.....the rest of the story...

Once we arrived in Marcus' city we were taken to the orphanage to meet him.  The director was ill, so we met with the assistant director and orphanage doctor.  During our visit, one of the nannies brought Marcus.  As soon as I saw him, my eyes welled with tears.  He was so afraid.  He didn't want to make eye contact with us, but his curiosity kept getting the best of him.  I would catch him glancing up at us and quickly smile then look away again.  We only had him in visiting with us for a few minutes.  Because he was so scared, we had him go back to his groupa.  After our visit, we were taken to the local hotel to drop off our things.  Our facilitator asked if we needed more time or if we wanted to go ahead and give the okay to proceed with the adoption.  Both Curtis and I knew that he was the one.  The rest of the day was spent running around the town trying to get some paperwork notarized.  It was a Friday, and apparently people don't like to work on Friday's around here.  Our wonderful facilitator was getting frustrated and I just sat in the back seat of the van praying.  On our seventh stop, our facilitator came out to say that she found a notary that would be willing to help us with our documents.  Around 4p we were finally done running around and were taken back to the hotel.  We were pooped out, both emotionally and physically.

Saturday we woke up and got ready to head to the orphanage for our first 'real' visit with M.  We just showed up at the orphanage, walked right in and right to his groupa.  No questions asked.  We spent a couple of hours trying to introduce ourselves and help M to feel comfortable.  It was a quiet visit (he didn't talk), but a productive one.  We left that afternoon and M was starting to open up.  When we went back for our late afternoon/evening visit, M was much more excited to see us.  The kids were eating dinner and the nannies invited us in to hang out with the groupa.  They even invited us in to the children's sleeping room.  M showed us where he slept.  We were so grateful to have the opportunity to see where he sleeps.

The nannies have all been very welcoming.  We have been allowed to be a part of many things while here.  M is treat fairly well.  I asked if any of the other children in his groupa are available to be adopted and we were told no.  They actually all have families and are only there for a certain amount of time due to various reasons.  Good to know these sweeties have families, sad that they are temporarily separated from them.

Court is scheduled for this Friday at 10a our time.  Please pray that nothing comes up that would prevent it from happening (example-judge has other more important cases, or a key person is ill).

Once I have access to my computer, I will be able to elaborate more on our time here as well as share photos.  Working from my tablet is not working so well.  :)

Thank you for sticking with us......sorry my posts have taken so long to get up.

-Sara and Curtis