The day after...

Again, we want to thank all of you who were praying for us yesterday.  What we expected to be a formality turned into much more, but thanks to your prayers, we made it through “successfully.”  Someday we would love to tell you the “rest of the story.”

Yesterday morning we had a few hours before going to court to visit Elisona one last time (Nathan didn’t know if he would see her again until returning to Albania December 16).  She was a bit tired, but we were able to feed her breakfast, a task that is usually performed before our regular arrival time of 8:30.  On the way up to her floor, Nathan pointed out candle stubs melted into the concrete banister in the stairwell, evidence that there hadn’t been any electricity the night before.  We can pretty much assume the kids sit in their cribs in the dark from about 4:30 in the afternoon until 6:30AM the next day.  Because there hasn’t been any heat either (it’s electric), the caregivers have not opened the windows in some time, so you can imagine the air quality from that many babies and their diapers.

Coming into her room, it appeared she had had her morning clothes and diaper change, but 15 minutes after eating, she was ready to be changed again.  I wrote someone this past week how much consistency is lacking for these kids.  Over the course of 7 days, Nathan and I could not distinguish any discernable pattern to what ladies work when, or how they choose to go around the room to feed and/or change the kids.  As a result, when the food comes in, the children all start crying so they don’t get skipped over accidentally.  I learned yesterday that there are 12 women to provide care for 28 children, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  That includes cooking, cleaning, and laundry.  When I asked how they do laundry without electricity, someone did the motions for hand washing.  Even without these situations, we are anxious to bring Elisona home.  She seems to be a bright little girl with so much potential.  We wake up in the night knowing she is cold and that we can do nothing about it.  The next 15-day waiting period beginning on Monday can not pass quickly enough. 

Today we are in Tirana.  We came back last night after our court appearance as that was our original plan with Nathan to fly out this morning.  We debated about just staying the weekend in Vlora, but we needed desperately to do some laundry, and to just “talk” to someone about everything we’ve experienced this week.  We were up until 11 last night showing videos and photos to Cydil’s parents and sister.  It was encouraging to hear from them that they saw improvements in Elisona since their visit with her a week ago.

Thanks again to all of you who have been posting comments to the blog.  It would be impossible to respond to everyone individually, but we can tell you how much of an encouragement it has been hearing from family and friends.  By some of your comments of encouragement regarding Elisona’s response to us and her progress we want you to know that we are not discouraged overall and seeing true progress in her.  The hardest thing has been the fact that all of the other kids in the room are begging for our attention, wanting to be held, and responding to our smiles with huge grins – at the same time Elisona has seemed ambivalent to our existence.  This is changing as we were reminded by watching the videos last night.  These blogs are somewhat stream-of-consciousness and are affected by a multitude of factors.  Any “negatives” that are written are far outweighed by the positives in this process.  We’ve seen God’s hand so clearly.  I sometimes think we behave towards God the same way Elisona behaves towards us: we act as though we don’t need him, when nothing could be further from the truth.  We’ve come up with our own coping mechanisms for life (work, play, entertainment, relationships…) but they’re not what real life is all about.  But like Cydil and I, He is patient and excited for every move towards dependence.  God has been so patient with us while we’ve resisted His care.  We would do anything in our power to help Elisona, how much more would an all-powerful God do if we would depend on Him?  But it’s something he can’t force.  This is just one of the truths about God that he’s been showing us in the last week.

We will post again later today to share as much as we can anticipate the process/timeline for the next few weeks.