Thoughts About Our Adoption

I don't have any adoption news except that our next homestudy appointment is tomorrow and our last one the following Saturday.  I am excited that Lord-willing we will get to celebrate the next new year with at least one more blessing in our lives!  What an exciting time it will be to celebrate so many firsts with Vika. 
We are also continuing to pray about the possibility of adopting two.  My heart is so burdened already for the many orphans that we will have to leave behind.  I so much want our time in Eastern Europe to be so much more than "just" to bring Vika home.  We want the opportunity to show God's love to those working in the orphanages and those precious lives still waiting on families.  Going to an older kids institution will be even harder because we know that most of those kids will never get the chance to be adopted.  It will be heartbreaking to fall in love with those lives and to have to say good bye.  But I also believe that God NEVER for one seconds loses those precious lives out of His sight.  He loves them so much more than we ever will or can, and He does have a plan for their lives.  But I do want the chance to be able to share with them just how much God does love them.
We teach a four- and five-year-old Sunday School class at our church and also did it at our old church before we moved.  Often times, I wonder just how much they understand the stories and their meaning.  Many times, a child will come to visit and then never comes back for various reasons.  But I love teaching this class not because I get a lot of response, a lot of children getting saved (although there are some), or the kids are always attentive (they are four - how can they :)), or because I get something out of it (although God has spoken to me many times as I prepared for those lessons), but because God is giving me the chance to tell these kids that He loves them.  That child that entered into my life for one brief 45 minute class, may one day be in the depths of despair and remember "Jesus Loves Me."  That's what we want to leave with those orphans and their caretakers, who we will have to leave behind.  We are praying for the Lord to open doors and also to give us clear direction for our time that we will get to spend there.