We had a wonderful trip.
Wonderful, amazing, God led and God ordained.
There is really not another way to describe our experiences. We met the children on our 7th day in country. Sadly, we only got two visits with them before we left. We anticpate a court date shortly and will be traveling back to complete court and then again to complete the rest of the adoption.
We are very sure that ALL THREE of these children are meant to be added to our family. We prayed and layed our hearts out to the Lord. We asked for a very clear word. Our facilitator had to drop us off at the orphanage and go pick up the local adoption worker. We had a chance to walk the grounds of the orphanage with our friend Catherine. While walking the grounds, we came across Blue Bonnets. We were with our friend and I told them to wait, I had to go take a picture of our state flower. I walked to the flower to take it's picture and the Lord's word was made abundantly clear. The Blue Bonnets had 9 flowering stems. We needed no further confirmation and knew we were there to adopt all three children.
Our facilitator arrive back with the local adoption worker and we proceded to the orphanage director's office. We met the director, sat at the table and then the orphanage doctor arrived. She brought the children's medical records. We started with Gloria's records first. Our facilirator translated for us, we asked questions and our questions were answered where there were answers to be given. Some things are just unknown.
Before we finished hearing Gloria's medial information, she was brought in by her caretaker. She is a happy and beautiful girl.
We thoroughly enjoyed meeting each other - she had no hesitation coming into my arms.
She met her daddy ... look at them ... is your heart melting yet?!?
Then the babies met ...
if your heart is not melting now .... just wait ....
Samuel was brought in next. We kinda expected to meet each child individually. But that did not happen, they were brought in in rapid succession as we were still reviewing medical records. We were very thankful that Catherine was with us and that her hobby is photography. By the end of the meeting the room was full!!!!
Our first glimpse at Samuel. He is soooo tiny. He has the greatest smile, his whole face smiles. When you tell him to look at the camera to take his picture, his whole mouth opens and smiles while he closes his eyes. He is just precious.
Samuel loved stretching this slinky and played with all the toys.
He really liked this little dump truck and this is his classic eyes closed for the camera pose.
Is your heart on the floor yet? Oh my.
I cannot even put into words what this picture does to me.
Last but not least they brought us Seth. Seth is so handsome and when he smiles his eyes melt my heart. Catherine has spent much time at the orphanage and had given us a little insight into Seth. He is fearfully and wonderfully made and we are glad that Catherine had prepared us for our first meeting with him. There were some very harsh and shocking comments made about him, I cannot share here, but please pray for Seth, pray hard for him until we get back to him.
Mommy talking to Seth. Here I am trying to get him to touch my hand, so I can bring him to the table with daddy.
Here we have all the children and are still trying to take in all the medical information. The babies are playing on the floor. Amazingly, Seth sat on my lap for quite a few minutes.
I have a ton more pictures and a ton more story to tell, but I have children that need a drink and a snack.
Please pray for us all. Pray for us as we prepare our home and pray for Seth, Samuel and Gloria until we can get to them and get them home.
