Girls, I am sitting here wondering what you are doing this afternoon? If the weather is hot and sticky there, like it is here in Mississippi? If you will like it here when you get to come home? I am calling this home, as I believe God is already putting in your heart that there is someone somewhere out there who loves you and wants you to come and live with them forever. To be their "forever child". I can't believe how I have never heard your sweet little voices, yet I have fallen so in love with both of you. I guess this time of waiting is like a time of going through pregnancy, only you are growing on the outside, in Ukraine!

It is funny when I think of the time when Moisés came to live with us. I wondered why that all happened. When we first started to plan for it I could not wait. Then as he got closer to coming I grew weary. Then right after he came I put up this wall against him. It was like he walked through the door and I knew I could fall in love with him as any parent does with a child, but he was not my child to fall in love with. He was only here for a season; and when that season was over he would leave, and we might never hear from him again. So, if I didn't let myself get close to him, then I didn't have to get hurt. Well, after a year of the wall I was so ready for him to leave... until, that is, it was time for him to graduate, and three short weeks until he would get on that plane, and we would be back to our family of four. Then, the youth minister at church had a senior dinner and the parents had to pray a blessing over their child. Well, Moisés was not my child, so Tim could do it. Then, I would be off the hook, right? NO. God had something else planned. That night, while getting ready, I told Tim that I did need a couple minutes to say something to Moisés. God had reminded me, earlier that day, that I had always said I would be a good step mother because mine was not, but as it turned out for Moisés I was not at all. I told him how sorry I was, and asked him to forgive me. I then told him I had put up an emotional wall as I didn't want to get hurt when he flew out of our lives, after we had invested a year into him. Unlike all the other parents who got to look forward to college graduations, and weddings, and grandbabies from their children, we might never hear from Moisés again. We didn't have all those future events to look forward to; and that broke my heart, but as Moisés sat there crying, he looked up at me and said that he, too, had built an emotional wall toward me, because he didn't want to be hurt when he left.

Well, he has now been gone three years; and we still do hear from him and see him. We have built a good relationship, built on solid ground, not on sand that can wash away. I feel like he knows he can come to us whenever he has a problem and we will be there to help him. It is never easy to see one you love leave the nest; and the day Moises graduated from high school I cryed the same way I did the days my two sons graduated. I feel like God put Moisés into our lives to prepare us for the next adventure in our lives. Not only do we have the two biological children God blessed us with, we have Moisés, Kristina, and Alyona. God is so good! I can't believe he trusts me to take care of his precious children.

Thank You, Lord, for this part of the ride.

Lynn