Mumping...

I don't think Josie will be able to live in a house without a trampoline again. Every morning she says excitedly "GO Mump!!!!!"

So we have an attorney and we think we met our kids. Now that adrenaline rush is over...now what? We wait some more. Waiting is definately not fun. Especially when Darren goes home in 4 days. We want to spend every minute we can feeling like we are doing something productive and I KNOW Darren would love to be bonding with his new daughters, but...we wait. Yesterday, social welfare was supposed to meet with the orphanage big-wig director. That didn't happen. He apparently never called her back. Our attorney is supposed to be meeting with the social welfare big-wigs today to see what he can do, but we still don't know anything. We had kind of said that we didn't want to spend too much time at the orphanage until we knew the paperwork was in place because we don't want to get "too" attached to these kids (although we pretty much already are) in case something goes wrong. We definately don't want to tell them we're going to be their parents yet. That would be a premature step. And if they don't know who we are and why we are there then not much bonding can occur anyway. So...we wait.

Our attorney did tell us that we needed to choose between the three kids. It's a life changing decision to choose which children will be in your family and which on is left behind. You picture that one child growing up in your family back home...definately going to school, definately having enough to eat, definately being loved...thriving on opportunity. Then you picture what their life might look like if they stay here...maybe an education, maybe enough food, maybe learning a trade or maybe no opportunity to excel, hunger, crime, never knowing Christ. We do feel confident that where these children are living now is a good place and they are being loved, cared for, and told the Gospel. We have covered this decision in prayer beforehand and after we met the children, and since we both felt a connection to the girls,and 2 girls is what we had planned on all along, we decided to choose them. Our attorney does not believe that the younger one's paperwork will be an issue. He believes the court will terminate parental rights of the father and then we can move forward. We are praying for a family for the boy too. He is so precious and I wish I could adopt them all.

We are making many friends here in Zambia. We had a family from New York over last night and they live just down the street. Pastor Mbewe and his family (Kabwata Baptist) are coming over tomorrow night. I went to a market with Katryn today and picked up some souvenirs. That was fun! Everyday we take a little outing just to get out of the house and not wallow in despair when things slow down. Sometimes we walk a mile to the grocery store or the ATM or to look at a souvenir shop. Today is Tuesday and there is actually a really good pizza place about a mile from here that does BOGO pizzas today so we'll have that for dinner:) Thanks to Lindsay Edwards, we had pumpkin spice coffee yesterday with LIQUID creamer...oh the tastes of home are so sweet:)

As always, thank you for your continued prayers for us. We know that God is work and we have seen His hand work in so many things. We are praising God for the progress he has caused even as we cry out for more. We want so badly to hold ALL of our children and tell them they are loved. Pray for God to calm our hearts as we wait for those moments.