heeelllooooo..!

Dear friends… sorry for not blogging in roughly a millions days… I have no excuse really… not really that busy, just relaxing, enjoying post-dissertation life..! I would love to say that I have been out sun-bathing every day, but sadly it has been a bit overcast and rainy here over the past few days. Phil and I had a good weekend: on Friday it was our seminary end-of-term BBQ (complete with grey clouds – like a normal British BBQ..!) which was great fun. Sausages and kebabs was followed by “Amazing Grace”, the film about William Wilberforce. I was expecting a sort of middle-of-the-road Christian film: you know the kind, nothing too exciting or inspiriing, nothing too dramatic and probably a bit preachy, but it was actually excellent..! I thought it was very moving, well acted and challenging… with some beautiful moments. I would recommend it.

On Saturday night, we had some friends from the seminary over to watch Eurovision 2008. This was actually the first time that I have ever watched Eurovision, but I think that it might become a highlight of the year… it was brilliant! One of my particular favourites was the entry from Latvia. The band was called ‘Pirates of the Sea’ and the song was called Wolves of the Sea. It included the incredible lyrics:

“With a hii hii hoo and a hii hii hey!
We’re hoisting the flag to be free
We will steal the show, Jolly Rogers go
We are wolves of the sea.”

Oh yes! Not only was this my first Eurovision, but we watched it with real European people too..! In attendance were representatives from: Lithuania and Bulgaria (sadly not finalists), Ukraine, Russia, and Serbia (the hosts for Eurovision). It was so much more hilarious watching it with ‘proper’ Europeans… anyway, if you want to enjoy the delight of Eurovision for yourself, you can watch all the videos etc here. It should bring you many many minutes of joy. 

On Sunday, after church and obligatory Sunday-afternoon nap, Phil and I began tackling the garden to the house that we have been house-sitting for the past year or so. We hadn’t mowed the lawn in… well… a wee while, so the grass was… erm… bountiful, you might say. We haven’t finished yet, so perhaps I’ll try to get some photos so that you can enjoy the full effect of the before and after garden..! I’m pretty happy with what we have done so far, but there is still a fair bit to do. I think that we’ll be really really happy with ourselves when we’re done.

One very sad piece of news which we received at the beginning of last week when our translator spoke to the social worker who is helping us through the adoption process here, was that we will only hear from the Magistrate (the next person along from our social worker) at the earliest, in September. We have not yet even got a letter from the Magistrate saying that they have started working through our paperwork. Considering that this is one of the first steps in the process, this is quite bad news for us. After we have received that letter, the next step is that they will invite us for psychological testing, then we have parenting classes, then we should go on the list of people waiting for children. When we began this process, we were expecting that we would proceed through the various steps at roughly the same time-frame that our friends who have adopted here did. However, so far, we are months and months behind them. Of course, we know that its different for each couple, but by most standards we are way behind what we expected. The Magistrate explained to our social worker that the reason that it is taking longer than expected is that there are more people entering the adoption process than previously. This is really great news, and we are happy that more people are wanting to adopt children here, but on the selfish level, it makes us feel very frustrated. If we have to wait until September before the Magistrate even begins working on our paperwork, and then invites us for our interviews, we have a long road ahead of us. We never thought that it would take us nearly 12 months to move from step 1 to step 2, and we were planning on leaving Prague in July 2009… so we are in a difficult situation. If we look at the progress of other people that we know who have gone through the process, from the time that they had their interviews til the time that the whole process was completed took over 12 months. At the moment we are so behind their time-frame, we don’t know how long it might take for us. We don’t feel like we can commit to being in Prague for as long as the process will take, as we have been told that it can take years and years. But that means that we either have to choose to go along with the process until we leave Prague, hoping that it will go quicker than it has so far; or we have to decide, based on our experience so far and what we have been warned by our social worker, that this is perhaps a ‘closed door’. We have been thinking, talking and praying about this over the past week, and although we feel like we have come to some decision, we would still appreciate your thoughts and prayers over the next wee while… as we work out what we should do. Its been hard news to hear, but at the same time, we were praying that we would either get a green light and that things would move forward, or we’d get a red light and have at least some end to the seemingly endless waiting with no news whatsoever. The annoying thing is that this is kind of a reddish-amber light: its not a complete ‘no’, but its not exactly encouragement-city either..! I think that this is the hardest part – the ‘what if’ questions. What if we wait? What if we don’t? What if we regret waiting? What if we regret not? Argh! Please pray that we will have peace with whatever decision we make. Thank you so much! We have really appreciated your thoughts and prayers for us so far.

Zimbabwe…

I regularly read the blog of Arthur Stewart, one of the leaders of the Nieu Community in South Africa. A friend of his recently got back from a visit to Zimbabwe, and has posted the report on his website. I encourage you to read it, to be informed, to pray and to engage wherever and however possible in actions that can bring change to Zimbabwe.

http://www.stewart5.net/?p=157   Click on “zimbabwe” in bold at the end of the post to get to the report.

Ellie and David’s wedding

On the 19th April, Ellie and David got married in Madrid, and we were there! We had an amazing time, the wedding was beautiful, and the happy couple more than over-the-moon. It was brilliant being there to celebrate. Here are some of the photos:

 Ellie and David exchanging rings.

 The three ladies together again..!

 Cutting the most delicious wedding cake.

 The first dance.

 Girls with their gorgeous fans.

We also enjoyed a few days in Madrid before the wedding. Hilda (IBTS alumni student) and her sister Judi, as well as Marko (another IBTS alumni) and his girlfriend Monica completed the gang. We had a great time in and around Madrid – a beautiful city, despite the rain and wind!