My SBP Revealed

Thank you Robin for being such an excellent SBP. You were very sneaky, I had no idea it was you!=)
Thank you for the notecards as well, I recieved them yesterday. I appreciate your prayers and support and I will be praying for you too.

Thank you everyone for your kind words, prayers and encouragement. We are blessed to have family and friends to lean on.

Sad News

We got a call from our family coordinator this afternoon. We were told that we lost our referrals. They are no longer available to us as the children are being pursued by Russian familes. As sad as this news was, I was not surprised. I believe that the Lord has been preparing us for this day for quite some time. I've felt a sort of disconnect from the photos we had of our children and now we know why. It doesn't make it any easier though. It still hurts but I am so thankful for the incredible peace He has given us. We trust that God has the perfect children for us somewhere in Russia and we will wait for them as long as it takes. Hopefully it won't take much longer! Our agency said that we will be at the top of the waiting list for referrals and they should come soon after reaccreditation. I've learned not to hold my breath. We have also asked that they do not send us any photos of our future children, having faces to fall in love with has made this loss all the harder. Please pray for us, for the children we lost, the children that will one day be ours and for reaccreditation. Thak you all for your prayers and support.
We will " trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding, in all our ways we will acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths".

Underrated Candy

Today is a beautiful day in Lakeland , Florida. We took 9 students from Chris' youth ministry to pre-view days at Southeastern University. It is a beautiful campus. The president is awesome, he is completely dedicated to the students here and is a very godly man. We got to go to chapel last night and the choir was amazing! There was about 18 people singing and 8 musicians. I felt like I was at a Kirk Franklin concert!=) The kids are having a great time and it's a great experience for them as most of them were unaware that Christian Universities even existed. Being here really makes me wish I could go back to college. Yeah, I can't believe it either! Crazy!!
Anyway, back to the title of the post. On our way up here, we stopped at Cracker Barrel and I bought some old school candy. They have candy there that I haven't seen since I was a kid and penny candy stores still existed. Horehound, penny sticks, Skybars and they have an extensive new candy selection as well. I bought a Bit O' Honey bar. Can I just say that I think this particular candy may just be the most underrated candy in existence. I love this candy!!! If you are timid to try it because you think it tastes like honey, you are mistaken. It has a peanuty, caramely flavor and the consistency is that of taffy. Mary Janes are a close second but they have more of a maple flavor. There are some underrated candies out there. Which do you think doesn't get the props it deserves?

Happy Birthday!

Today is our little boy's 2nd birthday. We are so sad that we were not able to celebrate with him. We are praying that he recieves special favor today and sadly, that no one from his biological family visits him. We want him to come home with us! Please lift him up in prayer today.
Thanks.

Trials

Today it has been 6 months since we received our referrals of 2 precious children. It has been a difficult time of waiting. Some of you know this firsthand. Last Sunday my husband, who is the Youth Pastor at our church, was given the opportunity to speak to the congregation. His message was about trials. We have all been through them, some of us are experiencing some rather difficult ones right now. I'm not biased or anything but if you want to be encouraged, take some time and listen to his message. Just click on the play button to hear it. He's getting over laryngitis so he's got a scratchy voice.=)

Mind Blowing!

Chris and I went to a Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman concert last night. It was amazing, I really needed it. Louie Giglio spoke and the things he said blew my mind! I thought I'd pass along the info so you can feel as small as I did.
We live on an amazingly perfect planet called earth. 93,000 miles away is the sun.

If you took a sharpie and made a dot on the sun, that dot would represent the size of the earth in comparison to the sun. It would take 109 earths to make up the diameter of the sun. So, you think our sun is big? Well hold your horses, check out Betelgeuse ( some pronounce it beetlejuice). If Betelgeuse was placed at the center of our solar system, it's outer surface would extend between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. Betelgeuse is the second brightest star in the Orion constellation and is about 427 light years away. In case you're wondering, 1 light year = 5,879,000,000,000 miles!

It would take 650 suns to make up the diameter of Betelgeuse. Now that's pretty big, but still not big enough.
Next is VV Cephei, it is located in the Cepheus solar system which is about 3000 light years away. It would take between 1600-1900 suns to make up the diameter of this star, but it still isn't the biggest.

The largest known star is called Canis Majoris (the big dog) and it would take between 1800-2100 suns to make up the diameter of this star. Remember that 109 earths make up the diameter of 1 sun. Are you feeling small yet?

That little dot on the left next to Canis Majoris says the sun, you can't even see the sun itself!
Alright, you want one more mind blower? I saved the best for last.
Here is the whirlpool galaxy. Beautiful huh?

The whirlpool galaxy is 23 megalight years, or 23 million light years away from us. That's 5,879,000,000,000 miles multiplied by 23 million! Can you wrap your brain around that? I sure can't! The very first verses in the bible say that " In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." By the breath of God the heavens ( the stars and planets) were made. Hearing Louie Giglio speak just reminded me of how BIG God is and how small we are. He created a small blue planet that was perfect for us to live on and put it in just the right spot so that life could floursh. I am reminded that despite our smallness, God loves us so much. He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die in our place that we might have eternal life with Him.
Oh, the coolest part of the whirlpool galaxy is yet to come. In the center of the whirlpool is a black hole. The hubble telescope looked through that hole and took a picture....

23 mega light years away, God reminds us of His love. Amazing!

Update

We just got an update from our agengy regarding accreditation. I thought I'd pass along the info...
"Dr. D has just returned from a trip to Eastern Europe, and with him comes an update on reaccreditation. During the time that Dr. D was in Russia, the Ministry of Education again asked for accreditation documents for all agencies to be revised and resubmitted. Dr. D assisted in this process for America World's partner agency as he was in Moscow at the time. Because of this revision, the timeframe for reaccreditation has changed, in that they are no longer held to the April deadline. However, they have said that they will not take the entire three months they could take to process the documents. At this point, Dr. D estimates that reaccreditation will occur within March to April, lengthening the possible timeframe by a month. Although it is discouraging to hear that reaccreditation could take a month longer than previously estimated, after many past deadlines have come and gone, at this point Dr. D is very optimistic that this time reaccreditation will indeed happen within the next two months.We trust that God is sovereign over this process and over the Russian government. We continue to pray for your families through this difficult time of waiting and uncertainty as well as for the many children who are waiting to be adopted. "
Well there you have it. We feel pretty good about the news. What's one more month anyway?=) I'm just glad to hear that accreditation is actually becoming a reality! Let's keep praying!

Russian Class-Week 7

Well, last night was my last Russian class. There is actually one more next week but I won't be able to attend. I hope to attend the intermediate class offered at the end of April. She needs 8 people to sign up or she can't offer the class. We learned a lot of conversational Russian last night. It was fun. I learned how to say "May I..." and "that's not allowed" which will come in handy with our toddlers. In case you're wondering, it's nealzya. It also kind of means "that's enough".

Russian Class-Week 6

Last night we were tested on some vocabulary, I did pretty well (except for some missing accent marks). We also reviewed how to say his/him and her(s). We started learning how to say our(s) and their(s) but we ran out of time so we'll study that more next week. We have some new vocabulary to study as well. I'm definately looking forward to the intermediate class that begins in April! I got to spend some time talking with Natasha after class. She is very sweet and very smart. She had Lasix (sp?) eye surgery to help her see better over a year ago and she is still experiencing floaters and blurred vision. She's a little bitter about the whole experience and with God. I told her I'd pray for her.
Nothing's going on in our adoption. I spoke with our family coordinator today and she said they are still waiting for reaccreditation. Dr.D is in Russia right now but will be back on Tuesday so hopefully he'll have some good news for us. It's gotta be soon, right??

Thank You!

Today a package arrived in the mail. In it was a childen's book titled " A Big Turnip" and a Russian nesting doll and a very sweet note. Many thanks to my Secret Blog Pal! It was so thoughtful of you and it came at the perfect time. It was a sort of confirmation for me from God.
The book is so cute, I can't wait to read it to our kids and I love Russian nesting dolls. They will be waiting in the kids room for them when they come home. Thank you again for blessing me SBP.

Russian Class-Week 5

We were supposed to be tested last night, but most of the class was unprepared so Natasha has given us another week to learn our Russian spelling. She also announced that she would be offering and Intermediate Russian class in April. You know I'll be there, unless I'm in Russia! I am very excited about continuing to learn the language. I enjoy it so much.
We learned some new vocabulary last night and also how to say "what is that" and "who is that" and the appropriate responses. Also, the need to learn when words are feminine, masculine or neuter. For example, okno (window) is neuter because it ends in an o. Pagoda (weather) ends in an a so it's feminine and milechick (boy) is masculine because it ends in a k. There are many more rules that apply so memorization is key. Knowing the gender of words will come in handy as I learn the language better.
Until next time...