Day Ninteen: We're back! (In the region capital)

We have been in the region where Vanya lives the past 6 days without any phone or internet access, which is the reason we haven't posted anything lately. But we got to see Vanya nine different times, so that was the trade-off! Here is a quick break-down...

We left the region capital on Tuesday morning and drove to Vanya's city. We saw him that afternoon, and then twice a day every day after that - once in the morning from 9:30-12, and again in the afternoon from 3:30-5:30. Vanya warmed up to us a little more with each visit, and we were allowed quite a lot of access to different rooms in the orphanage, and even got to see where Vanya sleeps!

Basically each visit consisted of him looking though the bag of goodies that we brought him, taking everything out and putting it in some kind of order, and then rearranging it all again somehow. We got to go for walks with him outside, we got to see him with his group during music time, we played with him in what we believe is the activity room, and we also got to see his everyday play room that housed all of the toys that his group has to play with each day.
We must say that it was SO good to see how nice, and clean, and safe, and interesting all of his equipment and toys were! Do not think at all about any of the horror stories, or movies about orphanages when you think of this place, because it was really very, very good! It felt like such a blessing to know that he was in such a decent environment!

We have too many pictures to put them all up, so we'll just put up a few of the best ones.


























There are many things that we can say, and they are all good! We really feel that we had some quality bonding experiences with Vanya while we were there! He really warmed up to us, which was so much fun, but also so hard to leave him there.

We have a court date on Wednesday! All of our other friends here have had successful court hearings, and we have every indication that ours will be too. There is just a lot of information that we need to memorize for the hearing (lots of family background, birth dates, diagnoses, recommended treatments, etc).

Please pray for our judge granting us a waiver of the 10 day wait period! The way the court system works here is that there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period after a court hearing before the judgment becomes finalized. Please join us in praying for this to be waived so that we may quickly move on to what we need to do in Moscow, and thereby get home quicker. We are going to ask the judge to waive the 10 days because we have already seen him so many times this past week, it is dangerous driving back and forth between here in the region capital
and the city where Vanya lives. We already have all of the clothes that we will need, including boots, coat, hat, gloves, etc. Please pray with us for this!

We are glad to be back here in the region capital where all of our new friends are! It is so nice to feel the support of the family of God with these wonderful people that we have met on this journey. And we continue to be grateful for all the support and prayers that we know we are getting back home as well! Thank you all!
Dave & Karin