Twas the night before....

Well obviously it's not the night before Christmas, but it is in the Morton house. Tomorrow is the big day. Denise & I are off at 4:25 tomorrow afternoon from Gulfport headed to Ukraine for our next adoption. Before then, we will be celebrating Christmas tomorrow morning with the boys. Santa is going to make an early trip by the house tonight, and tomorrow, we will take time to remember the most important birthday ever when Jesus came that we might be adopted into God's family before we head for the airport!

Today it really hit how much we are going to miss the boys, and I can really tell it is hitting them, especially Erick. Please pray for us. It is going to be agonizing to be separated for so long! In the grand scheme of all the years, I guess that a few weeks is not that big a thing, but when I look at our little boys, I just hurt thinking about missing so much time with them! Then, I think of how much of the girl's lives we have missed. We just have to start where we are and work with what God has blessed us to have. I am thankful.

The first several days of the process will be fairly uneventful on the adoption front. If travel goes as planned, we will spend the weekend in Kyiv getting adjusted to the time and hanging out with friends. We will be staying with Sergey and Natalie Bochko who translated for us this summer with Promise 139 and have been good friends for years. Sergey pastors Open Hearts church in Kyiv, and a number of his church members worked with us on our mission trip to Tetiev this past summer. I really developed a great bond with a number of the church folks there, so it will be great to be with his church family. They will be baptizing 8 people on Saturday at noon. Hopefully jet lag won't be killing us too much, and we can enjoy that time with our friends.

We will also get some quality time with some of our dearest friends in the world, Joel and Mary Ellen Ragains. I am so looking forward to hanging out with them! They have had such an impact on us, and we love them dearly. anytime we can be with them the fellowship is sweet and the laughter is plentiful. I cannot wait!!!

We are anxiously anticipating our trip, but not before we have a little more fun here....

Goodnight,

Rick