How we got here and Letting Go

This past summer, my husband and I decided to host an orphan from the first time. I learned about hosting through a blog I love-http://creatingmyownlittlenirvana.blogspot.com In her blog, Keri told about her amazing experience hosting a little girl named Dasha. They were trying to get a group for together from the orphanage that Keri's daughter was from in Russia but that didn't work out....However, we decided to go forward and host from another Eastern European country instead.

Looking through the photo listing for for Project 143 I was immediately drawn to one little face:

I showed the listing to my husband and he picked the same little boy. We prayed about it for a few weeks and then decided to host him. We went into it not really thinking that we wanted to adopt, but we were open to it.

S arrived in July and was here for 5 short weeks that changed our lives.

At the airport:

It was a wonderful experience, and we fell in love with him completely.

We didn't even go into the hosting with the thought that we would definitely be adopting this child, (although that was my hope-my husband was resistant) but S changed all that completely for my husband.

Watching this little boy blossom right in front of us was amazing....from week to week he grew (physically as well as emotionally) from this scared/repressed little boy that had been in an orphanage for years and couldn't look you in the eye or accept a hug-to a joyful and funny boy that would melt in your arms and tell you that he "loves you too" every night when you tucked him into bed.

Halfway through the hosting, we found out that there was a chance that another family was going to adopt him or that he wasn't available yet. We were discouraged, but there was still hope. It created some stress for the last 2 weeks of weeks of hosting.....and made our goodbye so much harder....as we had the knowledge that we might never get to see him again. But we were adamant that our time with him not be ruined.

However, last week received the official notification from his country that he is not available to adopt. (By anyone) We were heart broken to say the least.

So we've had to make some decisions, about how hard to hold on....or whether to let him go.....We aren't ready to let him go completely yet; in fact we are sending a package to his orphanage in October, and we want to stay in contact with him. In fact I'd love to keep hosting him any chance we get (they do both summer and winter hosting programs). So we are praying about it.

And on that note, for the immediate future-we are planning on hosting and moving forward again. We have to decide by tomorrow, whether or not we will host a sibling group of two brothers from another Eastern European country.