This is why...

...well, it's one reason why.

There are many reasons why I know bringing Krassimir home was the right thing to do, and why we are (at the speed of lazy turtles in winter) bringing T and B home, and while many of those reasons are maybe more weighty than this one, this one is good, too.


 It's good that this twelve year old boy is out doing this in the grass and not lying in a crib.

Anticipation

What do these two items have in common?

a mattress

a stander - like Krassi's, but a smaller size and a different color

Well, they're both for our little T, and they both got dropped off at our house yesterday! Kind of fun to have both arrive on the same day, as both items we've known about for a long time, but the two different parties involved both decided yesterday was the right day for them to show up!

In these days as we wait, wondering if we'll really truly be meeting our girls a month from now or if we'll have to wait longer, it's both exciting and satisfying to be starting to put together the things that are going to make this house ready for our girls!

Tiny steps

The department that reviews dossiers DID meet last Friday, and we learned this morning that we have our verbal approval!!! We can't set travel dates, etc, until we have our official written approval, which could take another 2-3 weeks, but at the moment, our Bulgarian agency estimates we could travel the last week in September!!

Maybe?

We've been waiting very patiently for news on the review of our dossier. After not getting to the top of the stack on August 4th, we didn't know at that point when the next meeting of that department would even happen, so had no idea what time frame we were looking at.

We found out this morning that they met yesterday, but we won't find out until Monday when our adoption lawyer in Bulgaria calls to check status if 1) ours was reviewed, and 2) if it was, what the results were.

So, hopefully that means Monday will bring news, of some sort!

In the meantime, we called last Friday to schedule surgery for Rinnah (tubes in and adenoids out). We'd been told at her August 3rd appointment that her doctor is usually at least four weeks out for scheduling, so we did NOT make an appointment that day, still thinking that we'd hear on August 5th what our travel dates would be, and wanted to not have her surgery overlap with our first trip. Finally last week I decided I just needed to schedule her surgery and get it done.

In a manner completely opposite of the adoption process, I was told that there was a cancellation for the then-upcoming Tuesday, would we like that spot? Why, yes! So she had her surgery this past Tuesday. Check. Done! And that's really the only thing in our schedule at the moment that would have complicated travel dates, so now that's behind us, we're open for whatever dates they can get for us once we get our YES from the MOJ.

Summer Fun

Speaking of new experiences, Krassimir got to play with water balloons for the first time this week! One hot and humid afternoon while the little girls were napping and the big girls were playing together, the little boys and I went out and got WET!

To avoid popping them immediately on the grass, I placed each of Krassi's on his frisbee, he very quickly got the idea - squeeze! smack! splat!! splash-splash-splash!!! We were all soaking wet, which was quite nice, actually. I always knew Krassi has a strong grip, but did you know it was possible to squeeze a water balloon in your hand and have the part sticking out of one side of your hand pop, but have the other half stay intact?

New Experiences

It is such a neat thing to be able to do so many *firsts* with Krassimir. I love how game he is to try new things, and how very adaptable he is. For a kid who spent nearly the first decade of his life in a crib, there's a lot of experiences out there in that big world still to be had!

This past week was our county fair. As part of 4H, we spend a day at the Fair so the kids can participate in their all-club skit, and so we can just take in the Fair. Although we had a fair number of crabby kids (nothing like going over naptime), we also found ways to have a really good time. Like, for example, in the corn pit!

Check out that hand action!

Krassi was a very happy guy in there.

Matt and I were just looking back at some old (pre-adoption) photos of Krassi. It's still hard to fathom what his life was like. Eight long years alone in the same crib all day and all night.

It's a little different than this experience:

(It's a little hard to see because it's small, and there's a lot of different sounds in there, but he's laughing his full body laugh at some points - particularly when 'Vania lands on him!)

Whatever this boy of ours is or is not going to achieve in his life, to quote a friend of mine, "What was not okay with us was leaving [him] in [his] bed for the rest of [his] life."

The news is...

...that there's no news. Can you believe it?

In another amazing twist to this whole process, there were too many dossiers to be reviewed on Thursday that they didn't get to ours.

They're not sure if they're meeting to review more next week or not, so we're back to waiting without an end date in sight.

These pictures will soon be a year old. Wonder what they're doing right now. How has B grown and changed? Does she still think about a family? Does she think she has any chance of becoming part of one? She's got just three months before her birthday. *We* know that date is a non-issue because we've already submitted the paperwork that has to be done before her sixteenth birthday, but *she* doesn't know that.

And little T. Is she growing? Is she comfortable? Is there anyone talking to her during the day? Do any of her caregivers think about her as a potential part of a *family* and not just a task to be completed? Oh, sweet girl. How I long to stroke those cheeks and rock her in my arms.

Good gifts

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

James 1:17

Five days before our six-month deadline for submitting our dossier we received confirmation from our US agency that our dossier was indeed not yet submitted, but they had been told it would be ready on time. That same morning we received a phone call on a completely unrelated item that has since then filled me with delight at the good gifts God gives his children, and a sense of awe as I'm reminded that we are such time-bound creatures who must spend most of our lives in waiting. Until the moment something happens, we don't really know for sure that it's going to happen! Waiting is the place where we get to put faith into practice.

So, what was the phone call about? Well, some of you know how much Matt and I enjoy working in our gardens. For two long-time homebodies who now, with the life we've been called to, have an even harder time getting away, spending time out working in the yard is our way of "getting out." Because of the many perennial gardens we have, we can almost always use mulch, and this year as we continue landscaping around the addition, we have a number of new areas that need not just a little topping off, but a LOT of mulch. (In the past, when we've ordered mulch, we've ordered what's called "storm mulch" which is not beautiful, but it's the cheapest we can find. The very cheapest way to get it is to order a full 30 yard truckload because the delivery fee from the place we get it is the same whether you order 5, 10, or 30 yards.)

At the beginning of this summer, Matt and I knew we "needed" a load of mulch. (And obviously, we don't "need" mulch, but it would be really, really nice to have a load of fresh mulch!) But, with the adoption, we didn't want to spend the money. Even though it's cheap mulch, it still costs money! So when a friend on the west side of the Cities mentioned they'd gotten a load of chips from a tree service to use on their garden for free, I thought it would at least be worth a try! So I emailed a local service, offering our driveway as a place they could dump a load or two if they were nearby - we come out ahead with free mulch, and they come out ahead with saving time and money trucking it off. Although we got a friendly response, we had no idea if it would ever turn into anything.

Mid-way through the summer, while watering in some of our newer transplants, we were wishing again we had some mulch, and were toying with just getting a load, or at least just a few bags on sale at Home Depot! But then friends of ours from my parents' church gave us a sum of money - more than the amount of a full load of storm mulch - and we realized that we couldn't in good conscience buy mulch when people were giving us money for the girls. (So, friends, if you read this and are wondering why God prompted you to give us that money at a time when we were in an adoption spending lull, now you'll know!) So no mulch...until...the phone rang that Friday morning and we got *two* 15 yard loads of fresh wood chips from the tree service, for free!!!

I was practically giddy with delight at God's goodness.

After they dumped the first load, the little ones swarmed over it like ants at a picnic.

Many hands makes light work, right? Even Daddy had a slow enough day that we were able to get 2/3 of the first load distributed around the yard during Gloria's morning nap before they came with the second load.

I didn't post about this right away because it seems kind of silly to see a load of mulch as a directly God-given gift. After all, isn't something like mulch such a frivolous non-necessity? How can the same God be giving us free mulch when there are others of his people who are living under such tribulation and persecution that they do not know if they will still have their lives when the sun comes up? But I couldn't get it out of my head that day, nor any day since, that this is a taste of God's goodness in our lives, and why it's worth waiting. It would be equally wrong to NOT give him the credit for this "good gift" because every good gift is "from above, coming down from the Father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." He doesn't change. He's the same God to all of his children, but that manifests itself in different ways. Just like we give different gifts to each of our own children, he gives just the right gifts to delight each of his children, just like he brings just the right trials to each of his children.

And all of those come at just the right time.

And they ALL come from him.

Three years

Today marks three years since the Bulgarian courts declared us this boy's parents.

And we're sure glad they did. ;)