Not Exactly BFF's, but Making Progress...

Visit #6 went much better. He still did a lot of crying, but not nearly as much as previous trips, and mostly it was just grumpy, “I don’t want to be here” moaning and groaning. Not “I’m in mortal peril” crying. His bonding with Sara is growing noticeably every day. He loves to sit in her lap, and will put his head back and relax. He loves it when he sits in her lap and she rocks him back and forth. It is wonderful to see this kind of bonding happening already in the orphanage. It is more than we saw from Elijah when we were visiting him. He and daddy are not exactly BFF’s yet, but we are making progress there too. Every trip I pick him up and hold him and walk with him, even though I know he doesn’t want me to. And this past trip especially, there were a few times when he stopped crying and just relaxed. So good news all the way around.

We know that the major obstacles for him right now are that he is so attached to his “home”. With that knowledge, we are confident that this attachment will transition over to his new home. We just have to get there. The waiting this time is a little bit harder because we know that we need to have him in our “around the clock” care before we can start truly making our transition. And we just found out yesterday that we don’t get to take him out until Saturday (we got to take Elijah out on Friday last time), which we were bummed about. So we are going to take the next two days off from going to the orphanage, visit on Friday, and then pick him up on Saturday. Please continue to keep us in prayer.

On a completely unrelated note, we are purchasing a van (or rather my father is purchasing one on our behalf) while here in Siberia (for use at home, of course). If you remember from a past blog post before we left, we limped into the finish line here with our car spewing oil every time we drive it and the van barely working. We had to drive up to my parents’ house in 3^rd gear in our van because the transmission was shot. Last week the estimate for fixing it came back. With all that is wrong with it, the grand total was going to be around $5000. Considering we paid $3000 for it in the first place, that was a tough sell. So we started looking from here (you’ve got to love the internet) and found a van just 15 minutes from my parents’ house. It is a ’96, but only has 71K miles on it. In great condition. 12 passenger van size, but seats 8 comfortably with a ton of cargo space in the back. And for only $4800, less than it would cost to fix our van, it’s a steal! We will have a “new” vehicle waiting for us when we return. Another blessing to be sure!

JP