When I said that no day could possibly be worse, I failed to take into account the fact that we only had both boys for 10 hours from the time we picked them up until they screamed themselves asleep, and that today included an extra 7 hours due to the time zone change and 9 hours on a plane (have I mentioned that Russia is really big?)

That being said, today was good! Not perfect by any means, but much closer to what we expected difficult times to be. Personally, even I don’t act that well on a 9 hour plane ride, but once Yarrig fell asleep it went pretty well.  We’ll say on a scale of one to ten, Gotcha Day was a -18. Today was a 4, possibly even a 6 (but there may be some inflation due to their exhaustion).
The two boys are very different. One is a cute little boy. The other is more like a feral dog with rabies. (I’m not trying to be funny, that’s really what he acted like, including the growling and biting).

But all is well. A hard day was to be expected. But let’s compare my prospective compared to theirs. Compared to them, not much changed in my life. Two new children, compared to what just happened to them, is minor. What changed for them? Everything. Everything they have known in their lives is now new and different. New food, new schedule, new family (of which they have no reference to understand what “family” even is), new location. Everything just changed for them. Nathan, for example- when we visited him in the orphanage last trip- insisted that he was NOT going to ride in an airplane. He was going to ride in a car to get to his new home in the United States. He explained that the cars that he saw would go to the end of the street and turn. So for him, going around that corner was synonymous with going to the ends of the earth.

So today was pretty good. Nobody got hit or bitten or spit on.  Growling was pretty light.  They did far better on the plane than I expected. And my wife is entirely awesome. She has this way of picking up on others needs and understanding personalities and doing things I can’t even describe let alone accomplish. (Yarrig likes to be sung to, Kirill was a follower-the youngest and smallest at the orphanage, Yarrig was a kingpin-the oldest of anyone at the baby home, and on and on and on…) She got both of them to take a nap, and to go to bed tonight. She is bonding pretty well with both of then I think.

They aren’t really bonding with me, but that is not unexpected either. First of all she’s a mommy, and mommies are just generally well liked by all family members. Second of all, the boys really don’t have a reference point for a man on their lives. All of the caregivers at the orphanage and baby home are women. So they have no idea as to what a man is supposed to be in their lives.

So thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers. They are much appreciated and, quite honestly, successful. (But don’t stop now- we still have a long easy to go!) We understand that this is a task that God has put us on. We understand that His purpose is NOT to give us an easy life, but that His name be glorified by conforming us more to the image of Christ. Nothing about this process has been easy, but here He used yet another point of difficulty to help us realize that we are absolutely powerless. So we turn to Him who gives us our foundation, strength, and purpose.

So tomorrow… will it be as good? We will just wait and see.  We made many strides today.  We must overcome the language barrier in order to accomplish great strides.  (If I tell them to come to me, and they respond with NYET! there really isn’t discipline that I can do.  I can pick them up and put them where I want, but I can’t take away privileges because they have no idea that the things we have given them are actually theirs–  they have no concept of personal possessions.  Nor can I do any spanking, because they simply can’t understand what is happening and why.  But we will get there.  We are getting them to repeat words, but so far it is just repeating- no speaking English of their own accord yet.  But over the next couple of weeks (especially once we leave Russia) they will increase, and within about 3 months they will speak well enough to understand, and in 6 months they should be pretty good at it.  Within a year (sadly) they will probably not remember Russian at all.  We will try to help them keep their language, but it will not be easy.

So again, thank you, and please continue to pray!