Wow, a lot has happened! As most of you know, Moldova had elections last Sunday and then the streets were full of 10,000 protesters Monday and Tuesday. Most of the protesters were students who feel strongly that the elections were fraudulent since the communist party won control of parliament again. This seemed to have calmed down by Thursday. We then learned that the government and officials take a spring break from April 16 - 27! At this point, we became concerned that we wouldn’t be able to make the first trip until April 25th.
However, with Andy, you should never count anything out of the question until the door is completely closed and nailed shut!!! As of Friday morning, I never expected to leave this weekend (which explains why I had done nothing to prepare)! We had a long conference call with our adoption worker (who by the way, is absolutely wonderful) in NC. She made lots of contact with Albina (the contract adoption worker in Moldova). Albina said she could get the judge and other officials needed to be available (remember their spring break) if we traveled. Andy was on the phone with US Immigration, a travel agent, and a contact in Romania. It wasn’t until around 3 pm (after the all important premier showing of the new Hannah Montana movie - which is very good) that everything began to come together for us to leave Sunday. I have to say a big thank you to some employees at Sterling Bank, We are required to take the adoption fee in new bills. Moldova is basically a cash only society, so we needed new bills for lodging, meals, etc. We had ordered new cash (which is quite a process) which was supposed to be in Thursday, but there was a delay. Those sweet employees worked so hard gathering up enough new bills for us so we could leave Sunday! Angela Cummins at Sterling told me that it was quite unusual to have that amount in new bills at any given time at the bank. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Angela said God’s hand was certainly in this aspect. Also, thanks to our travel agent who worked diligently to make travel arrangements for us. Thanks to all of you who are helping with Dow and Beth and our dogs. We are also thankful to our neighbor and accountant (Larry Capilouto) who brought our taxes to us Saturday night to sign. He is mailing them for us as well! He even had good news for us on our returns!
I also have to thank Jay (FBC pastor) for his Easter sermon and for using our Hope as an example to illustrate the HOPE we have in Christ. What a wonderful gift this was for our family. We look forward to showing the DVD of the sermon to Hope when she is older. She will be delighted to know that she shared Jesus with others even before she knew Him herself. Thanks also to our SS class who have joined in our excitement and for Tim Riley who prayed such a sweet prayer over us this morning.
I had a hard time leaving Dow and Beth. Please pray that they will stay safe and filled with the peace of the Holy Spirit this week. I was so sad to leave them but so excited about meeting Hope. Andy and I were talking about how we can’t wait to meet her, but she will be absolutely clueless about who we are and why we are there. We are really hoping that she likes us!
Just one last funny thing. I am on the plane right now. It is 6:10 pm CST. I am being entertained by this fella who has not stopped eating and drinking since we took off. He has gone through I don’t know how many bags of peanuts, dinner, snacks, and drinks. He is keeping the airline attendants very busy. I am not kidding, I don’t think he has stopped chewing except to ask for something else to eat or drink!
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