Amazing Love

A few friends have asked us if we are going to continue the blog. I had not really planned on it, but since they have encouraged me and since the kids are now fully involved in school, I think we might post updates every now and then.

We are doing really well overall. Dasha and Dima both love school, and Bob and I are so happy with Alpha Omega Academy. The teachers and administrators were very excited to meet our kids and to welcome them. They are flexible with us in terms of grading and assignments while the kids are working on learning English. Their peers at school have been just as fantastic, welcoming and befriending Dasha and Dima. Dasha received a birthday invitation from a classmate in the mail just a day after she met the birthday girl in class. It will be her first party without us! And Dima has expressed repeatedly how happy he is that the boys at school like him. (No talk about the girls yet, thank God!) Their English is coming along very well - we hear more from Dasha every day!

I am taking the semester off from school - an amazing blessing though I will miss my students. I can already see how it really is necessary, though, and how I will need to devote a great deal of time to our kids during the transition. Bob is having to rebuild his business, but the up side of that is that he also gets a good bit of "kid time" right now.

At home we are doing lots of homework but still have time to play together as a family. I think the kids really love being here. There are times when the adjustment is hard - difficult assignments, frustration with language, learning to live happily as siblings, and learning to live within the boundaries we set. All very natural and normal under these circumstances, but difficult since Bob and I are still getting to know the kids and just learning to be parents as well.

But I was reminded of something this morning as I was researching a little on the love of God.

Romans 5:10 says, "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

I'm not sure I ever got much from that verse before, but in thinking about the fact that we as believers were adopted into God's family by Christ's death and reconciliation, I realized that it didn't stop there. He not only reconciled us so that we would be in good standing with the Father, He also conquered death and rose from the dead to seal our futures, meaning life with Him now and eternally, essentially relationship. So the adoption is the first part. The relationship - the ongoing, permanent gift of life and love - is the rest.

And for us, our adoption was the beginning. Now we are called to give life and love through whatever comes, and to live in a relationship, a family, that will not be broken, as an example of what He did for us.

My brain is fuzzy now - thinking and writing and needing to clean the kitchen.

So off I go... As always, thank you for listening and praying and investing in our family!

Love,
Karen