Summer Hosting:

Well, I guess since my husband's blog has "made it official" there isn't any harm in my going viral with is either http://macyadoption.blogspot.com/.  We will be hosting two teenage girls this summer (que laughter about how crazy we are)!

It is a fairly well known fact that we hosted Dennis and his sister, Snezhana last summer, and moved forward with their adoption, bringing Dennis home for good in January of this year. Although sister declined to be adopted, she did accept our invitation to be hosted for summer 2011, but four days later told me she changed her mind. So, on Monday, Feb 7th, when the NHFC team asked her if she wanted to be hosted again for summer, we were not sure what her answer would be. To our surprise and delight, she said YES!!! So, we will be seeing her again in a few months and keep praying that she will be able to overcome the pressure she is experiencing to stay in Ukraine, and choose to become a permanent member of our family.

Dennis misses her a lot. At first he didn't seem to, and maybe it was just the adjustment of it all, or his own mental state that he didn't understand that she wasn't going to be around once he got to our house. But, last week he started asking about her being in America. We didn't know what to do or say at first, but finally my husband was able to use the Russian translation program on his Droid to communicate with Dennis that he could ask Snezhana on the phone if she would come to America. Dennis did just that on the Sunday afternoon, just before the Monday that she would be required to give her final answer to summer hosting. Isn't it great how God orchestrates things in just His timing for our lives and the lives of those we care about?

And, now for the "other girl" as Brian refers to her on the other blog. I'm not exactly sure why he's trying to protect her identity because her identity is pretty widely known through FB due to her previously being hosted by a family in the U.S. Nonetheless, I will also refer to her as "H." Isn't she a doll??!! :)

So, you may be asking how did we come to meet his beautiful young lady and decide to host her. Well ... I will tell you! Brian had already returned to the US and I remained in Ukraine for the 10-day waiting period and then to pick up Dennis and bring him home. I was pretty much done and Dennis and I were back in Kiev when NHFC put out the "still available" list from Christmas hosting. This is the list of kids that did NOT find a forever family during the hosting session.

I cannot honestly tell you what made me even look at the children posted on this link. We were still in pain from Snezhana's refusal and I needed to focus what little emotional energy I had left on Dennis and our time in Kiev, and what I needed to do to get us home. But, I still found myself up late one night, unable to keep my eyes off the precious children features on this website. Several kids in particular caught my eye, but I did not tell Brian which ones, or that I was even interested in hosting again period, much less this soon. I did, however send him the link.

From half way across the world, across a vast ocean, on a different continent where it was day instead of night, Brian was looking at the same beautiful faces. And, in the same manner that we selected Dennis and Snezhana, we selected this lovely young lady, H. Neither of us said a word to the other about our thoughts on who to host, which gender, what age, nothing. Then, suddenly as if hit by lightening, we both knew it was H. He asked me, "So, we're going to host the heart breaker?" I replied, "Who would that be?" And he told me and I agreed!

More on what followed and how Dennis and I came to meet H at the train station tomorrow ...