Good News

This is the pathway to the orphanage--I think it is a grape arbor during the summer.

This is Kevin approaching the front door. I don't know what the name means.

I am happy to report that our children do indeed exist and are apparently alive and well :) Thanks guys for the messages. We appreciate them a lot. We plan to see you tomorrow night. We have our suitcases pretty much packed. I cannot believe how stuffed they are even without all of Steven's stuff in them.

Thankfully our visit with Steven went a lot better this morning. We visited in what I'll call the coat room. It's a good-sized room with adult coat closets along one wall and little cubbies with little coats in them along another wall. It's kind of the anteroom to what seems to be the main living area for this group of boys. There are benches along the other two walls. Anyway, we were mostly just with Steven except when the other kiddos would sneak in for a hug or a pat. Steven sat on Kevin's lap quite a bit. We sang 'Wheels on the Bus' and '5 Little Monkeys Sitting on the Bed' and 'Ring Around the Rosie.' And we got to sing 'Jesus Loves Me'--that was really special to me--I don't know if Steven has ever heard that sweet truth before. Kevin was trying to get Steven to roll the car back to him but instead he kept running off with it and laughing. We think he thought Kevin would try to take it away but we had already decided to just leave it with him this time. He also kept slapping at us and laughing and I kept taking his hand and touching it softly to my face or arm or whatever . . . AND HE ACTUALLY COPIED ME! He touched my face very softly several times. It may sound small but I really felt like that was a break-through. And when Kevin said "Daddy" it seemed like Steven was trying to copy--he was at least vocalizing in response and I heard a "d" sound. I also saw him using his car as an imaginery camera. I was encouraged by all of these things. Steven seems to especially like Kevin and enjoyed being tickled (tried to tickle us in response) He really giggled when Kevin would pretend like Steven was going to fall off of his lap.

Yesterday's visit I think was tougher because we were dealing with the whole crew and they were really feeding on each other. They were pulling decorations of the New Year's Tree over and over, climbing up on a chair and pulling decorations off of the wall, tug-of-warring over different things, one kiddo was biting ends off of markers. Also Steven was being real defiant: if the worker would tell him to come here he would go somewhere else; if someone tried to take his hand and lead him where he was supposed to go, he would drop to the ground. When he'd finally get where he was supposed to be, he'd take off again. I was trying to look at a book with him and he had such a death grip on it that I couldn't turn the pages.

I am majorly glad that today went better. I'm not writing this to discourage anyone from adopting but just to give you a realistic idea of how a visit might go. I kind of wish we didn't have to leave now when we are starting to make some progress. I pray that God will continue to protect his little heart and make it soft so he can receive and give love--that our leaving now won't make it harder for him to trust us later.

But it will be so wonderful to see our kids and family and friends again.

Next post will be from Idaho . . .