The first photo is of the children inside the orphange. There are several colorful murals in the hallways like the one behind them in this photo. The photo below is of the outside of the orphanage.

What a day!!!! High highs and low lows! As Aunt Kat would say, "Connect the dots..." We are reminded of the biblical character Jonathan. Jonathan represented what true friendship and love are all about. The bible describes Jonathan and David by saying "their souls were knit together." Jonathan even though he had rights to the throne submitted to God's annointing of his best friend David without any hint of jealousy or rivalry. Jonathan in my life (my brother) represents the name well. He is my brother and my best friend. Because of this kindred spirit I share with my brother, we have named our new son Jonathan Ivan Rosenthal.

Several months ago, before we knew of Jonathan and Anastasia, we were building our new house and inscribed in cement our initials. We knew another Nastia who at that time we thought we were going to adopt, so we put her initials in as well. Knowing that we also wanted another child who we did not yet know, we put the initials "J.R." which stood for "Junior Rosenthal." After we decided today that we were going to name our son Jonathan, we then remembered the initials which now stand for Jonathan Rosenthal. Connect the dots. Anastasiya (pronounced Anastaseeya in Russian) made it clear that she no longer wanted to be called Nastia (the Russian nickname for Anastasiya) but wanted to be called by the American pronunciation of her name which is Anastasia. (pronounce with the ending like Asia.) We decided her full name will be Anastasia Grace Rosenthal.

God answered our prayer quickly and we will not be adopting Halle. She is a great kid, but is not available for adoption. Please continue to pray for her and her future. At this time we will not be looking for any other kids as our goal will be to get and Anastasia and Jonathan settled.

This by far was the toughest day and perhaps the most challenging day since we've been here. The kids are both very overwhelmed as you can imagine. We for that matter are very overwhelmed and know we are being sustained by God in conjunction with your prayers. Anastasia completely shut down on us today. She was just overwhelmed with the whole idea of this change. We mentioned (because we thought she asked us) fixing her eyes. This seemed to put her over the top and was too much for her to handle. Sometimes we have found it is hard to read the kids as we just don't communicate well at this time. This was clearly the case today. After our visit, it was clear that she could not handle any more and needed her space. Please pray for the transition of just getting home at this point. Pray that Rosie and I will have the wisdom to know what to discuss and not discuss with her. We plan on lightening things up over the next couple of days with puzzles, dolls, and cars and just enjoy each others company. Jonathan on the other hand is very easy going and does not seem at this time to display any discomfort with the transition. Anastasia on the other hand is a very deep thinker and truly is trying to process everything. Difficult day indeed.