A red letter day for the Pierce Family

Today is the day! We picked up both John and Sarah! 

 

The church by John's orphanage. There's a stork on top!

 

Whilst waiting for paperwork to be filled out, Michael shared his phone with John. There is a speed racing game on it. 

 

Some friends of John's. the little boy on the left is available for adoption. His name is Rusko and he has some mental delay. He is the sweetest little guy. 11 years old and just adorable! During our first trip, John reserved some cookies especially for Rusko. If anyone is interested in learning more about Rusko, let me know. 

 

 

Staff from the orphanage. 

 

 

Our Bulgarian boys! John was thrilled to leave with us today. In fact, he didn't sleep all night in anticipation. His bag was all packed and he was ready to go. He was waiting for us in the courtyard. We passed out all of the fidget spinners and the children were so excited. 

 

Driving to Lesichovo. 

 

 

 

 

 

We were greeted by the children from the orphanage who had bread and honey waiting for us, whilst wearing traditional Bulgarian clothing. 

 

 

 

The children loved the fidget spinners! 

 

 

Our Bulgarian kids, together with us at last!!

 

Tradition to throw water in front of your car before you leave. So neat!

As we predicted, Sarah broke down crying on the drive to Sofia. She has lived in her orphanage for 11 years. She is very attached to her village and the staff and the other children there. We had some time to cry together later on this evening. I think a good night of rest will help a lot. 

 

I see many flowers hanging in windows all over Bulgaria. 

 

Playing Quirkle. 

 

Look at that smile!

 

❤️❤️❤️

Beach time

Thoughts of our time at the orphanage when picking up Michael. He was very excited to see us. He had been busy sweeping up his room and packing. Unfortunately, he left his photo album in his room. We are hopeful we can get it somehow before we leave for America. 

His orphanage director was very gracious and kind. I could sense that she truly has cared for him. 

 

Michael was thrilled to go to the Black Sea with Tyler. 

 

 

This is Michael climbing onto Tyler's shoulders and jumping off. 

 

After swimming, Michael was tired and took a couple of naps in the car. 

We found a neat place to stop for lunch by a lake. We ate fish - which was tasty! The restroom cost 50 cents to use. We joked that perhaps the toilet was made of fancy materials...but it wasn't. Ha ha. 

 

We dropped of Maggie with her family and experienced some time communicating with Michael without a translator. It went surprisingly well! My Bulgarian lessons have certainly paid off in helping to bridge the language gap and google translate has been useful, also. 

 

 

This boy is such a good boy. He is kind and helpful and understanding. We recognize that this is the honeymoon period and at some point we will see him behave more naturally, but for now? It has been a pleasure having this kid with us. What a diamond in the rough!

Next up: going to pick up John and then Sarah!

Letters from my boys

We received a letter from Michael. I'm so glad his birthday package arrived - it took 4 weeks to get there.

Dear Mom and Dad, I finally got the package for my birthday and I’m really happy about it. Many thanks for the wonderful gifts you sent me. The weather is very warm, the spring is already here and I am very glad. I go to school, meet friends and spend an excellent time. I want to see you as soon as possible and come to live with you. Love, Michael

John is our most frequent writer of the three kids. He sends a letter almost every week.

Dear Mum, I miss you so much and I am waiting to see you. I want to know when I am going to the judge to finalize the things. I hope that it will be soon. I am doing well at school. My marks are excellent. My English is better and I promise you to tell new words every Friday. How are you? How is Dad. Write to me. John.

We are waiting on one form to arrive and then I will send all the court documents to Bulgaria in time for court. Hopefully we will be assigned a judge soon. I send the triplets a letter with photos (via email) every Monday and Thursday. I'm so thankful we can have this type of communication, along with skyping. #soblessed

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!

Meet Michael!

The best news the day after Mother's Day is that we have just secured this handsome boy in Bulgaria! "Michael" is 12 years old. He is of Roma descent and loves to play soccer. Michael has dark eyes and hair. He enjoys drawing and singing. His special needs include his age and some difficulties academically. We are excited to bring this sweet boy home!