He loves the children!

After the adoption is final, I will post his picture. But for now, I want to talk about the orphanage director. He is a great man. He truly loves the children in the orphanage. He wants them to be adopted, and he is so happy when families come to visit the children they are adopting. He can't understand or speak English, but there is no miscommunication about his support and love for all of us.

We've had the pleasure of bringing Annie on our journey, and he has showed great attention to her. Our first visit he had such compassion on her thinking it was hard on her to come so far away (well it was, but she was just sleeping that day). Since then, he will come and find us so he can tickle her and talk to her in his native language. Today, he was busy talking to two very important women (I know this because they were wearing white coats like him, hehe) :) We were about to leave, but he stopped what he was doing and started talking to Annie, he picked her up and was just loving on her. Then he turned to one of the women and told her we were American and there to adopt Micah, and that court was tomorrow at 3pm (I understood all of that in his language). He was excited!

After reading another families plea today for prayer for their court hearing tomorrow because of their orphanage director NOT wanting them to adopt because they are American, I just have to thank my Heavenly Father for our blessings on this journey.

1. We were given another boy on the day of our 1st visit because of simple human error, but we were able to quickly identify Micah and straighten out the paperwork in just four days (normally would take another month).
2. We started advocating for the "other boy" right away and there is someone showing interest in him; pray that their decision is made quickly and that he will have a family by the end of 2011.
3. Because of the setback, we thought we might be here an extra week, and humbly asked for *more* donations for lodging. We received over $1400 in two days yet only thought we needed $350 (check our blog in a couple days to see why this became a bigger blessing).
4. After thinking for 7 months that Micah had a heart condition, we found out he has none! He is healthy and needs very minor attention to some areas -ears, nose, throat (ENT), flat feet, and probably vision.
5. Micah bonded with us immediately. We said it again today that he KNEW us the moment he saw us, like he had been waiting for us. We had prayed he would know us for the past 7 months.
6. He is in one of the best orphanages in the country. We are so blessed to be here in the capitol where people are hurried along, but will take time to try and communicate with you even if you speak English (most of the time).
7. The director supports adoption! He is not against the children going to America, or losing government assistance.
8. Despite our initial setback, we got a quick court date with an adoption-friendly judge, who is CHRISTIAN! We've only heard about her, but I'm looking forward to court tomorrow. However, We are not counting our chicks before they're hatched and are still praying for her favor.
9. Barry is going home with Annie in two days to see our other children after almost 4 weeks away from them (longest time away from us prior to this was only 2 days)!
10. I will be coming home with Micah after a total of 7 weeks instead of 8, when we thought it might be stretched to 9.
11. Our facilitation team is amazing and works very hard. They do so much behind the scenes that we don't really know about until something goes wrong. We have been blessed to see a lot of how much they really do for us. They are kind, supportive, and very helpful. I will really miss them when we say our final goodbyes.

I really could go on and on, but so far we feel the blessings of our Savior every day. We know His hand is in everything we are doing, and we feel very blessed to be going through a "good adoption story." We are praying for our friends in other regions and countries where things aren't so good. We pray for their adoptions to be successful and for them to have peace until they are home with their babies.

Court for Micah's adoption into our family is in less than 24 hours. Prayers are welcome.