This is what our in country personnel sent to the lady we work with here in the States yesterday about where we are with a court date.

"I submitted thier dossier to the court on last week when I was in Vladimir. Now I'm waiting to her from the court whether those documents are enough or not. Only if the judge will be satisfied with what he has, we'll be able to talk about the court date. But as you know he's will usually ask for some additional documents no matter what we send him."

So.  We know nothing more than we did 2 weeks ago.  Please continue to pray that the judge will grant a court date without additional documents.  If we have to send more docs, we would be set back at least 3 more weeks.  At this point, 3 weeks feels like a year.  Please also pray that we would hear back from the judge this week. 

Thank you.

10 more days at LEAST!

I got an email last night answering a TON of questions that I asked our facilitators...poor women!

Anyway, the email stated that she had just received our extra documents and would be taking them to the judge.  Once he has everything he will let her know if we need to send any additional documents.  She said it would be at least 10 days before she hears anything...and I assume that's business days.  So, 2 more weeks of praying and hoping and waiting.  PRAYER:: That he doesn't want any documents.  Or, if he does, that he's ok with us just bringing them to court!

The other, most fabulous, news in the email was about the process once we get to Russia.  We will get to see Sveta at least once before we go to court. Then we'll go to court.  After that we wait 10 days for the court proceedings to become official...then we can pick Sveta up while we wait for her passport.  I thought she had to wait at the orphanage...but I was wrong.  I'm SO glad I was!!  Anyway, this is big for us, because it means that while in Russia we can be together instead of an hour away from our precious daughter.  YAY!!!

That's all the news for now.  As soon as we hear anything, I'll let you know.  Right now I'm just praying we are back home before Christmas (because Russia shuts down around our Christmas through the first week of December!)

Our contact was...

On Thursday we heard that our contact was in Vladimir.

That's all we've heard.

On another amazing note though, I was looking online for other families who had adopted from Vladimir too.  I came across this blog...and recognized the orphanage where this family adopted...and later realized that I knew the little girl too.

Come to find out it was a little girl that had stolen the hearts of my adopted family: the Jurgensen's.  They had been praying to find out where she was...and God answered their prayers.  Incredible.  She's been adopted by a Christian family somewhere in the midwest.

God writes stories...sometimes we want to hear the next part of the story when it just isn't time yet.  I'm thankful we know this part of her story.

Famous Quotes are False

Ok, so maybe not all famous quotes are false, but I know one that is:

"No news is good news." 

Not really.  No news is painful.  No news could be good news, or bad news, or it really could just be no news at all.

I think right now we're just at the no news part.  We've not heard a thing.  I don't know if the judge hasn't answered yet, or if he has and we just haven't heard yet.  We have no news.

I am going to start a petition that this little saying be changed to "no news is better than bad news."  I think it's more accurate.

On another note, only semi-adoption related:  My unbelievable husband has been rebuilding a wall in our sunroom so we can replace our windows and actually use this room on the back of our house.  It looks AMAZING...and he's done it in very little time.  He's still got a ways to go...but we are getting there.  I think Sveta will enjoy playing in there while mom and dad just stare out the HUGE windows!

Also, I must say a HUGE thank you to the Bible Bowl Teams at our church and their parents and "coaches" (we'll call them).  My friend Rachel and I went to their first competition on Sunday and they blessed me beyond belief not only by their knowledge of scripture, but also because they had made signs for Sveta and held them up to take a picture with me watching.  Amazing.  Love you guys!!