"This family will love me very much."

Oh my WORD.

Luke just called to fill me in on an update from our adoption case worker. She spoke with the orphanage director at length this morning about last week's court date and our next court date (July 25), which they feel really confident about.

Okay, whatever.

Frankly, after last week my brain is tired of thinking of court dates, "if-only's", "how-many-days-until's," and possible travel times. I'm weary of wondering what will happen next and when we'll hear anything. But what my husband relayed to me after that was just what I needed to hear: M's reaction to the news that he has a family!!

Our orphanage director is a precious, godly woman. She has a HUGE heart for these kids, and has developed a close and loving relationship with each one of them. When she was here a few months ago she was moved to tears as she talked about each of the older boys. It is obvious that she loves them very, very much. Knowing that helps me to imagine not only the excitement she brought to the conversation, but also the tenderness with which she must have shared this joyful news with him.

And, apparently he did, in fact, receive it with great joy. She said that there were many, many smiles, as well as tears of relief, release, and yes... JOY. He was indeed, very, very excited and happy (as we had heard). He has not received our care package yet which contains our DVD message to him, but he does have a book of pictures of us. She said he looked and looked at each picture, asking, "So, this is my family? This is my house? This is my brother? This is my sister?" Smiling... crying...smiling.

Then... she said he lingered over the page that had this photo:



Finally he said, "This family will love me very much."

Oh, my precious boy, you have no idea how much we already do.