. I am not looking forward to the separation from John and Haylee, not being able to communicate with them, and figure out the airport without a translator (she can only take us to passport control) so I would greatly appreciate prayer! We do not have seats together either because the flight was full so I’m praying people will help us on the plane too.

Today was bittersweet…so glad that we will (Lord willing) soon be heading home to see our little ones we miss so much but sad that we’ll be leaving Sean and the rest of the family. We enjoyed our visits with Sean (Vladik) today—it was a warm day so he had a lighter jacket and his bonnet on. Naomi and Jonah enjoyed some last time with him. He loves hair and enjoys messing up Mama’s hair.

It was also bittersweet because we got to finally see Ludmila, the little girl with Down Syndrome we’d sought to adopt with Vladik. We’ve been looking for her and saw a little girl who appeared to have Downs and we asked and they said it was her. They call her Lyuda (“Luda”) She was in a big stroller that held 6 little ones altogether. She is so cute and so sweet. She smiled a beautiful smile when we talked to her. When we explained to the caregivers that we’d tried to adopt her but she was not yet available, and one caregiver asked about our children and even called her son to translate a question she couldn’t figure out how to say in English—“are you coming next year to get Ludmila?”, I told her we did not know, that we had hoped to this time but could not. I am so glad we got to see her before we left though it was hard to know we could not take that precious one home. Her groupa played in a huge wooden playpen outside under a shelter. She could sit but not stand and tried to get around but can’t crawl yet.

We ate one last time at the Potato House. The servers ended up bringing an extra pizza over to our table that John thought he didn't order. You never know what will happen with trying to communicate your order!
After lunch we visited the Life Care Center, the Christian organization here that supports pregnant women. We enjoyed learning about their ministry and hope to spread the word to churches in the US, as churches here rarely will support Christian ministries outside their church. The LCC relies on funds from the US. The whole of their budget is $1000/month, which provides for 2 fulltime workers and space, plus materials.

Haylee is looking forward to keeping up with the blog when we leave and I'll be glad to get the updates from the USA. Please pray for our upcoming travels and for safety and health for John and Haylee who will stay here for the 10 day wait after court to begin the coming home process...possibly another 3 weeks though we pray it will be sooner.