No News

There is nothing new to report on the adoption front. Our agency's Russian Program Director will be back from Moscow this week, so we hope to hear if the process is going to pick up. Also, he is supposed to have news about the new regions. We may be at this waiting stage for awhile, so I will do my best to make these blogs as interesting as possible.

With the wait we have plenty of time to prepare. We are slowly going to collect all the items we will need to travel overseas (adapters, medicine, etc.). It also gives Evan a chance to get more school under his belt. For those of you who do not know, Evan is going to school for his Associate's Degree in Marketing. He is working full-time and taking 2-3 classes a semester in the evening and weekends. He will be done in May 2009. The more classes he completes before Nicholas comes home, the better. I know studying will be the last thing on his mind when his son comes home.

We also would like to save more money for the adoption. God has provided for the fees we have encountered so far. However, we still have some rather large expenses to come. This adoption will cost around the equivalent of a brand new car or more when it is all said and done.

As a classic worrier, I have a tendency to get overwhelmed. So, if you could please keep us in your prayers, we would greatly appreciate it. Please pray that God continues to bless us with the funds we still need. I am currently looking into grants, such as Shaohannah's Hope. We are also planning a garage sale for the Spring.

Evan and I also decided to begin saving our change. While it may not bring us thousands of dollars, every little bit counts. In most regions, the hotels average about $100 a day. Moscow is more like $300-400 a day. There is also the food costs and airfare. So, if anyone has any other fundraising ideas, let me know. It has been awesome to see how God provided for us this far, so I am really looking forward to watching Him work with the rest of the expenses.

In closing, since I am trying to learn Russian, I thought I would end with a little lesson. The word for today's blog is: пожалуйста

I don't expect you to be able to read that word. I can barely read it myself. But, it is pronounced pa-zhal-sta. It means "please", "don't mention it", and "you're welcome".

While Russian isn't the easiest to read because of the Cyrillic, they claim as long as you pronounce it the way it looks, they should be able to understand you. We'll see how well that works when we go over there.

Kristin