Follow-up from trip #1

Before we left Bulgaria, we learned that Sarah had accidentally erased all of the music on her MP3 player. We were able to find a thumb drive in Bulgaria and we loaded the music onto it. We mailed the thumb drive plus 10 LV to Sarah. One of the things that we had purchased for her when we were visiting with her was a jar of strawberry jam - as strawberries are her favorite fruit. Since she and the other kids had consumed the entire jar of jam in 4 days (!), we sent 10 LV to her so she could buy some more. We received the following news from her orphanage director:

The director also shared that they bought 4 jars of strawberry jam with the money the Pierce family sent and Temenuzhka has been sharing her strawberry jam with the other kids.

We were able to Skype with Sarah for the first time yesterday morning! We have a schedule to Skype with Sarah every two weeks. She was able to see us and to hear us, but we couldn't hear her at all and the quality was very blurry for us to see her. But she seemed to enjoy seeing all of us, as we sang to her, did sign language, and we read from google translate! We are excited to Skype with her again soon!

Update on John from our agency: While discussing another case with the director of his orphanage, we used the opportunity to ask how John was doing and the director was excited to share that John is always eagerly awaiting the arrival of the English tutor, he is working hard to learn as much English as possible and be able to communicate with his family and he is greatly motivated about that. 

We are excited to Skype with John on Friday for the first time! He is allowed to have weekly Skype visits. 

Update on Michael from our agency: We heard from Rozalina (Michael's social worker from the local social services, who was present during the family's meetings with him). She was excited to share her joy in relation with the following - When the Pierce family left Dobrich, Michael read the letters they left with him, he got very emotional and started crying, he said "I love them and I miss them already". She finds there is a huge positive change in him following the Pierce family's visits and he is excited about learning some English so as to be able to talk with them himself. 

This is both sad and wonderful news! Michael didn't really show us very much emotion during our trip. I wish that I could have been there to comfort him when he was crying. We are still in the process of setting up English lessons and his Skype sessions. 

We have been home for a couple of days now and seem to be struggling much more with jet lag than we did when we arrived in Bulgaria. On the docket today is to get some fingerprints taken so we can do the FBI Fingerprints (again) and the I800 is already sent off. We also need to get new physicals done. Hopefully everything will progress quickly and smoothly. 

I am eager to do some major nesting in preparation to bringing home our three precious children. I have quilts to make and bedrooms to organize and clothing to get - it will be interesting to outfit three teenagers! Can't wait to bring them home!