Battle is Over and Blessings are Continuing

 We finished the Battle of the Mustache and Brandon won.  He finally shaved his mustache after 15+ years.  The battle raised $1,208!  Amazing!
      This week we mailed off our first big check for the adoption process written for $4,900.  We were praying for God to show us his Majesty in providing for this need.  Grace, my 13 year old daughter, and I prayed specifically that we would have $4,900 by Monday so that we could pay the obligation.  Tuesday morning when we woke up and checked our pay-pal, someone had donated $5,000 into our account!  This was so wonderful for Grace to see that God is faithful and He answers prayers even if we don't see a way for them to possibly be answered. For me, however, it spoke something more precious.  To me this was God's confirmation that He is in this and it is His will.  It showed me that even though we don't know how or where the finances are going to come from in order to complete the process, God is ABLE to do ALL things!  He knows what we need even before we say it; he just wants us to ask.  We are trying to be very specific in our prayer requests throughout this process.  Please look at our first post "We are Announcing our Plan to Adopt" to see what things we are specifically praying for and we ask that you join us in sending these prayers to Him who is abundantly able to do more than we can ask or think.   
      We have a dear friend who has offered to cut hair and all the money given will go towards our adoption.  If you are local I will be sending out the details on this soon. We have other ideas swirling around in our heads but we'd love to hear the opinions of you all or offers of service to help us.  We are limited on what we can legally do while here in Italy but we love creative ideas.  Feel free to share. 
       We haven't yet heard back from Vitaliy since we have sent our letter but we are not discouraged because we have received some recent pictures of him and he looks healthy and well.  Our plan is to continue to send him a letter once a week.  Please keep this in your prayers as well that this will encourage him and give him hope.
     Finally, we have some friends near us that speak Russian and they have volunteered to try and teach our family some of the language basics.  Although it will be of top importance that Vitaliy learns English, it would be beneficial for all of us if we can at least communicate on a basic level.  These friends of ours have also agreed to be our translators in the beginning stages to communicate the difficult things.  Pray that our family is able to grasp this language quickly.  Italian has been a challenge for us but we feel that we have been able to learn enough to be understood in most cases.  
    Grazie Mille!