Pictures and Progress...

Thanks to our buddy Curtis, we received some pictures of the girls taken this week.  He says that the girls are doing well and that they are doing really good at their English tutoring classes. 

  

Nastya, Lena, & Vika



Nastya & Vika after preforming a dance program

for their newly renevated cafeteria.



The kids learning English !

It is so comforting to actually see some of the things they are doing.  So many times, I find myself wondering what they are doing and how they are coping.  Although, they are a half a world away, a part of them is still here with us, ingrained in our thoughts and hearts in so many different ways.  The kids remember their time here with us and look forward to them coming home.  They all have their own ideas of how it is going to be, from who they are going to sit beside in the car to what experiences and activities they want to show them.  Even Madie, our 3 year old, has very specific plans as to what she wants to do with her new sisters when they arrive.  She told me the other day, "We need to get big scissors, so when my orphan sisters come they can cut with me."  If you know Madie at all, cutting paper is one of the things she enjoys doing the most, she was so excited to start Pre-K this year because she got her own pair of scissors.

While the girls have been busy dancing and learning English this week, we have made some great progress of our own.  We traveled to Harrisburg this week, with our friend's, The Rose's, to get all our papers apistilled at the capital building.  Before this process, I had never even heard the word "apistille", in fact I don't even know if that is spelled right, but basically it is notarizing the notary.  All the papers sent to the Ukraine, have to be notarized, then apistilled.  It is a big sigh of relief putting all our papers to go to the Ukraine in the fed ex box, a lot of work went to get them to that point.  While we were in Harrisburg, we also picked up our completed home study, sent in our 1600A application, and were able to meet with a lady from Senator Casey's office with hopes that she will be able to assist us with making our application be pushed along more quickly.  A problem that has recently arose for the families who are a few weeks ahead of us in this process, is that their 171H letters are taking a lot longer to get back than anticipated.  The process for receiving these has recently changed and it seems like they have not figured out the new system yet, saying it could be up to 90 days to get them back, instead of the anticipated 10 days.  This is a huge deal for all the families.  We are hoping by enlisting the help of the Senator's office, that this will move our things along a lot better, time will tell.  Please, pray for this step in the process to be figured out and resolved in a timely fashion, this is the most important step to happen and could mean a lot of extra time those children will have to wait over there, if it is not figured out soon.  I have never yet, had a situation where too many prayers have been a bad thing, so please join us with your prayers for this, and hopefully God can move this mountain in front of us. 
We have also this week, made pretty good progress on our basement.  We spent yesterday getting everything painted.  I am happy that step is done, I am not all too fond of painting.  I still have all the trim, shelves, and steps to paint/stain this week, but hopefully that will not be too bad.  I will have pictures soon of our progress.

*Here are two videos Curtis sent us earlier this week of the girls doing some dances.  They renovated their cafeteria, and had the kids pt on a program for the reopening.*

This is "Greased Lightning Dance "  Nastya is in this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QiMxtJ3qbM

This is "Flower Dance "  Nastya is the yellow flower in front and Vika is the Purple flower in front.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co-9QjzzWAM