day #2 in rwanda

at the airport before we left!!! we were so excited. and so sad (us about leaving sawyer, hannah about leaving john)

arriving!!!!!

i love this place. just love it. God feels so PRESENT. a friend once said, "you can almost taste Him in Africa." it's true.

bailey keeps saying, "i just can't believe we're in AFRICA!" in her super cute voice. i'm so glad we brought them. so so glad. they are doing SO well.

and, to go back a bit, just to get it out there, we brought WAY too much stuff on the plane for the kids. it was ridiculous. they could hardly carry their backpacks. and they used hardly ANY of it. we will definitely be doing things differently on the way home.

ok. onto today.

we got up after all sleeping for at LEAST 10 hours. it was amazing. i did take a tylenol pm - to ensure some sleep. (i also took one on the plane and it did NOTHING. i just can't sleep on planes. that is very annoying.)

walked over to eat breakfast - our hotel has a breakfast buffet each morning. it was great. and, i LOVE how all the windows and doors are just open here. it's like outside is inside and inside is outside.
then we drove to court to submit our paperwork.

then we went to meet our boys!!! it was amazing. i jumped up and down. and they were just PERFECT. it was so perfect. lincoln is going to be a handful. but he has the BEST smile. and levi is so cuddly and sweet. we have yet to get a smile from him. when the nun came to walk them back inside, lincoln CRIED...real tears. it was SO sad...yet also kind of nice to know he liked us :-)

the church by the orphanage

the famous blue gates!

after that (which we'll be able to share more about soon we hope!) we went to a glorious lunch. we LOVE peter - he is walking us through everything here. he's amazing. we so enjoyed getting to know him more over lunch!

we went back to our hotel for a few minutes to regroup. and then spent 2 more hours at the orphanage playing with our boys! bubbles were a HUGE hit. as were the cars and soccer ball!

we spent the evening just here at the hotel - hannah and i went for a run! we ate snacks for dinner in our room. joshua loved watching soccer on tv. played some card games. tried to get all this on the computer (internet is VERY frustrating here! i can read your comments in my email. i can't even get on blogger. my friend, ali, is posting this for me!)

we are SO thankful. everything is going so so well. our hearts are SO at peace. we love being here, taking it all in. the people are beautiful. i can't get enough of driving through the city and seeing it all.

we will be up and out of here early tomorrow morning for our appointment at court!!! pray that was pass! and soon! that's the next step.

we have so many praises....many more praises than prayer requests...for the peace in our hearts, for how well our kids are doing, for our stomachs all being fine!, for how well our first meeting with lincoln and levi went. we just feel like we are being held TIGHTLY by Him. and it's beautiful. and amazing.

hopefully by the end of tomorrow we'll officially have 2 more children!!!