4 Weeks ago Tonight

...Allison, Rebekah, and I stepped off a plane in Atlanta and almost literally fell into the arms or our family and friends. I still do not have words for that moment... For those who supported us, my heart will forever be overflowing with gratitude. No matter the depths of senility my mind may take me years from now in my old age, I will never, never, never forget that night. It was the culmination of all that God wished to do in our adoption of Rebekah, and now He continues to work in her in ways we never imagined. There is a God in Heaven, Jesus is His Son, if you're still an orphan, He wants to find you.

6 Weeks ago tonight, the somber, speechless, furrowed-brow little girl who we had set our affections on was ours for the very first time. That first day with us she ate enough for an adult while sitting in my lap at lunch. I'm certain we could have fed her rotten garbage and she would have ate every ounce she could, not knowing when her next meal would be. We put her down for a nap, and a few hours later, in the late afternoon when she awoke, she trembled from fear as Allison held her in her arms. Later that night, we managed to get her to sleep. Just like I knew I would, I laid in bed wondering what we were doing 5000 miles from home, and also wondering if we had what it took to survive this. Like any good man, I hid it the best I could, and tried to show stone like resolve while the storm raged inside. Husbands, be Jesus to your wife, a Bulwark, a Fortress never failing.

I remember when we went to have Rebekah's passport photos made. On the way, as we bounced along the road, the orphanage worker that accompanied us said through our translator - "In a month, you won't even recognize her..." She was exactly right...

Tonight, we got out as a family to run a few errands after I got off work. Rebekah bobbed her head and clapped her hands while we jammed to Shane and Shane in the car. She sang her little song about Gracie (the wonder hound) "Dogga - Dogga, -Dogga, Dogga, Dog!". She also talked alot in her own baby talk as she reviewed the events of her day, and often I would catch her smiling to herself as I kept an eye on her in the rear view mirror. After dinner we stopped off by the park. The Opelika High School jazz band was doing a little concert. Rebekah loves music, I have never seen a child dance as hard and freely as she danced tonight. She clapped vigorously at the end of every song, and pointed in amazement at every dog in sight. She loves the park, she loves her home. Finally, after daddy made up silly songs at bathtime, Allison rocked her while we read our Bible story. Whenever I finish reading she clasps her hands together, closes her eyes and smiles, reminding us to pray. I start it the same way almost every night. "Dear God, thank you for Rebekah..."

Home!

We are home! After being delayed four extra (and very long) days, we finally made it home on Tuesday, April 20th. The past two weeks have been wonderful, exciting, exhausting, and all the other emotions that come along with parenthood. We are enjoying our life as a family of three and Rebekah is doing really good. She has exceeded my expectations and seems truly happy at our home. We pray that she will continue to bond with us and adjust to her new life even better in the coming days. .

I'll start with our long journey home. Our total travel time was at least 36 hours, but we were just so thankful that we found a flight out of Europe and back to the U.S.! Rebekah did amazingly well, and I know that God truly intervened. She slept and stayed very calm and was content. It was a miracle!

Attempting to sleep in the Madrid airport. We arrived in Madrid from Moscow around 1:30am Madrid time and our flight for Miami left around 12:30pm. We just found a quiet corner, laid down some blankets, and set up camp.


Zac keeping watch over his girls.


Rebekah amazingly slept 6 hours on this cold, marble floor. She woke up right before we boarded our plane to Miami. It was remarkable that she slept that long and slept through the noise of the airport. A true blessing to her parents! As a side note...when she originally fell asleep her head was on blankets, but at this point she had wiggled off of them. I know it looked bad, but we weren't about to touch her!!


Here we are on our long ten and a half hour flight from Madrid to Miami. The Lord answered so many prayers, and Rebekah did amazingly well. She was mostly content, napped for over three hours, and only got restless the last three and a half hours of the flight. It went better than I could have ever imagined and even others near our seats commented on how well she did.


The three of us as we were descending into Miami. The "sign" says, "New American Citizen", because the moment the plane landed Rebekah was instantly an American!


The most beautiful plane ever!! It got us safely back to the U.S.!!


The three of us just moments after arriving in Miami. I think we were all relieved to be off of that plane and to be back in the U.S.!

At this point in the journey home we had to go through customs and hand over a lot of important documents so that Rebekah could officially become a U.S. citizen and get beyond passport control. I always imagined this to be a happy moment and that we'd just go to a special room and quickly be on our way. However, quite the opposite happened.

First, we arrived in Miami around 4:30pm, so the airport was very busy. Plus, boarder control in Miami is really busy (we learned) dealing with lots of immigrants and also Haitians. They sent us to a holding area that reminded me of a waiting room at a doctor's office. There were lots of people and nothing to do but wait for your name to be called. It is first come, first serve and they make no special arrangements if you are making a connecting flight. We had a few hours to spare, but after waiting an hour and a half we began to strongly doubt that we were going to make our connecting flight to Atlanta. We were really frustrated! Rebekah did well but was hungry, and we couldn't leave to get her any real food. Finally, our name was called after a quick five minute check of our documents and we booked it to get our luggage, go through security and get to our gate.

We arrived at our gate as our plane was boarding and walked straight to our seats. There was no time to get Rebekah any real food, bless her heart. We were all starving! Thankfully, our flight to Atlanta was only an hour and a half and she fell asleep. To say we were ecstatic to land in Atlanta is an understatement! Thank you for all of your prayers - They were felt, and we still believe that it was a true miracle we made it home when we did.

I will try and post again soon about our welcoming at the airport and an update on how Rebekah has been adjusting.

Photo Album

We've had many requests from people to post our photo album to the blog. So what I've done is attach the public link to the photo albums below.

Russia Trip Photo Album


Russia Homecoming Photo Album

Enjoy!

zac