HFTW is the best!

I'm going to take a moment to explain a few things. I admit that I haven't been too great at explaining some things so here goes!

We are using Bethany Christian Services to facilitate our adoption. The country of Albania will not allow for an independent adoption, and Bethany is one of only two agencies that they allow at all.

Hope for the World -Albania is an organization that helps assist widows and orphan's. One of the ways they help is through sponsorships. We first found out about them when we wanted to sponsor Mishel. We are now sponsoring Mariada's English lessons though them. They are really working hard to change lives in Albania. Take a look http://www.hopefortheworldalbania.com/ .

We have asked Bethany to give us as much information and updates on Mariada as they can, unfortunately they have told us that they can't do that until September. But since we are sponsoring Mariada though HFTW they have sent us some pictures and basic info! These little things mean so much to us and we can't thank them enough for it!

Hope for the World has employee's that live and work near Mariada's orphanage. They do all sorts of things one of which is give the weekly Bible studies that Mariada attends. They also have the kids come over to play with their two children. The following pictures were taken at their home. The other little girl is Mariada's friend she is also an orphan.

isn’t she adorable?

They also sent us a list of things they know about Mariada! This is something that we will keep forever. I am going to cut and paste it from the e-mail they sent us, so please excuse the spelling errors. Also they left out what grade she is in but they are finding that out for us. And you will see that the Albanian way of spelling her name is with a j instead of the i we plan to use.

Marjada is 12 years old.
She is in the grade.
She is a good student..... she is really one of the best students in the whole orphanages of Albania.
She loves to be a doctor in the future.
She likes playing soccer.
She playes with a small team.
She has seven years that lives in Shkodra.
She has received Christ and she comes faithfully to Bible classes.
She has lots of friends and she is a very friendly girl.
VEry sweet and loving.
She prays that God will find her a family.
Marjada says. .. I have lots of people that love me ,, in school, workers and educators of the orphanage...but there is nothing like having a family.
I love to have a family,
It will give me lots of joy and piece in my heart.

Isn't that just the best?!

I wanted to share that with all of you.

The Road to Mariada

First off, thank you to all of you who sent such beautiful replies to our post about Mariada, we are truly blessed to have such wonderful friends!

We have had so many questions on what the next steps are to bring Mariada home that I thought I would just post them. Here's what we know, and I can only hope that I have it right. Mariada's abandonment papers where signed by a judge in February, once he/she signed them it put Mariada up for adoption, but only to an Albanian family. After six months she will be placed with Bethany Christian Services and available to be adopted internationally. Bethany has already chosen us and we as you know have gladly said that we would be her family. Her six months is up in August, but like a lot of Europe Albania shuts down for the month and goes on holiday. This includes the Albanian Adoption Committee (AAC). So in September the AAC will meet and formally assign Mariada to us, we will then sign some papers which will be sent to the judge and he/she will set a court date. Bob and I both have to be in the country 10 days prior to the court date. We get to meet Mariada as soon as we get there. The ten day rule is time for us to bond and we will be watched by a social worker that will testify that there is in fact a bond. On the day of court Mariada, Bob and myself will all testify that we want the adoption to take place. God willing the judge will then sign the adoption paperwork. After that Bob will fly home and I will stay with Mariada to get her visa and passport etc. completed ( about 3 weeks). Then Bob will fly back, hopefully with Ben and Sara and we will all come home as a family to all of you! I think that's it, although I'm sure there's one or two things that I have forgotten.

I promise to bring my laptop so you can follow along!

In other Gezon news we had a lovely Mother's day. Bob knows I want a butterfly garden so he brought home a butterfly bush to start it off, and Ben gave me the nicest card that he bought all on his own! What a great kid. We had diner with my Mother and Grandmothers and then went over to visit Mom Gezon in Holland. Tulip time is just ending and it was so beautiful to see all the tulips, what a great year for them.

Lucky is doing well. This was his week off from treatment but I'll post a picture from last week, he came home and headed for his favorite spot in the yard, can't really blame him it was a beautiful warm and sunny day.

It's time

OK we can't keep our secret any longer. We have told some of you so it wasn't a very good secret to begin with but here's the story.

While we where in Albania we where told about a girl whose abandonment papers where just signed. She is 12 turning 13 in Aug. she was in an orphanage north of Tirana and had been living there since about the age of 6. She loves to play soccer and would very much like to be adopted. We wanted very badly to visit but where not permitted and time would not have allowed for it anyway. We came home and talked about it with the kids and of course prayed about it. This was a big change, from a boy to a girl and a 5 year old to a teen! Well about six weeks ago we made up our minds (although it wasn't a surprise to anyone really). We called our SW told her that we wanted to adopt her and to please find out when her six month waiting period would be up. We decided to keep it close until we at least knew that, finally today we found out that if an Albanian family does not adopt her she will be assigned to us in September! We are so very happy to have this news. We are guarding our hearts as much as possible. So as many prayers as you would like to say feel free!

OK so here's what's been happening the last six weeks. We know that she is 12 and turning 13 in Aug. she loves to play soccer and apparently is a pretty good player. She enjoys drawing and gets good grades in school. She was raised primarily by nuns until she was 6 and then placed in a school aged orphanage, that's where she is now. She is a Christian and wants to be adopted by a Christian family. In her assessment it states that she would enjoy an active family so we know she will fit right in! We have been paying anonymously for her to have English lessons and she enjoys them very much. She will not know about us until Sept. that's when we can sign the papers and the Judge will set a court date. Hopefully we would travel shortly after that and be home by Christmas.



So here she is! We are working on getting more information and more pictures.