No news is not good news ...

Just needed a bit of cheer for today, so here is a picture of me with lovely ladies from Sunday. This is in the courtyard of the regional orphanage.

Today we did not get the good news we were hoping for. We waited and waited to hear from someone. About 1:30 our door bell rang and it was Maria. She said she had just gotten in from Polundino. She came in and sat down and I immediately asked about court and she said she didn’t know anything. Then she told me that the judge had reviewed all our papers and wanted an apostilled copy of the home study agency license. There was one in the dossier, but it had expired in September. I had just brought copies of the renewed one, because I just picked them up right before we left. I asked and asked over and over to Yakov which documents did I need. I even had an addendum done to our home study before we came, even though he told me I probably didn’t need it. I just didn’t get it all apostilled.

To say I am aggravated would be an understatement. Needless to say I sent an urgent e-mail to Mom in Monroe and she is getting all this done for me. I’m even getting the homestudy addendums that we “didn’t need” apostilled while she’s at it. Then it will be a scramble to get it over here early next week. Maria told me DHL was good at getting things here quickly. Wanita, thanks for helping Mom with this. So the race is on.

Maria could not give me an answer on whether or not this would affect our court date. She still thinks it will be Monday, but she doesn’t know. I asked her if Svetlana had talked to the judge today about trying for an earlier court date and she told me no, the other couple was there when she talked to the judge, so she didn’t mention it.

We went and saw Almira without a translator today, which went okay. We had our Russian phrases book and she helped us pronounce words and we told her the English words. I also took all her scrap book stuff and that’s all she wanted to do today was work on our scrapbook.

Tomorrow just has to get better. Please pray for us that this will not postpone court and that the judge will reconsider making us wait until Monday for court. I know this is a lot to ask, but our God is great and can make it happen. I’ll keep you posted.