We would like to officially introduce our new children, Anastasia Grace Rosenthal and Jonathan Ivan Rosenthal!!!! Our adoption was approved in court today without a hitch! Thank you, Lord! We now have a 10 day waiting period and we will come back to bring home our new children.







In court, the judge reviewed the childrens' case out loud. It was a great reminder of why we are here, and one aspect of the children's story was completely new to us: They have been institutionalized since birth! It was also stated that they were abandoned by their mother and never had a visitor, received a letter, package or phone call. The most moving statement was that "no one wanted them." The most disturbing thing is that there are over 150 children in this orphanage alone who may very well be in this same situation!

These facts make us even more amazed at the courageous and optimistic spirit of these two children and actually of all the orphans we have met on this journey. God bless them every one!


We have really learned so much in the past 3 weeks about how these kids live and their conditions. What we are about to tell you is what we have seen firsthand. This particular orphanage, we believe, though very poor has many loving staff members. With this said, the conditions in our eyes are unbearable. Today as we drove up the driveway onto the playground, we saw workers throwing raw sewage by the bucket onto the playground. Later that day when we dropped the children off after court, the workers had gone home, but the raw sewage was still there-literal human feces strewn across the ground with children playing not far away. We refrained from taking photos, but stared in disbelief as we saw it with our own eyes! We have been asked why we have chosen to adopt abroad. We didn't know ourselves the conditions here until we came and saw.


Tomorrow we head to Kiev. Saturday to London. Sunday back to our wonderful, courageous, generous girls, Abbie and Hannah. We have so many people to thank especially the Lashowers, who have blessed us in so many ways that we can't even start to say thank you!!!! Thank you to everyone who has made this trip possible and that God has worked through to provide for our girls.