Lavdi Zoti!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying and expressed concern for the adoption process and Cydil and Ellie's health.

Ellie's stomach is still bothering her and her appetite hasn't yet returned. Hopefully we are near the end -- Gigi brought medicine from the States which wasn't well received by Ellie, but it might be working. The antibiotics that Cydil is on is starting to take effect. While not 100% yet, hopefully after a good night's rest on a comfortable bed in Tirana tonight she will feel more like herself tomorrow.

We didn't really know what to expect today when visiting the Courthouse. Everything 'court-related' up until this point has been discouraging. With multiple misunderstandings and discouraging predictions about our court date and overall length and expense of the process, yesterday was a bit of a downer.

We were bouyed by the Scripture and prayers sent our way from you and even had our new friend from South Africa (Kerri) stop by the hotel with some words of encouragement, roses, and prayer. We didn't sit idly by but continued to make phone calls and consider some different ways forward. We knew a lot could ride on our meeting with the judge today (Friday).

Sarah (Cydil's mother) arrived in Albania yesterday and drove down to Elbasan this morning to meet Reni and collect us all for a weekend back in Tirana. We enjoyed introducing him to his Gigi and introducing mom to the wonderful Sisters and staff at the orphanage as well as showing her a bit of the facilities. On the way back to Tirana she shared that she was impressed with the wonderful care that Reni and the other little ones are recieving there.

After the abbreviated visit we checked out of the hotel and Cydil, Ellie, and Sarah returned to Tirana with Mandi while Nathan stayed in Elbasan to wait for Alma's arrival and impending visit to the courthouse. We were praying for divine appointments and wisdom in speech. I can tell you that God directly answered both requests.

I knew who we needed to meet (the judge), but we needed God to make her available and willing to talk with us. As the minutes stretched to over two hours of waiting for Alma, I began to get worried that maybe we would miss any chance altogether of meeting the judge on a shortened Friday afternoon.

Finally my phone rang and Alma said, "We're four minutes away."

I packed up my computer and walked down to the entrance of the hotel to be ready the minute they arrived. I jumped in the back of the van during a rolling stop and we were off to the courthouse. An unexpected parking space was open right in front of the courthouse so Alma and I got out and began to walk towards the gate. That's when Alma recognized that one of two women walking through the gate was our judge.

Alma ran to stop her before she could cross the street and introduced herself. The judge was not anxious to return to 'work'. Apparently she wasn't supposed to even be in at all today but had simply stopped by to complete some unfinished paperwork. She was leaving for the afternoon and was ready to begin her weekend. Alma pleaded with her, explaining that she had driven nearly 2 hours expressly to meet with her.

After a few tense minutes with the judge obviously set on leaving, she reluctantly agreed to return inside to be sure Reni's papers were in order. I had said nothing up until this point and was told to stay outside the gate while they went in. I'm sure I stuck out as an American with a backpack, standing outside a courthouse with nothing to do, but I used the time to pray that God would give Alma the words to say.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, the ladies came back out and were exchanging phone numbers. The judge walked on across the street to wherever she was headed before our interruption and Alma ushered me to a cafe` to wait. That's when she told me what happened.

There is more to the story than what I can relate here and now, but to make a long story short. The judge needed to come back to Tirana tonight and I rode in the front of a van for the next 90 minutes with the driver, Alma, and our judge. The wisdom I prayed for over what to say to her, turned out that I was to remain silent. We don't have a firm date yet, but the judge implied that she is hopeful that we might be able to get what we need done this month.

As I was riding through the mountains on the trip to Tirana with our judge and Alma in the backseat. I began to think about the events of our meeting. My frustration and fear with Alma running behind schedule was due to her having to return to Tirana for some paperwork and encountering traffic. If she had been able to arrive in the morning as originally planned, we would have surely missed the judge. In fact, even 5 minutes earlier we may not have made it past the gate because the judge was not scheduled to be there. If we were 30 seconds later she would have crossed the street and gotten lost in the crowd and we would have never known she had been there.

It seems to me that the only time in the entire day that we could have been granted an audience was those few brief steps between the curb and the gate and that's precisely when we arrived at the open parking spot a mere 15 feet away.

I hope this report encourages your faith as experiencing it has encouraged mine. Lavdi Zoti! (Praise God!)