Rejoicing and Praising God

It is a good morning indeed.  We are rejoicing and praising God that Marina is now Avery Marina Schwenzer with Steve and I as her new parents!!  By law, we now wait 10 days for the court decision to become official.  Court was very easy and quick today.  In the courtroom were two citizens who act as jurors/witnesses.  They were the same two gentlemen who were jurors for court when we adopted Julia and Aaron.  One of them is very friendly and mentioned to our lawyer that he remembered us from before as well.  He is very sweet as he came into the courtroom, while the judge and other members recess to make decision, to give us a "thumbs up" and to shake our hands.  He did the same when we adopted Julia and Aaron.  After the recess, the judge came back in and didn't even sit down to read the court decree.  Last time the judge read the entire 3-4 page document.  It was nice that this judge only read the important parts to the courtroom.

Edward, our lawyer's son, who has been driving us to the orphanage everyday, was kind enough to take care of Evan while we were in court so that Kacey could join us.   He let Evan play with his cell phone and this kept him happy for a good while.  He said Evan was pretty good for him, pushing buttons and opening every compartment in his car.  Edward's wife is pregnant and they are due to have a baby boy at the end of August.  This was good practice for a soon-to-be new daddy!

Today we will have lunch, pack up, and head to the train station around 6pm.  Thank you all for the many prayers during this first trip and for court today.  Please continue to pray for our safe return home on Wednesday!