May Happenings.

We have had a lot going on the past few weeks. My parents left and 5 days later Baron's parents arrived. Baron's dad had just fallen 2 weeks earlier and broken 2 ribs but he was able to make it to Romania in spite of the pain. Now he has a cold and is coughing and that makes for more pain. Remember to pray for him. We are so glad they could come though. We are picking up the twins tomorrow and they will be with us until Friday. So now they will have met both their sets of grandparents. I just hate the thought of taking them back to the orphanage again. I remember how hard it was last time. Gina Grace was sick with a stomach bug last week. Last Monday, Baron put in our request to be their legal guardian. We pray by some miracle it is accepted and that we don't have to go any farther. They have to respond to our request within 30 days so we have 3 weeks left to wait.
We just finished up our 6th year at the Bible college. There were 3 graduates this year. We will now take a pause from the college to focus on our church and the big adjustment of adding 2 more to the family.
I found out this past week that my little Drew who is almost 5 can read! I have worked with him very little and very inconsistantly on reading. My mother in law at dinner one night said, "Drew was reading me a story." I looked at her surprised and informed her that he doesn't know how to read yet. Well, did he prove me wrong. He was reading from these little easy reader books and sounding out the words. I had thought maybe he had just memorized a story but no, book after book he read to me! Now I have 2 little boys that are too smart for their own britches! My oldest Zach pretty much was self taught. I just guided him along. He also taught himself to read Romanian before he was 6. I wonder if Drew will do that! Nate is becoming quite the entertainer. He has a personality all his own. He sings loud in church now and claps and says Amin really loud. He has learned to sit pretty quietly during the actual preaching now. Spencer continues to amuse us all with his little jokes and quirkiness. He will be in 3rd grade next year. He turns 8 on June 5 and Nate turns 2 on June 12.
We had a special song service and testimony time tonight. We let the people pick out songs they wanted to sing and it was fun to hear them sing out praises to God when they picked their favorite songs. One of our young adults shared her testimony which was an encouragement to me. Cristina works as a nurse in the afternoon at a doctor office. She has also been working mornings at a laboratory. She shared tonight that she had been making good money with these 2 jobs but she wasn't happy, that something was missing. She quit her job at the lab so she could go back to spending her mornings with God. Isn't it wonderful to see the Holy Spirit working in people's lives!
We seem to have started a weekly tradition with Angelo our Italian friend. Three weeks ago he came over and grilled out for my parents. We have been doing it every Saturday since then. I wish we had more Angelo's in our church. He is a light wherever he goes and is constantly sharing his faith with people he meets. Each Saturday we try to have someone over who doesn't know the Lord. Someone that we have a relationship with or Angelo has met and shared the gospel with. Pray for Angelo to continue to shine brightly for Jesus and that he will see fruit for his labor. He is also friends with 2 men my dad met at the market while he was here. One of them came to church last week and came to our house Saturday for the cook out. Pray for these 2 men that the Holy Spirit will work in their lives and change their hearts.
This week is our last week of school with the boys. Their school teacher, Miss Erin has been with us for 2 years. She has been a great blessing to me and taken a load off of me these past 2 years. I really enjoyed having the time to spend with my last baby and many quiet times with God. She will be moving out of her apartment this week and then leaving to teach possibly in Mexico next year. After this next week and a half we may have a little quietness for a couple of weeks. I pray the summer isn't too quiet, I am hoping to have 6 kids in our home this summer instead of just 4! I know some of you are thinking I am crazy...and you know what...you have to be a little crazy to want so many kids! You know, I am just trying to keep up with my sister in law...she's got 7 :) Looks like if you want to see us you will have to come to Romania because with so many kids I don't think we'll be coming to American any time soon! I tried to get Baron to let me take a trip to America this summer so I could go to Charleston with my sister but he didn't agree that it was a good idea :).
So, that is what has been happening in our lives. I'll keep you updated on the adoption as soon as I know more.

This and That

Well, the first thing I will write about is the adoption update. Cati got a hold of a jurist in Bucharest in the adoption department. They told her that we should put in a request for legal guardianship. They told her that we can be their legal guardian and adoptive family and that it is ok that we are in a different county. Cati also talked to someone in her county and a lawyer in her county and they both told her what was going on was ridiculous. So, until there is a file open on the twins we can't really take it any further. We will put in the request and if it is rejected then we can take it to Bucharest and get them to do something. I am praying that the twins are with us within a month. Pray for the twins, they always ask us on the phone when we are coming to take them home.

We had a great visit with my parents. They were here for 5 weeks. They left this morning from Budapest. We were sorry to see them go. My dad walked to the market almost every day while he was here and built a relationship with some people down there. The door is open for us to minister to some new people thanks to him. I love having visitors come but always hate to see them go. The boys got used to having them here too.

I have several unspoken prayer reuests for friends and family. Also, Baron's parents are supposed to be coming next week but we aren't sure yet if that will happen. His dad fell last week and broke 2 ribs. He is in a lot of pain right now. I believe he goes to an orthopedic dr today and he will advice them on whether they can come or not. Pray for them.

Pray that we won't get discouraged. It is frustrating to be trying to do something good and meet up with such big stone walls. I just feel kind of numb right now with all that is going on. Trusting God to knock down some big stone walls!

Road Block

I was really hoping to come back with some sort of good news but...no such luck. I can't really even put into words what craziness is going on. It is so hard to put into words because it just doesn't make any logical sense. Romania has to be one of the hardest places in the world to adopt children from. We had seen so many people adopt from here and go through years of turmoil before it was final and so we decided..."that isn't going to happen to us...we are going to do things the right way." :) Well, there is no right way we are discovering. We did what we thought was right, first you are accepted to adopt then you wait for your children. WE even asked our social worker..can we find our own child, she said yes just be sure and give her the name so she can make sure the child is truly adoptable. So, God brings us to our twins and we meet them thinking, mom is dead no dad on birth certificate that has got to be the easiest case scenerio here in Romania. Wrong again. We finally decided to go talk to the Child Protective services of Bihor county ourselves. We went with a Romanian friend who knows the adoption laws and cares about the best interest of the children of Romania. She couldn't even get through to them. All we discovered yesterday in our meeting was that each county of Romania interprets the law how they see fit and they are to proud to look at it in another light and let anyone try and show them another possibility. What they are saying about the twins is first of all that we shouldn't have even met them since they aren't adoptable yet...the problem in Romania is unless someone is interested in a child no one pursues having them declared adoptable so almost all cases of adoption are the parents taking in a child and then proceeding to have them delcared adoptable. Then she also tells us that a family from Bihor county will have priority in adopting them...we aren't too worried about this because there are not Romanian families lined up to adopt #1 gypsies #2 two at a time and #3 4 year olds. The next thing we learned is that they say the twins must be placed in the care of a legal guardian to be declared adoptable by the legal guardian which means moving from the only home they have ever known into another home when all this time they thought they were moving into our home. To make a long story short, our friend is taking this to Bucharest to see what she can do. It is so frustrating to see people working in child protective services who really don't care about the kids and really don't care to go and see what the kids really need or want. Our twins keep asking us when we are bringing them home. How do we explain to 2 4 year olds the laws that keep so many Romanian children from being adopted? I wish the law makers would be required to go spend time in institutions and asking the kids what they think.
Please pray for our twins...they are becoming more emotional when we leave them. Pray for Cati as she goes to Bucharest next Tuesday.