Day 2 - November 25 (Sunday)

Today we got up early..thanks to the chanting coming from the Christian Orthodox church (it started at 4am and went till 9am!). Don't worry if your travelling though it's only this bad on Sundays...the rest of the week you only have to deal with the rooster who's crows every 15 minutes starting at 5am! :)

So we headed over to Hannah's Hope to spend some time with Abinet. Almaz had told some of the caregivers we were worried, & so they all came over that morning and surrounded him, trying to get him to laugh or smile. Well as you can imagine, he just looked at them wondering what the he** they were doing. :) So that didn't help. Almaz took me into her office & just talked with me. I can not tell you enough how amazing Almaz is! I'll do a separate post on her later...b/c she has to have one of her own! but just know she is incredible! I felt 100% better after talking with her. She was so understanding, and explained a little more about how there is a real spiritual warfare going on during this time. She sees it all the time. Satan is not happy about adoption, and is looking for any way he can to take the joy of it away. I hadn't thought of this before, but of course like everything else she says it completely made sense.

So after talking with her, we all felt like we needed some time worshipping God, and so we piled into the van to go to church. Oh yeah, and two other couples came this morning. Stan & Stacey, were adopting a beautiful 5 year old little girl, & Colin & Kim were adopting a 2 1/2 yr old & a 9 month old. It was so fun to witness the reunions of these families. We all left our kids at Hannah's Hope for church, except Stan & Stacey they brought their daughter with us. Church was wonderful. I think we were all emotionally worked up that it was nice to just come back and rest in Our Father's arms. & it was so sweet to see Stan & Stacey and their new little daughter just loving on one another. It brought tears to my eyes.

After church we went to a Starbucks knock off. The signs were even the same. After waiting about 2 hours for our food, we got to try their juices. Jesse got the mixed fruit. It was guava, papaya, & guacamole....yes guacamole. It was thick & warm. sounds yummy, huh! ;) TRAVEL TIP: the orange juice is really good!


After our 3 hour lunch we went back to Hannah's Hope. Abinet was in the babies room in a bouncer chair. I went over to him and as soon as he saw me he smiled and started kicking his legs in excitement. When I reached down for him, he reached for me. Needless to say my heart melted. This was the turning point. We played with him the rest of the afternoon & I got to give him a bath. The water was so hot! but he didn't' seem to mind. We had the option to either take him back with us to the hotel or wait until the next day, but we went ahead and decided to bring him with us tonight. He did great only waking up twice to eat & then right back to sleep. He continued to open up to us...still shyly, but completely different from the day before.


It's amazing how different you can feel in 24 hours. the night before my stomach was in such knots, and then tonight, I was watching him sleep peacefully next to me. Again I am so thankful for the wisdom of Alamz & my travel buddies.