It's official! we have five kids!

After arriving in Kiev yesterday, we had a nice lunch at Luda's apartment before climbing into Leo's van for the long drive to Kovel. The sunset lingered on the glowing snow as we passed throughout the quiet countryside and I felt peaceful.



We checked into our hotel and moved into the room we lived in last May. We were hungry, so we went to the attached restaurant. I was a little put off by the loud music of the dance party going on, but after a few sips of beer and a little adjustment, I decided it was fun. After lying in bed listening to the party so many nights, it was great to be there for a change and see what a nice, happy crowd was down there dancing.

Grief is always just a moment away for me and is sometimes brought on by the silliest things. There were music videos playing on the tv's at the
party and I saw a commercial for fabric softener in which a little girl hugs a cloud (because it's soft like mama's laundry) and then, standing in the clouds, hugs her mother. The cloud hugging girl brought me to subtle tears and, as we left, I hugged Mark. As he let go, he found a shiny 5 kopek on the floor- a penny from heaven. I got my "hug in the clouds" too.

We went up to our room feeling like we were in God's hands, which was good because when I opened my e-mail moments later we found out that Thomas was in the hospital with a heart problem. As I toyed with the very tempting complete meltdown lying there saying "Take me, I'm yours"' Mark strongly exhorted me to see the news as a temptation and not to fall for it. He means well, but his pep talks unfortunately don't always translate so well into "woman". As I attempted to stay calm and keep my trust in God's care for us, we called various relatives and found it was OK. He is home now and should be fine but it was hard to be far away when I wanted to be there.

After talking to Thomas himself, we went to sleep and slept too long. We both took sleeping pills and woke up groggy and moving slow. We were too late for breakfast but snacked in the room before heading out for paperwork errands. We were excited to get the final court decree today so it is official! We now have five children: Thomas, Nadia Leonora, Nicholas Ruslan, Andrew and our angel in heaven Mary Evelyn.

After getting a quick snack for lunch, we went to see our kids. Nadia's face glowed with happiness when she saw us and my spirits, which had been in upheaval since the e-mail about Thomas, were calm. I was so happy to see our kids and we had a great visit with them. They are both relaxed and happy with us and excited about their new family.






Tomorrow we have a lot of documents to prepare. Please pray that it goes smoothly and we get the old style passports so we can come soon!


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