HOME, SWEET HOME!

We're home! We landed on home turf about 9:00 pm Tuesday night. It is so wonderful to sleep in my own bed again! It is so wonderful to deal with life from familiar surroundings and in ways that are comfortable to us. We have new eyes as we come back with with such a greater appreciation for what God has blessed us with, and the luxuries that surround us here. I hope I never take for granted anything God has given me ever again. My house feels huge. My washing machine looks huge, and I'm thankful for a dryer. My refrigerator looks huge. Our family owns 4 cars, including those of our grown children. We have an amazing variety of convenient and fresh foods ever available at a grocery store less than 5 minutes away to which we drive our car on smoothly paved streets in well controlled traffic. I have a closetful of clothes and the mall is 10 minutes away. I can afford to buy new clothes fairly often. And all these things are just the physical and material blessings. I haven't even started on the spiritual and emotional blessings.

Anyway, we were met at the airport by Nathan and Annie, and Mark's parents, and my good friend and colleague, Regina. They were holding signs written in Russian that read, "Welcome home, Mark and Dawn, Zhanna and Ella." It was more than wonderful to see them. They brought one of our 15 passenger church vans in order to carry all the people and luggage. We drove home and the girls were amazed by the lights of the city, even though they were exhausted after traveling for about 24 hours straight. As we pulled into our church parking lot, on the way to our house, we noticed cars parked there. I asked, "What's going on at the church building?" No one said a word. Then, in total shock and surprise, it occurred to us what was going on. As we pulled through the parked cars on either side, headlights went on and horns started honking. Then people got out and started waving signs and balloons. The van drove to the end of the long line of cars and we decided we'd better get out and see everyone. Mark told the girls, "Zhanna and Ella, this is all for you! People have been waiting for you to come home and they love you!"

An amazing number of our church family and my coworkers and students and families came to welcome us home. I have never witnessed a greater outpouring of agape love. It was so humbling to be the recipients of that love. We felt so blessed as our dear friends came to hug us and welcome us home and say they had missed us. Everyone tried not to overwhelm the girls, but at the same time, they wanted to meet them and tell them they had been praying for them to come home. The girls were given balloons, and new princess blankets for their beds, and flowers, and cards and many other gifts. If they were overwhelmed it was by love. I'm positive nothing like that had ever happened before in their lives.

No one stayed long. They knew we needed to get home. They said their "I love you's," and "good nights," and we headed home. As the girls walked in and went to their new room they were quiet, but had smiles on their faces. They walked into their room and said, "Wow!" They looked all around and sat down on their beds. We showed them the empty drawers and closet and told them it was all for them to use. They seemed amazed. Then they had to bounce around all over the house, looking at everything and asking questions. They liked looking at the pictures of our family when Nathan and Annie were younger. If they were feeling tired and worn out when they arrived, they didn't feel that way any longer. As a matter of fact, at midnight, as I was trying desperately to get everyone to settle down and get to bed, I asked Zhanna, "Aren't you tired, Zhanna? Don't you want to go to sleep?" She replied, "I'm not tired. I'm happy!" What do you say to that? It brought tears to our tired eyes. We praise God.

Yesterday we just hung out at the house all day, trying to reassimilate into this environment. Mark and I were feeling zoned out all day, so I'm sure Zhanna and Ella were just numb. They didn't talk very much yesterday, in either Russian or English. I think they were just trying to absorb it all. But they enjoyed playing video games with Nathan and Annie and "Babushka and Didushka" came over for a late lunch. They took a drive with Annie in the afternoon to see the area around us. They seemed content and happy.

Last night we all slept much better, and the girls woke up about 8:00 and got dressed in clean clothes and brushed and fixed their hair and made their beds without any prompting. We had a great day today. We all went grocery shopping, and then all the females in our family went shopping for clothes for Zhanna and Ella. They seemed astounded by Walmart and everything available to eat and wear there. We tried to get lots of foods that they would like and we picked out several cute outfits, along with accesories like earrings and hair ties. On the way home, I said, "Zhanna and Ella, you've been in America now for 2 days. What do you think?" They both said, "I like!"

Tonight we put on some music they liked and we all danced around the living room. Then Zhanna got ahold of the post-it notes and started writing notes to each of us. She started with stuff like "Mark funny monkey," but ended up giving each one of us a note that said, "Dawn good mom," "Mark good pop," "Nathan good brother," "Annie good sister." She ended with "All good family." What treasures! Later we watched some home videos of Nathan and Annie when they were little kids doing goofy things. Zhanna and Ella laughed and thought it was really funny.

Tonight we are all going to bed, tired and still dealing with jet lag, but happy. Zhanna and Ella are making themselves comfortable in our home and in our hearts. We feel like family.

Tomorrow I'd like to write another blog post, filling in the details about the last few days of our Ukraine adoption adventure and the ways God worked through it all. It was clearly evident that His timing was absolutely perfect. So, more to come.

Good night, from home,
Love,
Dawn and Mark