Leaving

We arrived at the orphanage the same time as we had all week long, but today was different.

We started out our morning meeting with the director who had invited a local college student to join us.  Over the next 5 months she will be helping our daughter with English lessons. Part of that help will include Skype calls with us every Friday.

It was cold so we left the orphanage and headed straight to the apartment.  

We kept the morning pretty laid back. We played a few games. She wrote down the Bulgarian alphabet for us. We looked at pictures and videos from the week.

She was hungry so she helped Aaron fry some eggs and ham. We let her try a fried egg both runny and cooked to see which she liked better. She boldly tried both.

We watched Frozen’s “Let it go” video while at the same time videoing her watching and singing it. Then we watched that video too.

We gave her a little down time and let her watch a Bulgarian show.

Then it was time to go. She helped us pack the artwork she gave us and we helped pack her backpack full of things we brought for her.

We stopped for a bite to eat and then walked back to the orphanage. We spent a little time there watching “Let it go” again. She said she would miss us.

She walked us to the gate again and along the way jumped into Aaron’s arms off the patio again several times.

We met one of the shift workers on her way in.  She told us that the night before our daughter had been calling out for "Mommy and Daddy".  Our daughter shared that she was dreaming of us, and seemed excited to let us know.

We got to the gate and she hugged us and kissed us several times. Jen tried to hold back tears. We walked away and she yelled for us and ran out and hugged us again. It was hard saying goodbye, but she walked away without tears and said goodbye.

She loves us and enjoys time with us, but anytime we talk about home and the kids, she shuts down. It is like she likes the idea of being with us, but there in Bulgaria, not in the US.

Just pray for her heart and for wisdom for us.

We are spending the night in Sofia. A car will pick us up early in the morning to take us to the airport and begin our trek home.

Thank you all again for your prayers.

Today we got to see where our daughter goes to school. The school has been shut down due to a virus going around.  (I guess we picked a great time to visit!)

We left the school and went to an indoor play park for an hour and a half.  We left for lunch and stopped to let our daughter pick out gifts for the older children back home.

We spent the afternoon back at the apartment, where Jen painted our daughter's nails and we all enjoyed some time together playing with Play-dough. ( and a little TV for down time) before returning with her to the children's home.

I struggled to write this post because we did have another episode today in the middle of a lot of fun stuff. However the day began and ended well, and in every breakdown we are always working for the breakthroughs.  I didn't want to focus on the hurt in the episode, but on what we gained.

Breakthrough #1: We began to see a pattern in that these always seem to occur mid afternoon.  The emotions are legitimate, however, fatigue or hunger often magnifies them.  Unfortunately, by the time we are realizing this, our week is over.  When we return, we may have to be dilligent in establishing a routine down time in the afternoons.

Breakthrough #2: Our daughters efforts at triangulation between Jen and I were addressed.  We may have to work thru this again when we return, but today the line was made clear.

Breakthrough #3: After the episode, with no prompting from us or the interpreter, our daughter apologized for her behavior. There are no words for this moment or how powerful it was.  It brought tears to both of us.  My perspective of the day is seen thru the lens of that moment.  Winning our daughter's heart is so worth it!

Day 3

We got our daughter's photo taken for her visa and passport to be ready when we return for the pickup trip.  After that we went to the park for a bit, she had a favorite slide she wanted to show us.  On the merry go round we began to work with asking nicely. (She's a little bossy ; ) )

We came back to the apartment so our attendant could go over some paperwork that would be notarized later on in the afternoon. We spent some time with her playing games, making necklaces and letting her braid Jen's hair.

We left the apartment around 1:30 to grab a bite before heading to the notary and picking up the pictures taken that morning.

Everything had gone really well.  After picking up the photos, she had asked to go back to the apartment. The photo above was taken minutes before we arrived at the apartment.  She had even asked for the ride on Aaron's shoulders.  We are not sure what the trigger was, but as soon as we walked thru the door, the meltdown.

It was a rough time, she said a lot. We're pretty sure the attendant left a few choice words out of the translation. The good news: She said it all, and we let her. We let it be ok for her to say it, and assured her that our love for her was unshakeable even though she said it.

The end of the day she rebounded, and everything was back to normal.  No, this is not the end of her struggles or ours, but it was a small breakthrough.

For those of you praying for the three of us during this time, thank you.  You have no idea how affective your prayers have been, both for our patience and her healing.

We arrived at the orphanage at 9:30 am. The director had heard our daughter's take on her first day and now wanted to hear ours.  We spoke for about 15 minutes, and then went on our way.

Today we chose to explore some of the old parts of town.  Unfortunately our daughter was not appropriately dressed, so she quickly became cold.  It was not raining but as you can see from the picture above there was a heavy fog that kept everything damp in addition to the cold.

We stepped inside the Ethnographic museum and spent about $10 to get warm. When we finished there we continued our way up the hill to ruins of an old fortress. The payoff being that you could look over the city.

When we arrived at the top our daughter was finally free to run wild, hopping on boulders and chasing the stray cats.  It was a great time of bonding as she would jump off of ruin walls into Aaron's arms.

We grabbed lunch at a restaurant at the top and headed back to the apartment for the rest of the afternoon.  We played with sticker books and numerous rounds of Candy Land. She tried on some of the clothes we had brought and loved them.

She is definitely experiencing the full spectrum of emotions. It was evident throughout the day and even as we left to bring her back to the orphanage.  We can't even imagine what is going on in her heart and mind.

Here's some of our pics from the day:

The First Meeting

We weren't sure what to expect. It would be up to the director to determine the schedule for our week with our little girl.  And of course, we were nervous about meeting her, it's amazing how intimidating a 9 year old can be!

We arrived at the orphanage a few minutes early, and waited in the courtyard for the director to arrive. We looked up and our eyes met as she was walking across the courtyard by an orphanage worker.  Immediately,  she bashfully lowered her head as she was escorted to us.  But we couldn't miss the smirk. She was excited too.

She shook our hands for an introduction, but when Jen reached out for a hug, she responded as if  she had been waiting a month to hold her new Mama. We found out later on that she had her week of outfits all planned out for us!

We went inside to meet with the director and had an opportunity to ask the director and workers lots of questions. Then the director told us we could take her out of the orphanage everyday this week, from 9:30 - 5:30, and that after this week we could set up weekly skype calls!

This does not happen often.

We took her back to our apartment, and spent the afternoon playing together.

Our prayer before our referral, was that God would ready her heart for us, and our hearts for her. We don't know how else to explain it except to say that He's done it.

Our Referral!!

This time around, EVERYTHING has been different in our adoption journey.

For the first year, all seemed well as we ran through all the paperwork and fundraising in pursuit of a little girl in Peru. The funding all came in before we were even ready to submit our application to Peru. It all seemed to be in place as we waited.  

Then we were denied,, Then our appeal was denied. Then our final appeal again denied.

Heartbroken and confused, we had only a few days to select another country. So we went back to what we were familiar with, . . Bulgaria. Again we waited. For 1 1/2 years, nothing happened. The only thing to report was updates on paperwork and more fees.

Late last year, we thought we had an opportunity with a little girl in Lithuania. So we frantically ran around to have all our paperwork switched over and paid more fees only to once again have her slip thru our fingers. So we continued to wait on Bulgaria.

December 20th, after 3 1/2 years of waiting, we got our referral!  

This season has been one of the most challenging times we've faced as a family, both emotionally and spiritually. We've had to continually battle to keep our hearts from becoming calloused. We've had to fight for faith when nothing was happening. We still don't know what to think of any of it, and really don't have any good answers as to why. 

What we do know, is that sharing the Father's heart for the fatherless, and seeing Him bring healing to this little girl thru our family is worth every heartache, every unanswered question, every prayer offered in weakness.

Below are some pics of the city where she is from. We will be staying there for five days visiting with our daughter.  Unfortunately this will only be a trip to meet her.  We will return in 4-6 months to bring her home.

www.thewarriorsquiver.blogspot.com

Rome in a day!

We arrived in Bari, Italy at 8 am Saturday morning.  By the time we got through customs(2 hours!), we barely had enough time to get to the train station for our 4 hour ride to Rome.  We arrived in Roma Termini again and had to buy tickets for another train to our apartment.  We then had a few minute walk with all our luggage. We were quite the site, walking thru the streets of Rome.



We found a grocery store to buy breakfast and snacks.  We found a little pizza place that sold an equivalent to slouvaki.  Yummy!!!  We ate dinner in the apartment and went to bed.



We were up early and after a quick breakfast, caught a tram to the center of Rome.  From there we walked everywhere. We only had a day, so we decided not to take any tours or go inside any monuments.  We only stopped for a quick lunch at a restaurant, where we ordered a true Italian pizza.

We again hit the streets to see every site we could in the short amount of time we had. We were pleasantly surprised at how close everything was. Our kids kept up, they were as excited as we were to be there.

Over the years of homeschool, the kids have learned a lot about Rome and were able to recognize many of these places, as well as tell us the history of each site.

We knew that Scanderbeg, Albania's national hero, had spent some time in Rome, so we were so excited when we finally found Scanderbeg Piazza on our map.  We navigated our way, using our tiny map in order to see it in person.  The building where he stayed is still there.



We were in the city until about 7 pm and then headed back to our apartment.  We stopped only to pick up a little dinner of slouvaki once again.  We ate it quickly and repacked so we could be ready to be up and out of our apartment around 3:30 am to catch our 8 am flight out of Rome.  What a day!!!



Amazingly, it was actually cheaper to take the time travelling thru Italy, spending a day in Rome on our return trip, than it would have been for us to have flown directly into Tirana, Albania.  We feel so incredibly spoiled that our family was able to visit both of these amazing places.

Albania Day 9 : Monster Trucks and Friday night church

The boys in the village knew there would be a surprise at the end of week, but they didn't know what. Friday morning they were waiting at the gate well over an hour before the scheduled time.



Our local Lowes had generously donated 25 DIY monster trucks for the boys to assemble. 

We had told Tobin, before the trip that he would have to give a devotional for the event. (Easy to say, but how do you tie monster trucks to a teaching from scripture?)

Fearlessly, Tobin read from 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul compares the church to a body with many working parts that are all dependent on each other.  He then showed that the monster truck needs each part in order to go! (We were kind of a little proud!)

               We formed an assembly line and let the boys start working on their trucks.  Many of these boys were holding a hammer for the first time ever. The boys ages   ranged from 5-16.


There were so many boys that even the girls had to lend a helping hand. However, God had provided just enough that even Ellie and Reni got to make one.

The toy trucks occupied the boys for the rest of the day. They were a huge hit!

I had told God years ago, that if He was calling us to Albania, I would be willing to go and even sweep floors for Him there.  So, of course, when Jen saw me here she was quick to remind me of how God had answered my prayer! God has a sense of humor.

The boys could not wait to take us to their "big rock" in the woods.

One last afternoon game of four square.

Aaron was given the opportunity to preach at the Friday evening church service.  It was a privilege to be able to encourage our brothers and sisters in VLA-shaj. ( I noticed some giggles while I was preaching, apparently I had been putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable! Pastor Genti translated it exactly as I had said it,

emphasis and all!)

Before we left the service the body prayed a blessing on us. It was hard to leave, even the kids said we weren't there quite long enough.  The people of Vlashaj are in our hearts and we cannot wait for the opportunity to return.

We left the village right after the church service to catch our 10pm ferry from Durres to Bari, Italy.

Albania Day 8 : Work projects and a third home visit

Our second work day. Aaron and Nathan finished the second half of the gate at the center. Meanwhile, Jen and the kids finished assembling the metal shelving  and organizing the storage underneath the house.

While Aaron and Nathan finished the top of the gate (too high for the kiddos) Tobin and Andrew resumed their week-long nerf gun fire fight with Reni. 

Rachel and Ellie had more time to tell each other stories. Jen, Cora and Haley helped Cydil photograph and enter data on the computer for a project she is working on.

The afternoon provided an opportunity for one more house visit.  Here we are with the Koni family.  This family was the first in the village to believe in Christ. Their daughter Eda is very fluent in English and was extremely helpful in translating for us especially while we were hanging out with the youth in the village. We were able to spend a lot of time with Eda throughout our time in Albania.  We really enjoyed her fun, loving personality and her commitment to the ministry there in her village.

During our visit we were able to encourage one another with stories of all that God had done in our lives.  Even the kids shared testimonies of seeing God's healing power.

(You can see the bond that was formed between Rachel and Ellie in this photo.  They were attached at the hip.)

From here we headed back to the center for another round of open court volley ball and four square.  We finished the night packing up for our departure late the following evening.