Home Called Grace

On Friday, our visit went just fine with Rebekah. We went outside again. She seemed to settle down quicker and feel a little more comfortable. We tried out some bubbles and she wanted to be interested, but then she'd remember she was also needing to be bashful, too! :) We walked along the sidewalk outside the orphanage and she'd hold both of our hands.



We also tried a "meat pie" from a local grocery store - our translator helped us. He said they are good and we liked it pretty well. It reminded me of a calzone without the cheese.



We then had dinner at the hotel cafe. Zac had some borsch and I had some chicken noodle soup. We also tried some pike fish and crab salad. It was pretty good. Astrakhan has a lot of fish thanks to the Volga River and the Caspian Sea nearby.

I am trying to post about each day that we spend in Astrakhan. I want to keep you all up to date, but also would like to remember everything to tell Rebekah one day. I have emailed my family with daily reports, so most of these posts are similar to what I have sent them.

Thursday we went to the orphanage around 10:00 and had a short visit with Rebekah. We were back at the hotel by 11:30. We got to take Rebekah outside again for this visit. We brought a stroller with us and tried it out for the first time. There is a concrete sidewalk that wraps around the orphanage, so we strolled around the perimeter. I think this was Rebekah's first stroller ride ever! She seemed pretty unsure about it. She wouldn't lean back and didn't put her hands in her lap. I help onto one of her hands while Zac strolled to try and comfort her. She made quite the face! We then walked around the playground and she let us each hold one of her hands. Zac said she stroked his finger, which made his day! She also let Zac hold her today without crying! She was still pretty unsure about us, though, but that is fine. I think she just understands more that we are strangers and don't speak her language than she did in December.





Once we got back to the hotel, Zac took a nap. This jet lag is still hard! I am trying to stay awake during the day, but it is hard for me, too.



After he woke up, we decided it was time to get out and walk around Astrakhan. We walked by a small pond behind our hotel (Swan Lake), found a little market to buy a few groceries, and went to the Astrakhan Kremlin. It was a really pretty day and we enjoyed getting some fresh air.









We also found a Subway restaurant!!! It even smelled like Subway smells in America. It was so nice to have a little taste of home.



When we got back to our hotel, we found out that we were going to have to change rooms in a few days for four nights. We have a very nice room that is kind of like a one-bedroom apartment. We were bummed, but they are letting us stay for free for the four nights we have to be gone from our large room. The manager even gave us a complimentary ham and mushroom pizza! Even though we had just eaten Subway, we were glad to have it. Their pizzas are very thin with just a small amount of pizza sauce. But, it was still really good!

The days really do run together. We pretty much do the same thing each day! We get up around 8:00, get ready, eat breakfast downstairs at the hotel, and then leave at 10:00 for the orphanage. We usually spend about 45 minutes to an hour with Rebekah and then get back to the hotel between 11:30/12:00.

On Wednesday, though, we went to the visit Rebekah in the afternoon around 3:30. Our last trip proved this to be a good time for her because she had just woken up from a nap and had a snack. We waited a long time to see her and she finally arrived in the room about 4:00. She was wearing the same pink floral “Cherokee” brand shirt she wore last time and the same head band. She has been more unsure about us this trip, but she warmed up as our visit went on. Here is a picture of her with one of her caregivers.



We had a good visit overall. She really enjoyed looking at some of the picture albums that we brought. She liked to point to herself and point to us. I could tell that she's been looking at our pictures over the past few months. We got to see her pretty head, too! She does have some hair - it is still short, but much more than in December.

We found out something interesting on Wednesday. There was a big meeting with the agency representatives about changes that Russia is making to international adoption from the U.S. It could take a while to make the changes that Russia may start requiring and could possibly cause a temporary halt to American adoptions until the changes are made. Galina said we were very lucky that our paperwork for court was submitted before these discussions began. It made us feel sick to think about how close we were to this happening. If our paperwork had been delayed by just a few weeks, we could have been in trouble. I just can't believe it. It just makes us feel so blessed to know that God protected us from this. He truly is working even when we are completely unaware. It puts Tuesday's court day into perspective. We could care less now that it lasted so long - we are just grateful that we had it!

We have tried to keep facebook updated, but haven’t done a very good job at blogging. I am going to attempt to catch you up on the past week. I had really planned to try and blog daily, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Today is the 6th day of our 11 day wait (but in our case 13 day wait, since day 11 is a Saturday). In one week, Rebekah will be ours for good! It is hard to imagine, but it is coming soon!

Last Tuesday, we had our court date. Read below for a post that I wrote and finished today about it. I will be posting some more about the past week.

Tuesday was court! It was a very big day, and to say we were nervous was an understatement! Actually, we felt all of your prayers and were not near as anxious as we thought we'd feel. The Lord truly filled us with peace. Thank you for your prayers.

Court started at 10am. We left our hotel around 8:30 and had to go to the notary's office to get a few documents notarized for court. Here, a notary is an actual job that you get paid to do - not like in America. Our translator took care of everything and all we had to do was sign!

We arrived at the courthouse around 9:30. It was in a large green building with big, heavy doors. We walked down a narrow hallway and sat outside our court room. The inside of the room was small with three tables at the front pushed together to make a u-shape. There were two rows of small pews and that is where we sat. Our interpreter sat beside us and translated. There were many people in the courtroom with us - a social worker from the orphanage, a representative from the Ministry of Education (that gave us our referral), a prosecutor, and a secretary who took notes (hand-written!).

At 10:00 sharp we began. The judge first asked everyone to introduce themselves and read us our rights. Then, he started asking Zac many questions. Later, he asked me similar questions, but not near as many. This lasted about an hour and then we took a ten minute break.

The next half of questioning was to focus on Rebekah and all of her medical and social history information. A doctor from the orphanage presented her medical and social history and then we were asked questions about this information. We had heard everything before during our first trip, but the judge got upset because there were a few things mentioned that were not listed in the medical information that we signed and that he had. He felt these things needed to be added and a new document needed to be created. So, we broke for two hours and went back to the notary. We got a bite to eat, while our translator wrote the new document.

At 2:00, we reconvened and were questioned for another hour. At this point, the judge asked many questions from the other representatives, so it was nice to be off the "hot seat". He did ask a few questions to us, though, that we did not expect. He wanted to see if we knew the immigration laws and the Alabama state adoption laws. We knew some about immigration, but not anything specific about the Alabama laws. He didn't really like that we weren't able to answer his questions about this very well. At 3:00, he went to deliberate and finally around 3:15 he returned and read to us that after 10 days we would be listed as parents for Rebekah!!

The most interesting thing was that everyone was amazed at how long our court hearing went, especially since all of our paperwork was in order. However, we found out that Russia is going to make all of their adoption court hearings longer, so we were one of the first to get to experience the new format. How lucky of us!! :)

For the most part, we never really worried that he was going to say "no", but there were a few times that we got temporarily concerned. It was hard to not be able to know first hand what he was saying, and also hard to figure out what his tone really meant at times. Russian's are different in how they communicate with one another. At times he seemed angry (not really at us, but at some other people in the room), but our translator said that he wasn't.

We were so very relieved when it was over and so glad to have it behind us. All of the paperwork that we completed led us to that one day. It feels wonderful to be finished with that part of our journey to Rebekah. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Again, let me say SHE IS OURS! Blessed Be THE NAME OF THE LORD!

We are off to bed, but I did want to give a few specific prayer requests for tomorrow:

-Please pray for rest tonight and that we would feel refreshed in the morning.

-Pray for favor with the judge and that he would have no issues with the information that will be presented.

-Pray for words to come quickly and easily and for us to have an answer for any question that is asked. Zac will probably face more questions than me, so pray especially for him!

-Pray for us to feel peace and confidence.

-Pray that the hearts of those there (judge, prosecutor, ministry of education representative, orphanage worker, and secretary) would feel moved by Rebekah's story and see her need for a family.

-Pray that he would say "yes" to our desire to be her parents and declare us her parents tomorrow!

Ultimately, we know that the "fate" of our adoption is not in the hands of men, but in the Lord's hands, and He is sovereign over this and will accomplish his perfect will. Thank you so much for your prayers on our behalf. We will keep you posted!

We made it to Astrakhan last night! It was a very smooth flight and we had no weather problems. This morning we had several things to do to get ready for court tomorrow. We first had to have a drug test and then went to a psychiatrist's office - thankfully, we didn't have to go in and be examined, though. Then, we stopped by the notary's office.

On to the part you're all dying to know...yes, we did get to see Rebekah!! That was our next stop. We did not have to wear our masks and they let us play with her outside on their playground. Her "group" was going outside, so we went with them. We first saw her in the lobby with the other kids in her group. She started crying b/c we were all standing there. I picked her up and she stopped crying after a few minutes. She really looked the same to us and didn't feel much heavier. She was all bundled up, though, so we really weren't able to see anything but her face. And, she was wearing a hat that snapped under her chin, so we couldn't take off her hat to see her hair. But, from what we could see it did look like it had grown out some. We saw some longer pieces in the front and on the sides.

She LOVES the playground! She rode on one of those horse rocking things that are on a spring and you rock them back and forth. Then she really liked to swing - she even faced one of her "friends", held onto the swing and rocked her friend in the swing back and forth. She was quite serious about the swinging, and she definitely has some good coordination. She held my hand and we walked around the playground and she went down a slide, too. She also just let me sit down and hold her. She got tired quickly (it was almost lunch and nap time) and laid her head on me once again, stuck her thumb in her mouth and went to sleep. Bless her heart. Later, we sat down again and tried to show her some toys, but all she wanted was to put her head down on my chest and rest. She let Zac hold her some, but was a little leery of him. I'm not surprised, though, just because she is not used to men. She's a serious little thing - no smiles today, but she's going to have to get used to us all over again.

Two precious things we found out and also they are answers to prayers:

1.) She loves the photo album we left her!! I think she gets to look at it often. She will go and sit in a chair and look at it and if anyone tries to take it, she'll hit them with it! Zac and I couldn't help but just cry when they told us that. They also said she carries it around like a purse - isn't that just precious?

2.) One of her caretakers told Lena (the translator) that Rebekah is her favorite child. She said that she is always giving Rebekah kisses and hugs. I just prayed and hoped that someone would be loving on her and they were.

We were just so happy to finally get to hold her and see her again! Thank you for your prayers for today. Everything went great!

Tomorrow is our court date!! We are extremely nervous about this, but know that the Lord is in control of this and it will work out. Our time is set for 10am tomorrow (which is 2am for you guys back home). We may post again today with some specific prayer requests. You can also pray for us to get some rest tonight. We are WIDE awake at night and very sleepy in the afternoon. Last night we couldn't fall asleep until after 1am, and we hadn't even taken a nap. We really need to be well rested for tomorrow.

I will post again soon!

It is only the afternoon in the U.S., but we have had a full day today in Moscow. We were able to take a tour of Moscow today with our driver. He first took us to the Red Square where we walked around for about an hour. We saw the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, as well as other neat buildings. We then went to see Christ the Savior Cathedral and a famous monastery. The weather was cloudy and rainy, but not terribly cold. We were glad today that we had to come a day early, so that had some extra time to sight-see and rest. We are feeling good! Tomorrow, we will (hopefully) fly to Astrakhan at 4:00pm (8 a.m. for you guys). Please pray for a very smooth flight!! This was the flight the got delayed last time and then was quite frightening when it did leave! We are looking forward to getting to Astrakhan and settling in, as well as seeing Rebekah on Monday!! Here are a few pictures from today:

We are minutes away from boarding to leave for London - the second leg of our journey!

We made it to Dallas! We have a long layover, so we are just hanging out. We enjoyed some Pappasitos (Mexican) for lunch and had some sweet tea - trying to enjoy all the american things we can since it'll be a while until we have it again.

We still have a little over three hours before we head to London. We will arrive in London and then fly to Russia a few hours later. We should arrive in Russia around 7:30pm Russia time tomorrow evening, which is 12:30pm tomorrow afternoon your time. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We will update when we can in Moscow!

It's a little crazy around here because we found out today that we are actually leaving on Thursday and not Friday!! Zac called the airlines to ask about checking in and they told him that one of the legs of our flight was canceled. Apparently, British Airlines is going on strike and the first day of their strike is when we have to use them!! We were able to keep the same flight plan, but we just have to leave one day early.

While it is difficult and stressful to move our trip up by a day, we are so thankful to find this out today and not when we got to the airport on Friday. Praise the Lord!

Please pray that we can get everything together, stay relatively calm, and think of all that we need to pack. Pray for peace and strength and lots of grace. I can't believe we are finally going back to get our daughter - in light of the goal all this is worth it!