We are HERE!!!!!!!!

We are here! It is amazing and beautiful and Junior and Diamoh are so precious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your prayers! I let everyone else take their turns with the computer and the internet, and by my turn every day so far, I got the generator failing, the internet failing, AOL not booting up, and my blog being translated into ARABIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can' get logged in to my blog yet, but I am hoping to do that this moring. We are 5 hours ahead of OK time, so its 6:30 at home and almost lunch time here.

It has been an amazing experience thus far.

Junior and Diamoh "fit" our family perfectly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! think athletic slender boys with big smiles and little girls who love to play dolls more than sports. Junior is about Isaiah's size, but more slender, he seems older than Isaiah, but I am not quite sure why just yet. Diamoh is more like a 5 year old than an almost 7 year old. Their English is not very English most of hte time!!!! They understand far more of my wordds than I do theirs and the nannies speak to them in Liberian dialects I do not understand or speak a syllable of!

The orphanage is basic, but clean and the children are very well loved and in the presence of Godly care givers. I LOVE how they pray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have takne a lot of photos, and Junior has comandeered the camera a number of times, showing us ththe has a very good eye and knack for photography. We teased him abot his first photos which all had a thumb in them, but he is quite good.

Diamoh is very attached to me already, as is Junior. Junior and Chalrie and the other boys have played soccer and Amercian football, but it is Mommy's hugs they want. Leaving the children's home every afternoon is so very hard. We wold love to be able totake the hilren with us but since we have no adoption decree, that is not possible. The children both have cried pretty hard. Diamoh actually got sick yesterday ; she was so upset tht we had to go. I am thinking it toreopen old wounds from last year when the birth parents left them. It has helped enormoulsy that we have said we would come back, and every day we have. Junior has a smile which can light up a very dark and spacious place. That smile in the day time because we are arriving is more than a mamma-heart can almost absorb. The first day we came, the moment we got out tofthe car, they both knew immediately who we were and came running ! OH my heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They did not know we were coming but our faces from our photos were so familiar there was no question!! i discovered that Diamoh would not smile in her earlier photos because she was embarrassed over her toothless smile!!! Her smile is beautfiful, toothless or not, but now she flashes it quickly!

The school teacher is handing out the new notebooks we brought and the kids are having a ball with new things.

We brought a lot of kites for the kids to fly but there has been no wind so ar to try them out. WE do have bottles and bottles of bubbles which are a huge hit.

There are 60 children here, 30 something of them have familes to whom they are matched. There are several very special needs babies as well as children from toddler age to about 13. They are all so precious and so loving. They would all pretty much sit and let me hug them all day if I would sit there, AND if Diamoh would let anyone else on my lap for any amount of time. She went into a pout yesterday when I held anotehr little girl. She didn't mindwhen I held a sick one and gave her a sponge bath to help break her fever, but when another little girl who was not sick took DIAMOH'S SPOT, she went off in a pout, hoping I'd come after her..............That was interesting. She was not too keen on my blowing bubbles with the other children either. Reading tons of books or leading songs, COOL.she was in my lap or next to me. Standing without a hand on her?? NOT COOL! More pout. We had a couple talks about that, but I totally understand. HER MOMMY was there, ...for HER!

We ate dinner last night at an awesome beach front reataurant and wathced the sun set on the Atlantic, waded in very strong undertow nad throroughly enjoyed our surroundings! Liberia 's climate and foliage are identical to Cambodia, South Vietnam and SW Louisiana or the Miami Florida areas...very beautiful!

The house we are renting is owned by an attorney and rented to an NGO , but empty right now so the NGO was glad to rent it to us. Weare with a group of others from our agency, and the fellowship and the shared passion for adoption and for furthering the Kingdom is wonderful!
we both have many stories to tell when we get home!!

Other than missing the chidren and friends at home, this is a perfectly wonderful trip, well that and if we could bring Junior and Diamoh home too, that is!
I will write again as long as the internet and generator stayup!
Love to all
Linda