Book flights – check!

Last night, after four phone calls, Trevor finally managed to buy tickets for him, Pippa and Romilly to fly to Niko’s country and for all four of them to fly back.  It was trickier than you’d think.  Buy Niko a return ticket from here and it looks like he’s a no-show on the first half so they cancel the second half.  Buy him a one-way ticket and you spend way more money than you would for a return (weird!).  Buy him a return ticket starting and ending in his birth country and it looks as though he is flying unaccompanied, so the computer won’t let you book it online.  Anyway, a few tries at talking to actual human beings finally got it sorted out.  The woman who eventually cracked it and got Niko’s ticket home booked whispered to Trevor as she was hanging up, “God bless you!”  Sweet.

Today we drove to Harrisburg (hopefully for the last time?) to apostille a couple of Power of Attorney documents, so that Trevor, a British citizen, can march into an American embassy with an Eastern European boy and ask for a US Visa.  Should be okay, we’re told.

On the two-hour drive home, we had plenty of time to reflect on what really lies ahead of us in the weeks to come.

On our family’s end, there is nothing but joy and celebration in our hearts as we consider breaking Niko out of that orphanage forever and bringing him home.  But Niko…

Niko is five.  He has only ever known the structured days of orphanage life and the care of whichever workers are on duty.  That is his home, they are his parents. He loves them and they love him.  Leaving them in the arms of a man he has met only a few times before and who speaks only a handful of words he understands is likely going to be more traumatic than joyful for him, even with two giggly little girls there to entertain and distract him.

Our adoption training has prepared us well for the (strong) possibility that Niko will be grieving when we bring him home, but as the day approaches, I have to admit we are finding the reality of that very daunting.  How can we comfort a grieving child when we do not speak his language, and when we are the source of his grief?  It is too big a task for us, but not for our Lord.

We are praying for Niko’s transition to our home, and especially for his time with Trevor and the girls in his country before coming home, that the Lord would prepare his heart for joining our family, that he would be able to accept our love even though it comes in strange foreign sounds and trappings, that he would somehow be able to comprehend that these enormous and frightening changes are for his good.  Please pray with us.