Witnessing a Miracle

Well, today Jason and I got to witness a miracle!

You know from our last blog that Jason and I went to court today for the offical adoption. We were nervous and unsure what it would be like. Thankfully neither one of us have ever had to be in court before. Jason did most of the talking for us and he did a great job! He really represented our family in a true form. There is a lot of offical documents read by the prosicuter and judge, they asked questions from us and we would answer and then Tanya would translate to the judge for us. The judge left the room for about 20 minutes to make her final decision. When she returned her main point was that she agreed we were fit to be Lex's parents and that we could adopt him. Then she dropped a bomb on us all. She said she had an early birthday present for me (my birthday is Friday) and that she was waiving the 10 day wait period! Our translator and the social worker said they have never seen anything like that happen. We were all in shock! Then the judge walks back into the courtroom with out her robe on and hands me a green, glass apple and says "to health and happiness". It was crazy!! And it was nothing short of a miracle!!! Truly.

We have been busy rearranging plans, making new ones, changing them and we feel we've finally come up with our new plan. It was only after we received a cute email from Gabi saying she is sssooooooooooooooooo excited for LLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXX to come home! She's called us twice and is besides herself for us to come. Jason and I still have a lot of paperwork to handle, getting visa's to the US and Lex's passport from Russia. We should be able to get him on Saturday, travel to Moscow, do more paperwork in Moscow to travel to the US on Thursday. We were comptemplaiting taking Lex to Germany to meet Gary, Angela, Jason's grandmother and our kids then head to the US but we found out that Lex will not be an American until he steps on US soil therefore he may not be able to get a visa to Germany?? There were too many variables about traveling to Germany so we will be heading home Thursday. I'm sad to not see Jason's grandmother but I am sooo happy about going home!! Praise the Lord!!

I'm exhausted so I'll have to type more later.....
Love you all and thank you for allowing us to see the power of prayer, your prayers, at work in our lives.

Jason and Stephenie