God Sent us a Huge Blessing

Well, it is about 8:30 pm here in Russia. So it is around 12:30 pm at home. What a great start we have had here!

We are exhausted and needing to rest. You never sleep well on a plane. Plus we are so "nerved up" with the week ahead. But we are torn because this is really our only opportunity to see Moscow. I don't want to miss this chance. Therefore, we did a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We laid down for about an hour and tried to sleep this afternoon. As always, I slept more than Jim.

Then we connected with our friend, Sasha, that I spoke about in my last blog. Wow! Was he wonderful!!! I can't say enough wonderful things about Sasha. I jokingly asked if he would hang with us the rest of our trip. He took us to Red Square- beautiful at night! It was really important to me that we capture some of our son's heritage while we are here. It was freezing outside- oh so cold! It was about -6 degrees. But we saw some of the government buildings, went into a church service (quite formal- the minister was reading the Bible while people just stood there listening, holding candles- lovely church that looked somewhat Catholic with its architecture and beautiful paintings). We saw the building that Lenin's body is in, a beautiful basilica....They even had a brightly painted building that was temporarily set up or ice skating. After awhile, we went to a small cafe to get some hot tea because we were FREEZING! Sasha laughed that the only people at Red Square are tourists. Russian people don't bother going to these places.

Sasha needed to get back to his family so we were trying to be respectful of his time. However, he then took us to a grocery store to purchase some needed "gifts" for the adoption process as well as a few items for ourselves. Everything is really expensive in Moscow so we were extremely selective with our purchases. We decided to buy water, yogurt and fruit for dinner to avoid paying for a restaurant. Sasha helped us locate what we needed and read labels for us. Then, in an unexpected demonstration of generosity, he insisted on buying our groceries. Due to the "gifts" we were buying, it was about $120 worth of stuff. He said that he thought it was wonderful that we were adopting a Russian child. He agrees that there are so many orphans in his country! And he feels bad that his country has made it so hard for people to do something that is so nice. Hence, he wanted to pay. Definite God thing!

Again, having a friend that knows the country- the ins and outs -and knows the language and speaks fluent English... what a treat! As we talked, I was able to ask questions about the Russian culture, traditions and laws that helped us understand life here in Russia. So much of what he said made me so sad for the people that live here. We talked about how serious the Russian people are- rarely a smile. He even laughed that if you have a big smile, they actually call it "an American smile".

Everything is harder here. For instance, he wanted to go into the hotel with us for a minute. We drove around the block twice but there were no parking spots. Hence, he decided to go into the hotel parking garage. That alone entailed a long talk with a parking security man who then stood in front of the car to block it while he filled out paperwork. He proceeded to write detailed information about the vehicle and check in the trunk before he let us into the garage. Wow! Just to get into a parking garage.

We are now back at the hotel hoping to skype with the kids. I think Jim is going to work and then we are hoping to join everyone in watching the Colts game! I think Jim is quite surprised that no one out here seems to care about American football. :) But he things he has found access to the game over the internet. So we will be watching tonight- about 11 pm out here. GO COLTS!

Again, we appreciate your prayers and support. We truly sense His presence and look forward to what tomorrow brings. I am NOT looking forward to going to the doctor tomorrow but I hope we get to see our little guy afterward.