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| Outside our appt in Curitiba at night time.... |
Well we're leaving in about an hour to begin our journey to Rio............The last leg of the trip.
We finished up all of our paperwork here in Curitiba and had yet another good bye~ to Lino our favorite Brazilian man! He was so wonderful at helping us with everything while in Brazil. The process went smoothly and we have had no problems completing our paperwork. Went to go take one picture of Lino (Tio Lino~ Uncle Lino~ He has become!) and my batteries died :( urgh...
Yesterday we had to say good bye to the Cochran Family.............another sad good bye! We are so grateful and praise God for allowing us to have them along our journey. We are praying for their permanent visa's to come so they can get their adoption of Lindsay, Jenna and Ben started. They have been waiting for their perm. visa's now for 16months :( Please pray for this process to speed up so they can return to the USA asap with their new family.
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| Mary, Donei and Mike |
We have to be at the US Consulate in Rio tomorrow morning by 7:15am for our interview :( Pretty early especially because we don't arrive in Rio until 10pm tonight and by the time we check into our place and get somewhat settled, we have to be on our way to consulate by 6:30am........
We have been told that we probably won't have internet connection in our place (its actually an appt) so we will have to go to those Internet Cafe` places. We'll do our best to stay connected but just so you all know it may not be as easy to stay in touch these next 5 days.
We are getting excited to start the journey and looking forward to some "Welcome Home" and "Hello's" from family & friends. It will be a nice change from all these painful good byes this last week!
Love you all!!!
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| walking to the bus station to see the Cochran's off |
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| No tears yet....doing pretty good.....:) |
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| Okay...so now the tears start flowing.......... |
Isn't it just absolutely amazing how God has orchestrated this family?! I mean who would have dreamed that friends as solid as you and the Cochrans for the last umpteen years would now--truly be FAMILY! God has massively blessed "The Cousins". He not only gifted them with amazing parents that know the true meaning of Love because of Him who is Love... but he poured out His blessing to overflowing by giving them a family of moms, dads, sisters and brothers that will forever be safe. He truly is restoring the days the locusts have eaten. He truly has poured out His love in ways that you could never even hope to dream w/o thinking, "Oh that's just too much to ask!" Not with God it's not. I'm going to be asking a whole lot more of Him in these next few years because based on the example of The Gouge's and The Cochran's...I think He wants us to ask of Him anything in His name! (I'm starting to see that scripture in a new way).
ReplyDeleteLindsey, Jenna, Ben, Donei, Alyssa, Stephanie... you guys will continue to realize as you grow and continue to experience the love your parents have for you...that God's heart for you is MASSIVE! If there is one thing that we Christians have a hard time grasping (or maybe it's just me--but I don't think so) it's accepting God's love for us the way He so desires for us to. Look at what he has given you all. WOW.
Walking this journey with you in love and prayer, joy and pain-- and reading your posts, seeing the pictures of love...such a rich privilege you have blessed us with. Thanks so much. ...and Tam...don't forget the body armor!
I am sooo excited to see the 3 of you next Monday. I can't wait! I am praying that you were able to change your hotel arrangements.
ReplyDeleteI talked to Steph the other day & she is doing well. I am sure she is so anxious for you to get home. Please let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.
Praying & missing you!!! Love, Kendra