Court Date

Hello from Ukraine!

We wanted to let everyone know that we anticipate our court date being this Friday (Praise the Lord!!) There are several things that have to fall into place for that to happen. We are waiting on a few key documents that will be needed for the hearing to take place. Please pray that everyting falls into place, our court date occurs on Friday and that things go smoothly. We are ready for things to progress so that we can be closer to a return date.

The children are wonderful and and Jerry and I are working on learning some Russian as I type. We had learned some Ukrianian before we left, but in our region, Russian is the dominant language. Therefore, Jerry and I will now know how to get around in several countries! We simply need to know some words so that the older two children can "get the point" when we are talking. They are doing very well and are trying to pick up some English words. They have also learned to write all of our names in English! We can also write them and they recognize whose name belongs to who. #2 became quite curious about our names this week. Instead of just being Mama and Papa, they wanted to know our actual names. We took them up on this opportunity and taught them our names in English, along with their new last name. It is a great thing that Hood is so easy to spell! They have that down pat! #3 and #4 are both picking up on some English words very quickly. It is always fun to hear them imitate us with a southern accent. We were showing them some pictures the other day, and #3 popped out the word "uncle" in true southern fashion. It sounded so out of place-it was hysterical!

All in all, things are well and we are anxious to take the next step. The children feel like ours-good and bad! We can not imagine our lives without them now. As hard as it is to be away from home, it is all worth it when they are sitting in your lap and simply kiss just because they love you.

Amanda