Oh Happy Day!!!!!!!

The judge ruled that the court is “satisfied” with our adoption, so in layman’s terms we now have a new member added to our family, Hannah Tatiana Sheldon! It was not an easy day, but the end result is what matters. We were in court for almost three hours, and Scott was asked most of the questions. She is a young new judge, who was very stern, and didn’t crack a smile the whole time. My mind went right back to my favorite childhood movie “Wizard of Oz”, where the four characters finally met with the wizard and he called each one of them up to talk. Scott was called first and I realized he was the tin man, sensible and brave yet a little frightened. He answered the many questions very well, and then I knew it would be my turn. As soon as I heard my name in Russian, my knees got shaky and knowing I didn’t have a tail to hold, I was ready to bolt, but I made it through the questioning without any major problems by mustering up any courage I could find. I also knew at that point many people were praying for us and that gave me the comfort I needed to continue. We are overjoyed that Hannah will soon be with us forever and the hardest part of this journey is over.

There is so much to say about our trip so far, but the best day was at the orphanage two days ago. As soon as we walked into Hannah’s room, she came running up to me and was yelling Mama, Mama! I picked her up and hugged her, and then she ran over to Scott and said Papa, Papa and he picked her up! Now it was time for Luke to meet her, and in his best Russian, Luke said, “Ya tvoi braht.” This means, “I am your brother”, and the expression on her face I really can’t put into words, but I would say she was elated. We spent the day at the orphanage and we were able to go all around the grounds and see many of the children. It was a warm sunny day, so we were able to take Luke and Hannah outside to play, and they were running around holding hands and were already communicating in their own way. There is so much that happened that day it is hard to put into perspective.

As many of you know, we asked for donations to help buy a refrigerator for Hannah’s orphanage, and not only did we have enough to buy that, but they were in desperate need of replacing some tiling, and we were able to buy that too! The director was overwhelmed with this generosity from so many people that are helping his orphanage stay open. There are 71 people who work at this orphanage, and if it is shut down they would lose their jobs. So as he said to us many times over, thank you, thank you, and thank you! We told him the donations were from our church, Luke’s school, and Scott’s work, but the true glory goes to God, who gives us the means to help those in need.

Oh, Happy Day!