Day Eleven: Looking ahead to court

We still don't know for sure what day we are going to court. According to our translator, the judge said that we could go "as soon as" we get our Homeland Security paperwork (which is on its way!). It is possible that the paperwork could arrive on Monday, but even then we don't know if that is good enough for us to keep a court date on Wednesday the 5th. Or it may be that we will not be able to go to court until the 12th, even if the paperwork arrives on Monday. But we don't know that even Tuesday would be too late to keep our court date on the 5th, so we really are up against so much that is unknown. But when we left Minneapolis we had no information to say that ANY upcoming court dates would be available to us. Now we have two possible dates, which is more than we had 2 weeks ago. We walk by faith, and the path immediately in front of us seems to always remain lit enough for us not to fall!

Yesterday we drove down to see Ivan again! We left our hotel again at 11am and arrived around 3pm. This time we had about 2 full hours to be with him, so it was a much more satisfying trip. Vanya actually walked right up to Dave when he came into the room (Karin happened to be in another room at the moment), which we believe is a very good thing being how reserved he can be with strangers, as well as how few men he actually sees in the orphanage.


We tried to give him a juice box, but we quickly learned that he had never used a straw before! We had a little fun trying to teach him how to close him mouth around the straw and then suck the juice up! At first he would just open his mouth and hold the straw on his tongue with his mouth still open. We had to try and help him close his mouth around it, and then squirt the juice in his mouth. It took several minutes, and several tries, and a few spills down his shirt too, but by the end of our stay he seemed to know what to do with the straw.

But then he walked over to Karin's bag and started digging through it. He pulled out some of the treats that we brought him, and we let him have one or two. But then we pulled out the play-dough and we had to show him how to use it.

A few minutes pass and he goes back to Karin's bag and digs out some rolls and fruit we had brought him. Most of the pictures that we have of this visit are of him eating food!

In the time that we had, he ate 2 yogurts, 2 rolls, handfulls of Cheerios, handfulls of trail mix, half an apple, and part of an orange! You can see here in this picture how interested he was on getting all of the yogurt that was in the container!





He did a little coloring, played a bit more with some play-dough, and then had some of the trail mix. He ate the chocolate covered peanuts first! :-)






Vanya still was pretty cautious with us the whole time, but certainly he was more open to us than he was the last visit. He doesn't talk at all when he's around us, but the little Russian that we know he seems to understand us. He responds when we ask him if he wants juice, if he likes what he's eating, and when tell him he's doing a good job coloring.

When it came time for him to leave, he wanted to take the play-dough with him. He said something to his caregiver (in Russian two-year-old speak) about how much he liked it. His caregiver opened the canisters and seemed to say it was alright if he took it. Vanya was quiet and cooperative with us, and like we said, he was a little more engaging with us than the last time.

At this point we continue to pray that our immigration paperwork arrives quickly, and that we are allowed to keep our December 5th court date. We may or may not change hotels to the town where Vanya lives, in order that we may see him on a daily basis. This is kind of hinging on if we can get a hotel that will register us, and of course when our court date is.

Tomorrow we are going to see a Russian circus! Kind of nice to have such events like this to keep us entertained and busy when there is so much going on that we can't control. All our love to you, and thanks for all of your prayers!