Meeting a Dream



Our first pic together as a family. Taken 10/12/10 after court.

 On Tuesday of last week we finally rolled into Liza's region via overnight train. Of course, knowing we would be meeting her the next day I didn't really sleep at all on that LONG overnight train ride, somehow our facilitator, Yulia, and Rick did not share my insomnia. Thank God for an MP3 player with lots of pics to organize and songs to listen to. When we got to her city.... hmm, let's call it KR, we were picked up by our driver, Igor and drove to our apartment to wait until offices were opened. Man, it was hard knowing we were so close but had to go through all these formalities first!

Once it was time for business to be done we drove to the Children's Ministry office where we met a nice lady who asked us lots of questions. Once that was done some more paperwork was done and then we rode with her, our facilitator, and of course Igor - our trusty driver- to the orphanage. We had to meet with the Orphanage director before we were allowed to meet Liza. She told us her story (which broke my heart and I plan to share sometime but will wait until things are more official), shared her medicals with us, and asked us pretty much all the questions the Children's Ministry lady asked us. THEN we were finally allowed to meet Liza!

Talk about a dream coming true. I had all these plans to videtape her as she was brought in to us and to take pics of our faces as we laid eyes on her. Well, it just doesn't happen like that. In fact, we were taken to her in a small room where she was playing with toys. And let me tell you, when I saw her actually sitting there in front of me thoughts of pictures or vidoes were the furthest thing from my mind. First of all, she was fine with us saying hello and playing with toys also, but forget trying to get a hug or anything else. That was ok though, just being in the same room with her was enough.

After a while we were allowed to take her down to the visitation room and spend some one-on-one time getting to know her and her getting to know us. We did finally get pics that day and maybe even some video but couldn't get them loaded onto the computer we're using in the apartment we're in. So all the photos in this post are from this past Saturday up till today. Someday I'll have to do a whole other post with pics of our first day together.

Look at this beautiful, big girl. She can wipe her own face. Isn't she lovely? :)

Oh yeah, the Uncooperative Dog....

This is what happened when Dog didn't cooperate....

Yep, feet in the air, whiny noises, not-happy face.... You all know what that means, right? :)

In the end, fingers in the mouth. Is that not the cutest thing you have ever seen?!

Yes, I took pics of her having a fit. I couldn't help it!  She was just so darn cute and funny. I'm sure one day I won't find her fits funny or cute. And we have already started telling her "No/Nyet" when she does something that she shouldn't do - like hitting Mama/Papa or kicking at other kids.

 For now, I'm just glad to be able to say that we are here and we have met God's amazing Promise. He has Victory planned for her and, I think, for many whose lives she will touch. Watch out World, Elizaveta Collette is coming for you!