Info to Go

I wanted to leave the last post up for a few days but I am leaving in the morning and wanted to get some information out as we have had a lot of questions over the last few days. Viktoria is 19 months old and she is very healthy even by American family standards...meaning that she is developmentally on par with a child growing up in a home here and surprised even our IA doc as to how well she was doing! We plan to keep her name as a part of her name which will be Elisabeth Viktoria Joy. She has beautiful blond hair and big blue eyes. We are not allowed to post any pictures or any other "personal information" about her because she is not legally ours yet.

As far as travel goes...I hope to be able to report our first trip dates to you by the middle of next week. Our facilitator is currently in Russia advocating for other families and I believe we should know something upon his return to the states. In the meantime, I am packing for Disney and Russia as I feel that we will literally finish one trip and go right into the next. The first trip will be rather quick...5 days unless we decide to stay a few extra and do some sight-seeing. It will consist of flying into Moscow and then to Krasnoyarsk for a meeting at what is known as the Ministry of Education. We will likely get to see our little girl for 1-3 hours on two different days and then we will fly back. When we have a confirmed itinerary, I will post it so you can keep up with us.

Many of you asked if there is anything you can do...we want to be able to take donations to the orphanage and I have posted a list on the side bar of items that would be good and would not be hard to travel with. We will be collecting from now until we leave for trip 2. What ever we have when we leave on each trip will be packed at that time and taken over. We are asking for clothes and money mainly. With the money we can then buy the things that they are most in need of when we get there...It might be diapers, medications, formula, we don't know. So, if you would like to make a donation to Ellie's home away from home, we would welcome the gift and we thank you.

Lastly, please just continue to keep us in your prayers. Now that we have a little face in our prayers, it will at times be even harder to be patient. We are resting in the Lord. He has kept her safe thus far and He will continue to do so. And for us, that we might feel His peace until we can bring her home, where she belongs.