Faith's Bowl-A-Thon

Faith did a great job bowling today! Her best game she bowled a 96, which is the best game she has bowled this year, I think. Thank you all for praying for her and supporting her. She was very excited! Between her bowling sponsorships and candy sales thus far, she has raised just over $700 - not too far from her goal of $1,000 for Anya's plane ticket. She has been working on some ideas for future fundraisers, so hopefully she will meet her goal.

Other good news for today... we were able to speak with Anya with the assistance of an interpreter this morning. Anya had received my email message about our court date and was excited. I was able to tell her that we would see her 3 days before court and she was thrilled with that news. She did get a little upset when I told her that the judge has said she will not be able to come home with us on the next trip, but will have to wait for a couple of weeks (I told her we should be there by December 10th to get her). She didn't speak for a while, but finally said "I understand". Overall she seems to be doing well. She said she got all A's and B's on her report card. I asked if she needed anything and she said shoes for school (indoor ones). So, we'll be putting together a package to send to her this week. When Jack talked to her, he told her that he was looking forward to seeing her in November, and she said "I'm looking forward to December 10th". I told her the basic schedule from here until she comes home with us and when I asked if she would like to take a plane or a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow, she said she would like to take the train. The next 8 weeks is going to seem like a long time to Anya, so please pray that she will have peace. It's also a long time to prepare to say good-bye... sometimes I think it's easier to not have much notice when saying good-bye. It will be a difficult period for her. I think she will have a lot of excitement about the future, nervousness about the unknown and sadness about who and what she will be leaving behind. As she has said before, "Russia is her motherland" and I think in the future the more difficult part will be that "Russia is the land of her mother" (father, grandmother and friends).