At the halfway point...

By anyone's measure and barring some major setback, we are at the halfway point today. Today marks the end of the third week of our journey. It looks like everything is moving along smoothly. Sunday's are a hard day. We really miss Temple, and Sunday is just a little more of a homesick day because we can imagine what we are missing in worship with our church family. Thanks again for all you prayers and your constant encouragement. There has yet to be a day go by when we haven't received multiple messages of encouragement from home. That has truly been a lifeline. God has used so many of you to minister to us in this very stressful time, and we thank our God upon every remembrance of you (to quote a pretty good author).

It snowed again last night, so we woke up to a blanket of white over B-D. It didn't even last until mid-morning, but it was great to see. The snow has given way to a bright sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky and the temperature is climbing to near 40.

N lost his front tooth between the time we saw him yesterday and when we saw him today. Oh well, I guess the mouse got another one, and the tooth fairy will have to wait to get established with him. Since the snow was melting, it was too wet to get out an play. That was a shame since we got a new mini-soccer ball yesterday. It'll just have to wait until tomorrow. We spent our visit time in a small room at the orphanage. I really dread our visits in this room. It's roughly the size of Denise's closet at home with a sofa and two armchairs. With all four of us in there, there isn't much space to spread out, and with two boys,we definitely need room to spread out! We made the best of it with N spending most of his time reclined on either the sofa or the one of the chairs while eating his fruit. He was quite a sight.

We also managed to "measure" him for some clothes. I use measure in a loose sense as we didn't have a tape measure. We improvised with the elastic out of a money belt!!! The best we can figure his foot is larger than Erick's (a little surprise). It is probably about a kid's size 13 or a boy's size 1. He is a good bit shorter and lighter than Erick. I am guessing a boy's size 4 in pants (maybe even a 4 or 5 T) and shirts. We'll now need to figure out how to transfer that knowledge into European sizes, so we can start clothes shopping. We'll need to get several outfits of clothes to get us home since everything he has now is the property of the orphanage and will have to stay when he leaves.

Well, that 's about it for now. Hope you all ave a great Sunday. BTW, it would be great if someone would Tivo the Daytona 500 :)!

Blessings,

Rick