I am so sorry I have been so long in getting another post up. I am not even sure where all the time seems to go. I get up in the mornings, do my thing, and before I know it, it is time to go to bed.

Both of our doctor appointments went fine. He said we are both healthy and should live long lives. He was proud of how much weight I had lost since the last time I was in, so that is a real good thing. The less weight to carry around, the better to keep up with 2 girls. I say that, then I let Satan whisper in my ear that I am too old for this. That I won't be a good mother. That I won't be able to keep up. Or his best one is, "How can you relate to them with the age difference?" But then God comes in and YELLS in my ear, "Who is in control? You will be fine. I would not have called you if I did not trust you, or know you could handle it." I know He never gives us more than we can handle, so God will have HIS victory in this! There is a song that says, "Satan, get under my feet." That is right where my Jesus wants him to be, under my feet.

We have made lots of progress. We went for our biometrics (finger prints), and collected the rest of the home study paperwork. Mrs. Betti has finished writing it. She is now waiting for her supervisor to read it so she can turn it over for our review to see if we have anything we want to add. All off the local, state, and federal clearances are done, so we are waiting for immigration services to approve us to send our dossiers over to Ukraine. We received an email from a friend on Friday who gave us the email address of a man who was going to Balta this weekend and there was a chance he might get to visit with Alyona while he was there. Tim sent the man an email and very shortly there afterward got a phone call from the man, via Skype (which is way cool); and he was more than willing to visit with her for us. So we quickly wrote another letter to her and emailed it along with some pictures of the family so she had some idea of who these strange people in the USA were that were writing to her. He was hoping to help her write us a letter and take a small video of her for us. This is almost like sending your child off to camp summer and not hearing from them. Tim asked him if he ever goes to Kiliya. He said he would for a price; and it would fit into our budget, so we will see if he will go there for us in a couple of weeks. YEAH!!!

It is the funnest thing. I have had a sick stomach for the past several weeks, almost like morning sickness. I know it is just nerves, but the other day there was a thing on the news about a man and his wife in Florida who were a host family to three sisters. When it was time to send the girls home, they did not. Instead they filed for temporary custody, and got it. Ukraine then threatened to stop all host programs and international adoptions until the girls were returned. I felt as if a rug had been pulled out from under me. I may not have a baby growing inside of my stomach, but I do have two girls growing inside of my heart. I think God uses this time of preparations and going through all of this process to develop our love for the children. I had never knew one could learn to love someone so deeply as I have by just looking at a dozen photos of them. Never even getting a letter from them, but just their smiles and eyes tell so much.

Tim has been teaching our Sunday School class the last couple Sundays and teaching on obedience. He has taught me a lot about my faith, that I have been trying to make it work, figuring out how God wants it all to come together, but if I just read the Word every day it tells me what to do. We are to help the widows and the orphans. Sometimes that means taking the hand of a widow and helping them across the street. Or, maybe it is calling on a "shut in" to see if they possibly need something from the store. It might mean taking a fatherless boy to the park to play ball. Or if could be teaching a motherless girl how to properly apply makeup. Basically, just being a strong Christian witness to those less fortunate.

I will finish up on a funny note for y'all. Pulling into church this morning, I noticed several empty handicap parking spaces. I looked at Tim and said, "Before both girls are grown & gone we may need one of those spots closer to the door than the off campus parking we normally go to. See, we usually park in a different lot, down the street, then ride the shuttle. After I got inside church and thought a little more about that I realized the joke is really on them! They still have to walk from the parking lot into the building, maybe as much as a few hundred feet. On the other hand, the shuttle picks us up at our vehicle, and drops us off at any of the doors we choose. We might have to walk all of 25 feet to get in the building, so those people parking in handicap spaces really end up walking further than we do. Funny, huh?

Until next time... please keep praying for us!

Lynn

Wow! What a whirlwind of a day. I started out at the gym. Then, off to work. I cleaned two houses by 11:45 am. At that point I needed to go take a nap, but that was not to be in my schedule today. I had to meet Tim to get his name on a piece of paper so I could get it in the mail yet today. Tim had his doctor appointment this morning. It seemed to go good, except they forgot to do the TB test. So, now he has to go back tomorrow.

Anyway, from there I had to go to the church to pick up a letter for the social worker. I then made a couple of phone calls to find out why some other documents had not arrived yet. Next, to the post office, then the Mississippi Department of Safety to file a request for a background check. And on to the County Appraiser's office to get the certified copy of the square footage statement for our house. While I was there, I decided to go ahead and pay for Tim's truck tags. I was speaking to a lady in line about the adoption; and she was happy for us. After she left, the man ahead of me stepped up to pay; and he asked me to join him at the window. He wanted to know how much my tags were. I told him, "$27.00;" and he asked the lady to add it to his bill. Then, he said for me to apply the money I saved to the adoption. WOW!! My God is sooooo good!

I also had my doctor appointment this afternoon. It went well; and they remembered my TB test! We both go back in on Friday morning to have them read. Mrs. Betti called me this afternoon to tell me she was afraid we might have a serious problem with our FBI check. When we sent off for the background check we wrote a November 1st deadline on the outside of the envelope. She said we should have written "Return in 2 weeks". She went on to say that as a result it be might be 10 weeks before we receive the response back, so she gave me a number to call to check. Oh, lucky me. The menu prompts had changed. I was stunned when I actually got a live person on the other end, who then told me the background checks were complete; and the responses were to be mailed TOMORROW! Praise the Lord!! Once more our angels are watching out for us.

By the way... I did get home in time to lay down for a short nap. The operative word is "short" because the phone rang FIVE times. In other words, STILL NO NAP. Some day, maybe, but as for now it is worth not getting one if it helps to get the girls home as soon as we can. And if that means no nap for a while, so be it!

Lynn