Video of Marina's bossing ball game:)

Sitting at the mall on a Saturday night by the indoor skating rink in Dnipropetrovsk, hoping to upload this video. It is not a great quality and Tully and I were passing the video camera back and forth trying to capture it all. We think it is amazing how hard Marina was working to make us understand the rules, which we failed horribly at. I am surprised she was interested in working with us today but she was amazingly friendly and very funny today. She has the best laugh! Today we all played lots of different games on the playground with all the kids and then the "gram babushka" got on the merry go round and the mouths of all the children fell open...evidently not a lot of grown ups get on that thing. After seeing the color green on mom's face, well it would only be logical. I got a scarf that I really really liked the other day and today I put it on while we were on the playground and one of the kids busted out laughing and said something about my "babushka"scarf. Not sure I like it any more....:) The children here in Marina's place are so beautiful and bright eyed. I wish we could bring them all home. It is too easy to love them. Not sure why they are in an orphanage, but they need parents. And dentists I think. Anyhow will take photos of the groupa if we are allowed. Did I mention you should come get a child too? Do you realize if only ten percent of people who profess to be Christians would adopt a child, there would be no more orphans? On the other hand there are millions that need a home. And every single one who gets a home, is one less orphan. And one less orphan is the goal...remember that starfish story where the little girl is walking along and tossing beached starfish back into the ocean and a man comes along and asks why she is working so hard since she surely can't save them all? She picks one up and says, "I made a difference to this one". And I can't believe how grateful we are to be blessed by this little starfish of ours. You all are going to love her:) Peggy I will talk to anyone that will listen to our story so yes, I would come to sunday school and talk about this journey. Thank you for asking.

At the end of the day today Marina ran over to the goody bag and snagged the color book that was in there. She tucked it under her arm and marched off with her groupa. It was interesting to explain to Evan that she felt that she needed her very own color book for the first time in her life. He got better about it, but it did not sit well until I went over it one more time.

I do have one prayer request. Please, other than our court date, start building a hedge of prayers around Marina's journey home. I get no translator to help me and the flight will be very very long if she decides she does not want to be on it. I know we are nervous about this more than anything. The honor of getting past our court date on the 28th is that we have a ten day wait that will allow us to officially become Marina's parents on November 8th, which would be Orphan Sunday,the official day of acknowledging the call to arms to be aware. I had no idea that this was real. I wish you could be here too. It would change your life forever, and a lot of us need our worlds changed I believe.

I just realized that the video may not load because I am nearly out of battery charge. Ugh, if it does not load I will try again tomorrow. Ok the connection failed after an hour and a half--will maybe upload a 23 second video instead of a 4 minute one if I can, to get you by til tomorrow... sigh-battery has mere seconds left...