Friday’s Latest

Matt will go back to the SDA today at 4PM (Kiev time, of course), which happens to be right now CST.   He will pick up the official letter of permission to visit the 2 boys at the orphanage in Mariupol, then Matt and Mattie will take a 16-hour overnight ride on a train that leaves Sunday afternoon from Kiev to Mariupol.

 

In the meantime, Matt and Mattie will be going to Sumy at 4AM Saturday to visit with Vlad and Dima!!!  We all feel like there needs to be closure for them and us, so our facilitator spoke with their orphanage director and arranged for Matt and Mattie to get to meet with Vlad and Dima for two hours Saturday morning.  They will get to give them their gifts from our family, love on them, and say goodbye.  The most important thing is that Vlad and Dima will get to witness with their own eyes that Matt upheld his promise to come for them.  The scripture God used over and over with this adoption is John 14:18 (hence the adoption fundraiser gear!), “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” 

 

Please pray that if there is any corruption/darkness with the aunt, that it will be revealed, hearts will be changed, and God’s will be done.  We’ve heard of stories where an orphanage director did NOT want a child to be adopted, so he/she contacted a relative and told the relative lies about the prospective adoptive family.  Then the orphanage director persuades the relative to file a petition for custody in an effort to simply protect the child from the harm of the awful American family.  Nice, huh?  We don’t know at all if this is the case with Vlad and Dima, but we feel we need to at least meet with the boys and see what God does.

 

Thank you all for praying.  We don’t know what God’s plan is in all of this, but we KNOW He has a plan, a much better plan than anything we can fathom.