Happy Birthday!

Little Luke turned 3 today, and we got to celebrate with him, what a blessing! We brought him some gifts from home, and we bought some here in Chelyabinsk. In the first photo he is holding a musical book from his Aunt Sue and a Cheborashka (the brown animal with an orange face) from Mama and Papa.

In photo two he is about to blow out his birthday candles on a special 'cake' made by Kara, a banana bread that she bakes in soup cans, which Luke loves!

He couldn't wait to have cake, he held is up and said Mama....pajahlusta! (Mom...please!). I didn't even have a chance to cut it, he just dove right in--and shared with his parents, of course!

He also got a Cheborashka backpack to put his toys in, he a special backpack at home from Grandma Woods, but it didn't make the weight limit cuts so we bought him this one for the trip home. Papa put it on him after he opened it and he wore it for most of our visit!

All in all we had a great birthday visit with lots of smiles, belly laughs and food. When his caregiver came to get him she asked if he was ready to go back to his 'groupa' and he said 'Nyet' no....big sigh.

Happy Birthday to our precious little boy.

Wednesday's Visit with Luke

We wanted to share some more beautiful photos of our boy from our visit on Wednesday. Luke is proudly modeling a new hat knitted by his Mama for him. One of the orphanage workers came in and asked him what I presume was 'who gave you that hat' and his respose was Mama and then some Russian words followed. It warmed my heart!

Although he loved his new hat I think he still prefers to wear Papa's hat. He is quite the ham when there is a camera around, but he is more interested in food than anything else. Pears, apples, cookies, juice and water are in high demand when we visit him, and when those are gone he is searching our backpack to see what else he can find!

Wednesday night Mark and Kirell (our new friend and driver) went to dinner with Kirell's dad and I went to Kirell and Nadia's house for some true hospitality. She made me a wonderful meal of ham, cheese, bread, pemaneie (like dumplings), and caviar and then served me hot tea. She let me do all my laundry and was truly a wonderful hostess to me. Thank God for all those He has put in our path.

Tonight we went to Dwayne and Kara's for another amazing meal and Karin and I started our own little knitting club! Dont' worry Rachael yours is still my top choice back home :-)

We are going to visit Luke tomorrow for his 3RD BIRTHDAY!

We'll post b-day photos when we get home tomorrow night. Have a great day everyone.

1 Down, 4 to Go

We are praising God again today, the Platter family had a successful court date yesterday! God is giving us miracles one by one and we are so thankful. It looks like we are next, our appearance is Monday at 11am which will be 12am Monday for you guys in the states. Please pray for God to give us wisdom and the right words for the judge.

Diamond Hotel, Now Home Sweet Home

(On Arbat Street)

We are continually overwhelmed with the amazing Christian friends that God places in our lives. This beautiful prayer was forwarded to me by our dear friend Rosemary and it is so very appropriate to our circumstances.

Hear, My child, the word for today. There is no need that I cannot fill. There is no situation that I cannot redeem. Your faith is still dwarfed and stymied by your reasoning, and your deep fear is the product. Only by trusting Me beyond the limits of your reasoning can you begin to have freedom from the plaquing fears.
The future is Mine --your future and the future of your loved ones. My arm has not been cut off, and My resources are limited only by My nature and My will. I am aware of all your circumstances and the anxieties you entertain even in sleep about those you love. Be of good cheer. The end is not yet, and I am still at work. I have not forgotten My promises, and My plans for you are good, not evil. Stay on the path I have set before you, and trust Me for all that is to come.

We have successfully moved to our new hotel and it is really great. Dwayne and Kara took us and the Bergstroms to Baskin Robbins for ice cream tonight, boy was it yummy.

We are going to visit Luke tomorrow afternoon, so we should have more great photos to share with you when we get back to our room.

We have set up a local Missouri phone number for you all via a program called Skype, you can call it anytime. If we are away from the computer you can leave us a voice mail and we'll get it when we get back to the room. We'd love to hear from you! 573-234-6595

Here are some photos of the fun things we've been doing in between visits and meetings.

1) Hockey Game 2)Arbat Street shopping Me & Karin 3)Thanksgiving Day

Another day, another great visit

We visited Luke today and, as usual, it is the highlight of our week. We took him an apple, an orange, some cookies, and a bottle of juice, which he loved! He is such a happy boy and a joy for us to be with--we just can't wait for it to be a daily blessing. Today he took Papa's hat off and put it on his own head, backwards! He was quite proud of himself and we thought it was priceless, of course.

He and papa shared some cereal and cookies and then played with cars, yet another favorite of our adorable little boy.

Tomorrow we will move to a different hotel, another very nice one, but about half the price of our current place. We found it through our new driver, and friend-he has been a real blessing. He takes us wherever we need to go and offers help with anything we need. He and his wife took us shopping on Sunday after church and we had a great time.

We have requested a visit with Luke again on Wednesday, we should find out tomorrow if that is ok with the director. We would love to make the trip everyday, but it really is emotionally and physically exhausting. We are still praying for our court appearance to be moved up to this week, but no word as of today. If not this week, we are scheduled for Monday-so please pray for favor with the judge!

Love to you all!

A Step in the Right Direction

Hello. all. We have some positive news from our rep here and we are rejoycing. She had a meeting with the new person that will preside over our case here and he looked through our documents and said he feels that they are acceptable. We have a few still in translation and he agreed that she could submit those as soon as they are ready, instead of the usual requirement of waiting until the Friday office hours. Please pray with us that he will also find the last documents accpetable and that he will move up our date to this week instead of next week.
We had hoped to visit Luke on Saturday, but the director said they are doing a thorough cleaning so she cannot accept us that day and that she is very sorry about that. She said we can come for a visit on Monday, so we'll be looking forward to that. We have been doing some fun stuff with our new friends amongst all the documents and meetings, so we'll post those over the weeknd and we also have a couple of photos of Luke from the Wednesday visit to post, as well.
For now it's off to bed for a good nights rest to prepare for a new day here tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It has been a happy thanksgiving indeed! We got to see Luke again today and had a great visit. He ran in the room and said in Russian "there's Mama!" He has had a cold and it is better now and he was more energtic today. My, my this little one has and appetite. He ate an apple, an orange, some toddler cookies, and some cherrios, and drank a jar of pumpkin-apple juice! We also brought some turkey flavored Russian ramen noodles and ate them dry with him, because there was nothing to cook them in.......if you get a chance crush up a bag of them and pour in the spices, then shake it up. Its funny no matter how you do it, it doesn't taste like Turkey. Who cares though because we were together on Thankgiving. God is Great!
He is such a sweet boy, always putting things back where they belong and stacking things up in neat piles. He would take two cookies out of the bag and give one to Papa before taking one for himself!
His favorite toys are shape sorters, a train and anything that makes music. He will turn one toy on and play with another and as soon as the music stops playing on the first toy he'll go back and turn it on again. When two of his teachers came in to ask if we had played enough, we sighed and said no, time just goes by too fast! They asked him if he wanted lunch and he said Da! (yes!) Baakaa (Bye) Mama, Baakaa Papa, Ya Tiba Lubu (I love you), Dos vyadonya (Goodbye!). We asked what he was going to have for lunch and their response was "fish soup" He really is a healthly eater they say.......what ever that means when you're eating fish head soup! We've decided he takes after his Papa.
We are headed to Dwayne and Kara's tonight for Turkey dinner and we are so happy to have friends to finish off our perfect Thanksgiving Day. The Platters will be there, as well as the Bergstroms who just got here on Tuesday. They brought me some more asthma medicine from home, I had brought extra, but not enough for an extra 3 weeks! What a blessing they are.
Enjoy the photos from today!