Orphanage in Zhytomyr

 First time seeing Yana! She is so precious and so tiny!

 I love these two people!!

 Our beautiful little girl!

I can't wait to bring our girl home!

Well today started later than we would have hoped but the day turned out great! I'm beginning to learn how to sit quietly, listen and wait wait wait! I also realized if I ever thought I had any control of the process I was so very wrong. We have a wonderful facilitator that really knows her job and has amazing rapport with people we had to deal with today. I am so thankful that she is the one helping us through this process. The day begun with doing some paperwork and then picking up a woman that had to witness us meeting Yana and interacting with her. Then we traveled to the orphanage where we went to the director of the orphanage's office and found out that he will be in the hospital for some time and that the attorney would have to go to the hospital to get the director to sign them. Which she did and they were signed! Yana was then asked to write a letter indicating that she would like to be adopted by us. Yana also had to discuss some family history and that is when I truly started to see her as a brave and strong little girl. We learned that she loves her older sister very much and will miss her very much. We hope to get to meet her sister and let Yana have a good visit with her. I also really want for Bryan and I to get to see her childhood home. For some reason I really need to do that. We didn't get to visit long with Yana today because we had to rush to two different offices for our paperwork before 5 p.m. in order to have a good chance to be able to submit our paperwork on Monday. No one seems to think we will get a court date next week .They indicated that it would be the following Monday or Tuesday.  I wanted to share with you what I saw today at the orphanage. I saw two of the most beautiful little girls I have ever laid my eyes on in the office. They followed us around most of the time we were there too. They told us over and over that they would like to be hosted in America!  Each one of these little girls couldn't take their eyes off of Yana because I believe they knew she was being rescued. I also met the sweetest blond hair blue eyed boy that was so friendly and kept opening the door to the office and peeking in to see Yana and her new family. I really don't have any words to describe the needs of these children. My mind can't even begin to wrap around what these children live with on a daily basis. All I know is we have to do something to advocate for these children. These children that I saw today longed for a family. They got to see the beginning of a family forming and I'm pretty positive that they knew this. I hope and pray that they too will get a chance to be a daughter or a son again in a healthy and loving home. Please if you have ever thought about adoption but never thought you could afford it and never thought in your wildest dreams you would adopt an older child please pray about it. If its not adopting a child please support a family who is in the process. These children are real to me with real faces and names and a real longing for a family. Please pray about hosting a child too! What an amazing program to get to know the child and have them in your home. This is such a blessing!  All I can say is we didn't have the money to do this and really don't fully have it now but God has brought us this far and I know He is going to finish what He started with Yana. I always think of this verse and I really believe that this is possible for these children I got to meet today. 

“For I know the plans for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity…” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)