The Fireside Cafe

When Love Brings You Home

I wrote this sermon for our adoption agency, Buckner International Adoption, as part of a package of resources for National Adoption Month last November.  

When Love Brings You Home

In his 2001 song inspired by his adopted daughter, When Love Takes You In, Steven Curtis Chapman writes:

I know you've heard the stories

But they all sound too good to be true

You've heard about a place called home

But there doesn't seem to be one for you

So one more night you cry yourself to sleep

And drift off to a distant dream

Where love takes you in and everything changes

A miracle starts with the beat of a heart

When love takes you home and says you belong here

The loneliness ends and a new life begins

When love takes you in.

For children living in an orphanage, the concepts of home and family are only the substance of hopes and dreams.  Even in the midst of other children, institutional life always reminds orphans that rejection and abandonment have been driving forces in their lives.

But for adopted children, everything changes in an instant.  In one moment they move from rejection to acceptance, from loneliness to being part of a family, from hopelessness to hope, from abandonment to home.  Their physical journey is not so different from our own spiritual journey when Jesus Christ saves us.  Perhaps that is why James 1:27 says, “…to visit orphans and widows in their distress” is a sign of “pure and undefiled religion.”  By caring for those who are least able to take care of themselves, we walk in stride with God.

As a pastor and student of the Bible, I knew these things and believed them in my mind, but when I became the parent of an adopted child I began to see God’s love for me from an entirely new perspective.

The language of adoption is used in the New Testament to describe our own relationship with God.  In John 14:2-3, Jesus tells his disciples that although he is going away, “I will prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  In verse 18, Jesus continues, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”  In other words, Jesus assures his disciples that they will not be abandoned; they have a home and a family to go with it.

In the fall of 2010 my wife and I completed our second adoption in Russia and prepared to bring our 5-year old son back to the United States.  We picked up our son in Krasnodar, Russia and in the evening we boarded a plane for Moscow where we would spend a few days finalizing the documents that would allow him to enter the United State.  We were apprehensive about how he would respond to being alone with us, especially since we did not speak much of his language and he spoke none of ours.  He had never been on an airplane, and had rarely been outside of the small village where he lived in an orphanage.

Immediately upon arrival in Moscow he started asking about his brother and we had to explain that we would be going to his permanent home in a few days.  After arriving at the apartment where we would stay, we put him in bed for the night and started to relax from our long journey.  A few minutes later he snuck out of bed and rummaged through his backpack until he pulled out the photo album that we had given him five months earlier.  The album contained our pictures along with those of his new sister and brother, the family dog, his new bedroom, school, and other parts of his new life.  He looked through the pages reciting the name on each picture in Russian.  When we examined the worn pages we realized that this must have been his nightly ritual.  He was not satisfied at all with this interim living situation in Moscow.  He was ready to be taken home.

That longing for home is a powerful force in both our physical and spiritual lives.  For an orphan, coming home means a place of safety free from the fear of abandonment or neglect, much like what God has done for us in Christ.

Adoption not only provides the language of salvation, it also provides a picture for me regarding my ongoing relationship with God.  We seem tempted to view our relationship with God as one where we are in the position of “owing” him for rescuing us from sin.  Without question, he has rescued us but Scripture teaches that God wants more from our relationship than that.  He brings us into his family and offers the rewarding relationship of Father and child.

Romans 8:15-18 says, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…”

When my wife and I adopted our first son in 2004, I quickly realized that I did not want him to grow up feeling as if he owed me for rescuing him from some bleak or hopeless future.  He was immediately part of our family, and since that time he has never been less than our own son.  The same is true for our second son.   They bring joy to our hearts and the relationship that we share enriches my life.  They should never feel as though they do not belong, or that they owe me something for rescuing them.

Adopting any child, especially an international child, creates a lot of challenges.  Issues of language, behavior, and emotional needs can test the strongest of wills.  Children do not automatically shed the baggage that accompanies them, but becoming part of a family allows them to learn to keep the best of who they are and let go of the things that hold them back.  When love brings them home they find a place to safely deal with issues of abandonment and neglect, and they discover a family that will not abandon them to the challenges and will also draw them forward to a better future.  Every family experiences both victories and disappointments, but adopted children learn that families will not give up on them.

While I believe without question that my relationship with God is the result of him reaching out to me and rescuing me from the consequences of sin, I also believe that he finds joy in something deeper.  He adopted me, brought me into his family, and I believe that he finds joy in walking through life with me.

When God’s love brings us home, we do not automatically shed the baggage that weighed us down.  The consequences may have been erased but the power remains.  We find quickly, however, that God does not abandon us to those struggles.  He works within us to bring out the best that he created us to be while removing the baggage that holds us back.  Plenty of challenges exist, but God never gives up on us, and I believe that he finds joy and satisfaction in that journey.

Adoption provides both a language and a visual aid to understanding our own salvation in Christ, and we know that to care for orphans is to live in the testimony of that salvation.  So, how do we exercise this call to walk in stride with God by reaching out to the hundreds of thousands of orphans in our world who cannot provide for themselves?  Here are some ideas:

1.  Become an advocate for orphan children.  Children become orphans because of choices made by someone else.  They need someone to step forward to remind them that they have value and that someone cares for them.  Families who advocate for orphans can host children in their homes on holidays or weekends, remember their birthdays, and are a spokesman for these children for potential adopting families.  Most of all, advocates will pray for families to open up and receive these children.

For international orphans, advocates participate in programs such as Buckner’s Angels Abroad ministry.  Advocates host adoptable Russian children for two weeks and continue to pray for them after they return to Russia.

If adoption is not part of God’s plan for your family, becoming an advocate for orphan children can still allow you to be part of adoption ministry.

2.  Minister to some of the thousands of children who may never be adopted.  Church groups minister to orphanages, both domestic and international, by improving facilities, providing for physical needs, leading camps and Bible schools, and just giving love to children.  Ministry to orphans prepares the way for others to adopt and offers a witness of love and hope to those who have known little of either one.

When my wife and I adopted our first son from Tambov, Russia in 2004, a woman in the church I served at the time asked me how many children were in the baby home where he had lived.  I estimated about 100 children.  She began making quilts, and six years later we sent off to Russia the 100^th quilt made by Laura Chester to a Russian orphanage.  That was her own personal, God-given vision to care for those who could not care for themselves and to walk in stride with God.

3.  Ask your church to develop a ministry of adoption by creating an environment where more families will consider adoption, answers can be found to their questions, assistance can be provided for the challenging journey through the adoption process, and a church can assist families with the financial cost of adopting.  Within the setting of a local church, families can find support before, during, and after the adoption process has been completed.

4.  Consider adoption.  Quite simply, more families should consider whether God would lead them to welcome an orphan child home.  Fewer adoptions exist because fewer people consider adoption a possibility.  We tend to maximize the challenges and minimize the rewards.  Only God can clearly direct you on whether adoption is the right step for your family, but he cannot direct you unless you are willing to trust him with the possibility.  Do you have the means and the opportunity to adopt a child?  Can you consider the possibility that God may lead you to a child that needs for love to bring him or her home?

Few things in life can be more challenging or more rewarding than giving hope to a child by bringing him or her into a family.  When we do so, we walk in stride with God by imitating his own actions toward us and by providing for those who can least provide for themselves.

Together as advocates, churches on mission, and as adoptive families we can bring children home and help them find the love, acceptance, and nurture that God desires for them.

 

Random Thoughts on Christmas

1.  A hot cup of coffee on a cold, rainy Saturday morning with the newspaper in my hand and a fire in the fireplace is good for any weekend.  But on Christmas Eve morning, that is about as good as it gets.

2.  Wrapping paper or gift bags?  I chose wrapping paper.  For some reason, it just seems more fun to open a present that is wrapped.  I had to lock myself in the bedroom to wrap Lottie's presents, and had to tell the boys that I was text-messaging with Santa.  They wanted to know if only men know Santa's number.  It's a secret.

3.  Not that anyone asked, but my favorite Christmas hymn is "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  This is a great rendition of that song by Casting Crowns.  My second favorite is "How Far is it to Bethlehem."

4.  I managed to get through the entire Holiday season without going to a mall!

5.  I made gifts for Kelcie and Lottie, which helped make #4 possible.

6.  For some reason, when Christmas falls on Sunday that seems to throw a lot of evangelical churches into such a quandry.  How is it so difficult to grasp the concept of worship on Christmas Day?  Our Episcopalean and Catholic friends have been doing this for centuries.

7.  Mannheim Steamroller's version of "Silent Night" is greatness.

8.  Not that anyone asked, but "A Christmas Carol" starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge is my favorite Christmas movie.  I watch it every Christmas Eve.

9.  I don't remember very many of the Christmas gifts that I received as a child, but I do remember the joy.  The older I get, the more quickly I tire of the commercialization of Christmas, but I never tire of the joy.

10.  As far as I know,  there is nothing under our tree that includes the words, "Some assembly required."  I remember my Dad staying up on Christmas Eve putting something together in 1968 while listening to the crew from Apollo 8 read from Genesis 1 as they orbited the moon.  Not that I was awake.  He used that story later in a sermon illustration.

11.  I predict that my 17-year old daughter will complain tonight about her younger brothers wanting to get up early on Christmas morning, and then she will be the one to come in and wake us up early.

12.  And finally, "Merry Christmas to all," and in the words of Charles Dickens, "God bless us every one."

Fighting the War on Christmas

We Americans love the war analogy.  We have the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the Culture Wars, and most recently the War on Christmas; with all due apologies to those who have actually endured real combat.

I know it must be December when I start getting e-mails, tweets, and Facebook reminders to "keep Christ in Christmas," (As if we can place and remove Jesus hear or there on our own whim. But, I digress.) and imploring me to shun merchants who say "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas."

I realize that words matter, but sometimes I want to call upon my inner, teenage, eye-rolling attitude and say, "What-ever!"

Our cultural Christmas has become a time to measure our consumer spending power on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a time to pepper spray our shopping competitors over the lastest XBox, or to figure out how we can avoid making eye contact with the Salvation Army bell ringers at Walmart. Perhaps all of those people say, "Merry Christmas," too.  Truthfully, preserving Christmas has much less to do with our words than our actions.

One of my favorite novels is Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.  Grisham writes about Luther and Nora Krank's effort to salvage all of the money that they typically spend on Christmas and use it for a cruise that leaves on Christmas day.  Despite pressure from their neighbors and friends, the Kranks steadfastly avoid buying the normal non-profit amenities, decorating their house, sending Christmas cards, or attending any Christmas functions.

Their plans fall apart on the morning of Christmas Eve, but in the midst of the chaos Luther discovers that even though you can skip all of the trappings related to Christmas, you really can't avoid Christmas itself.

Christmas comes, whether we acknowledge it or not.

When serving as a Pastor, one of my favorite moments of the season was immediately after our Christmas Eve service.  Everyone had gone home and I would be left alone to lock up the building.  All of the carols had been sung, the musicals had been performed, the candles lit, and the sermons preached. The streets would be empty of traffic and the night was always dark and silent.

Driving home to my family I would find myself reflecting upon the never-ending mystery that hope arrived with little fanfare in the form of a helpless infant.  Only God could think of such an unorthodox thing.

We would have prepared a media blitz.  Can you imagine the twitter campain; the revenue that could be generated from ticket prices and parking fees; the follow-up DVD sales; the action figures?  What a collossus of commercialization we could have created around the idea that salvation had come!

But in the oringinal story, apart from a few, fortunate shepherds and some Magi, everyone else goes on about their business.  God was at work anyway, whether anyone stopped to acknowledge Him or not.

He still is.

The story never gets old.  In the most bizarre tale of faithfulness and mystery, the God of eternity reaches out to us.  Christmas comes, and for those of us who want to pay attention it reminds us once again that God has not forgotten us.

I have a hard time getting worked up over whether the sales clerk at Target says, "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" to me.  I'm just thankful that I have the means to shop at Target, and I'll go on keeping Christmas whether the merchants want to acknowledge it or not.  As one blogger points out, if you want a truly Christian greeting, one that makes no mistake whether or not you follow the Christ child, try, “the peace of Christ be with you.”

I'll save getting worked up for things like violence on the Mexican Border, human trafficking, and hungry children.  I'll save my passion for helping churches that struggle to find and maintain vitality.

As for Christmas, I'll enjoy the anticipation of Advent and reflect again on the mystery of Incarnation.  I don't want to miss it.

In those quiet moments after the kids climb in bed on Christmas Eve and struggle to go to sleep I'll remember that Christmas has done it again; it has come, whether we really know it or not.

So, may the peace of Christ be with you, during this season and beyond.

Hear the Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem “Christmas Bells” on December 25, 1863. The nation was in the midst of our brutal Civil War and Longfellow’s son had recently suffered wounds as a soldier in the Battle of New Hope Church in Virginia.  This news only added to the sadness that already gripped Longfellow’s heart.

Longfellow’s wife had died in 1861 from burns she received when some hot sealing wax fell onto her dress and started a fire.  Longfellow, himself, was burned in an attempt to extinguish the flames and was unable to attend her funeral.  That Christmas he wrote, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays.”

In 1862, he wrote, “I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace.”  On December 25, he wrote in his journal, “A merry Christmas say the children, but that is no more for me.”  Longfellow found himself listening to the church bells toll the carols on Christmas Day in 1863. 

            I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

            Their old familiar carols play,

            And wild and sweet the words repeat

            Of peace on earth, good will to men.

At first, Longfellow could not reconcile his own personal grief and the darkness of an ongoing war with the message of the angels in Luke 2.

            And in despair I bowed my head:

            “There is no peace on earth,” I said,

            “For hate is strong and mocks the song

            Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

The recent debate over the full body scanners and body searches at airports reminds us that our world still mocks the song.  Our soldiers are still in harm’s way and we live with the constant threat of terrorist strikes.  Even more, our own personal grief can overwhelm us during the holiday season.

But Longfellow’s poem does not end in despair.  The bells were insistent upon continuing the song of hope. 

            Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

            “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

            The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

            With peace on earth, good will to men.”

In the midst of a culture that craves constant change, the Christmas story never gets old.  Every year we turn to this story of hope, recognizing that God has neither forgotten us nor left us in despair.  “For he himself is our peace…” Paul says about Christ.

On behalf of Lottie, Kelcie, Sean, and   Nikolai, I want to extend from our family to yours our wish that you will be filled with the hope, love, peace, and joy of Jesus Christ during this Christmas season.  Even more, I pray that through all of our churches the people of Parker County will hear the message that the angels delivered to the shepherds long ago, and will want to seek out the King of Kings. 

 

Church Vitality

I spent some time recently with a group of people discussing a process for church revitalization.  The discussion grows out of a concern that the majority of Baptist churches in Texas have reached a plateau (meaning that they have neither grown nor declined over a long period of time), or they have experienced a long period of decline.  The decline is not only in numbers and finances, but a loss of influence and ministry to the broader community.

The group began the discussions by talking in terms of church health.  The idea of church health has been around for a while and several indicators exist to measure and define whether a congregation is “healthy” or “possesses areas of improvement.”  The truth is that no matter how healthy, any church can still improve and we worried that the idea of church health gives the illusion that some perfect church exists which faces no challenges or problems.  We know quite well that even the churches that we might deem the healthiest still face challenges.

So we began to think in terms of vitality.  Vitality means “to possess the power, vigor and energy required to live, endure, and survive.”  In terms of our discussion, revitalization of a church would be the process of renewing a congregation's spiritual energy so that it can endure and thrive.  So, what creates vitality in a congregation?

One could look for statistical vitality.  Church growth models look for growth in attendance, participation in church ministry and programs, baptisms, and financial contributions as indicators of vitality.

One could look at the functions of the church, often listed as worship, ministry, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, and prayer for indications of vitality.  Models exist to examine the effectiveness of a church related to these functions and to develop better ways of performing those functions.

But I suspect that true spiritual vitality in a church goes a little bit deeper than categories that we can measure and mines a quality of life that is produced by our relationship with Christ as his disciples.  I began to look at the New Testament for signs of church vitality and I have begun to ponder on the oft-repeated phrase “one another” as it relates to congregational vitality.  The phrase appears at least 46 times in the New Testament beginning with its most notable use by Jesus in John 13:34-35.  Jesus commanded the disciples to “love one another as I have loved you,” pointing out that this kind of love gave public evidence of true discipleship.

Jesus later repeated the command twice (Jn. 15:12, 17) and John repeated it 6 times in the letters of 1 and 2 John.  Paul uses the command in Romans 13:8, Colossians 4:2, and 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 4:9.  Peter instructs his readers to “love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Pt. 1:22).  Clearly, being mentioned no fewer than 14 times in the New Testament, love for one another is the defining characteristic of a vitalized church.

How is that love made evident?  The New Testament offers the attitudes of hospitality (1 Pt. 4:9), humility (1 Pt. 5:5), and acceptance (Rm. 15:7) toward one another.  A longer list of actions is provided in the New Testament that will create and give evidence of love for one another.

We should serve one another with acts of humble service, lest we turn on one another and destroy each other (Jn. 13:14, Gal. 5:13, 15).  We are to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24) on one hand, but not provoke or envy one another on the other hand (Gal. 5:26).  In our speech we should not slander (Ja. 4:11), grumble against (Ja 5:9), pass judgment (Rm. 14:13), or bite and devour one another (Gal. 5:15).  Instead, we are to submit to one another (Gal. 5:21), live in harmony and peace with one another (Rm. 12:16, 14:19), encourage one another (1Th 4:18), confess our sins and pray for one another (Ja. 5:16).  We should forgive one another (Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:13, 19), and bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2).

Much like the Fruit of the Spirit in the life of a believer, these characteristics seem as if they should flow naturally through the life of a church much like a river flows through a valley, enriching the soil to enable deep roots for the gospel of Christ.  Even more importantly, I must ask myself in my own relationship to my church, what do I bring to the community of faith that increases this kind of vitality?

What about you?

The vitality in our churches can only be the result of the synergy created by the spiritual vitality in our own hearts.  Synergy is when the product is greater than the sum of the individual parts.  In other words, 1+1=3 because the energy created when 1 and 1 get together is greater than just 2.  When we let Christ develop greater vitality in our own hearts, then greater vitality will be created in our churches.

 

A Disappointing Delay

My wife and I had everything prepared for our final trip to Russia went we went to bed on Tuesday night.   The itinerary had us picking up Nikolai's passport on Friday in Krasnodar.  On Saturday we would throw a going away party for him at the orphanage and take him with us back to the hotel.  On Sunday we would fly to Moscow and go through the 3-day process of obtaining his U.S. visa.  Then on Thursday the 29th we would finally bring him home.

Lottie had meticulously arranged every detail related to taking care of Kelcie and Sean, the house, the dog, gifts for the orphanage workers, gifts for Nikolai's friends, and clothes for Nikolai (Those of you who know her are not the least bit surprised by this).  I had our finances ready, printed out our boarding passes, and made sure we knew how to make all of our airport connections.

At 4:30am on Wednesday we received a call from our agency that the State Prosecutor in our case had filed an appeal of our court decision with the Russian Supreme Court requesting that our adoption be delayed pending a bilateral adoption agreement between Russia and the U.S.  Our contact told us that we should not travel because we would only have to return home once we arrived.

So, instead of flying over the Atlantic Ocean, Wednesday turned into a flurry of canceling airline tickets and all of the arrangements that we had made over the past week.  We are deeply disappointed, not only for ourselves, but for Nikolai.  He has already experienced much rejection and disappointment in his brief life, and I hate to think that he might question whether we will really come for him at all.

I don't want to say very much in writing about the case.  I do know that the case of the Tennessee woman who returned her son to Russia earlier this year has received much publicity there and has had an impact on how many Russians view international adoption.  I do not know all of the Prosecutor's motives, or even what is specifically contained in the appeal.  Our agency believes that our adoption will eventually go through, but we may have to wait another one or two months.  As for the bilateral agreement, officials from both countries are meeting in Moscow this week in a fourth round of discussions.  Russian law, however, requires no such agreement to be in place prior to adoptions and the Russian legislature declined in May to consider a motion suspending adoptions until such an agreement was signed.

Now that a full day has passed and we have dismantled everything that we had set in place, the reality of what has occurred seems to weigh more heavily on our hearts.  I still believe that our adoption will be completed, but I also admit that we face a lot of uncertainty about the next few months.

Since we began this process last summer, we have trusted that we were following a path that God wanted us to follow.  I still hold to that faith.  While I would like to control the future, I must admit that the future is much safer in His hands.  This morning, the words of a song by Babbie Mason came to mind:

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When don't see his plan
When you can't trace his hand
Trust His Heart.

Today we go back to taking care of our routine responsibilities and wait for the next phone call trusting in the goodness and grace of God to guide us down an unfamiliar path.

Taking the next step

An international adoption journey is long and exhausting.  If you don't keep your eyes focused on the outcome then small things can wear you down.  Last week we found out that our date in Russian adoption court is Monday, July 12.  So we have been working through a flurry of preparations including flight arrangements, more paperwork, and visa applications.

Our schedule is as follows:  leave DFW on Friday night July 9 and arrive in London on the 10th.  After a 12-hour layover in London we fly to Moscow and then connect to Krasnodar, arriving on Sunday morning.  We go before the court on Monday morning.  If all goes well, then we get to visit Nikolai before we leave Krasnodar on Tuesday night and arrive back at DFW on Wednesday afternoon.

After a week at home, we leave again on July 21 going through Atlanta this time.  We will arrive on the 22nd, pick up Nikolai from the orphanage and get his Russian passport.  Then we go back to Moscow on Sunday the 25th, spending a few days there getting his visa for entrance into the U.S.  Finally, we leave Moscow on July 29th and arrive home with Nikolai at 8:15 that night.

Makes your head spin doesn't it?

Last week I left Weatherford at 3am for the drive down the Houston to apply for entry visas at the Russian Consulate.  The photos that we attached to our application were too large and the court papers were not scanned straight so I had to trim down the photos and accept double-entry tourist visas (30 days) rather than double-entry business visas (60 days).  At least she didn't make me get out of line!

Then I handed her a completed FedEx envelope so they could mail our passports back to us.  She said, "We don't mail them any more."  Apparently, this changes on a daily basis.

So, Tuesday I was back in Houston to pick up our passports with double-entry visas affixed.

Cost for 2 double-entry Russian visas:    $500

Round-trip to Houston including rush hour traffic:  12 hours

Time that it took to pick up the visas:    5 minutes

Knowing that we are one step closer to bringing Nikolai home:    Priceless.

Our Russian Adventure

I intended to blog about our trip to Russia while we were taking it, but I could not get the blog to update for some mysterious technological reason.  I'll try again to make it work on the next trip.  So, I will skip the anecdotes about our flight delays and how the Russian domestic airline was exponentially better than the U.S. domestic airline, the frustrating hours that I spend at the airline service counter, and our unexpected stay in New York City.

To summarize, the Russia part of our trip was outstanding.  Krasnodar is a beautiful city of a million residents that we easily navigated on foot and enjoyed exploring.  Krasnodar gets its name from Catherine the Great, who founded the city.  A statue stands in the city center where it was once pushed aside for a statue of Lenin.  The Lenin statue is now gone.

Krasnodar is not quite as modern as Moscow.  Still, the entire area is gearing up to host the world for the 2014 Olympics in nearby Sochi.  We found beautiful parks, a vibrant city center, and a lot of culture in the city.  The weather in this part of the Black Sea region is similar to Texas so we were right at home with heat, humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms.  That just made the ice cream (made with real cream) that we bought from the street vendors taste better.

Nikolai's orphanage is 120 miles from Krasnodar in the village of Archangelskai.  A driver from the orphanage picked us up at our hotel for the 2 1/2 hour trip.  We met with the orphanage director, psychologist, and a government official who explained his background and medical information.  When we were finally able to meet him he greeted us and then went into a bout of 5-year old shyness.  I have no doubt that our speaking to one another in English only added to his anxiety.  The orphanage officials were baffled because he had been excited all morning about our visit.

 We tried again after his afternoon nap.  Kelcie, our 16-year old daughter, broke the ice with him and he began to warm up to us.  We played cars with him, gave him a small stuffed lion to sleep with, and he took us on a tour of the well-maintained orphanage.  He has a quick smile and a good personality.  I did manage to get a hug out of him before we left, and we left him with a photo album with pictures of our family and our house.  The orphanage director has also allowed us to send him weekly e-mails.

The government officials with whom we met responded well to our request to adopt.  Having Kelcie with us was a plus in addition to the fact that we have already adopted from Russia and Sean is doing so well.  We were able to provide proof of how we would treat Nikolai, as well as the importance that we would place on his heritage.

Now we are in the process of completing all of the documents required for an adoption hearing in the Russian family court.  Once those are completed, notarized, and apost  illed (a document from the the state that authenticates the notary) then we send them to Russia for translation and the judge sets a date for our hearing.  Right now, we hope to return to Krasnodar in late June or early July for court and then bring Nikolai home with us in mid-July. 

The adventure will continue.