We ask for fervent prayer for God to go before us at court and prepare the way for everything to go smoothly. There are so many details and we cannot go into all of them so please pray that God will work them all out. Court is tomorrow, December 15, at 1:00 p.m. Ukraine time which is 9 hours ahead of mountain standard time. We will have court with a jury and judge. We found out today that one of our girl's caretakers from her dorm has been summoned to the proceedings as well to answer questions regarding us and our interactions with her. The only male "den dad" assigned to those children has been chosen to come with to court. He initially seems gruff but he has a big smile and a big heart. We are so excited and also nervous for tomorrow. We trust our Heavenly Father who has gotten us this far to see this through until completion!

Today was a sad day as we said good bye to all the children in our girl's dorm. After spending so many hours with all these children, we have grown to cherish each one of them. Several of the girls hugged me and said "I love you" before we left. We were so thankful the assistant director allowed us to go to our girl's dorm today. Yesterday we were once again not allowed in so we had to spend our time in the main building making holiday hats, chatting, and playing iPad. We did go to St. Nicoli's house, as it is referred to, which is a second story room in the back of the main building. Inside the room it is beautifully decorated in white and blue snow flakes on the walls with a small village display of elaborately decorated cakes including small hand made candies of forest animals. Groups of children get to come to this upper room to make crafts and decorate stocking shaped cookies. Our girl had not gotten to go because of the quarantine so she was excited to get to decorate and eat a cookie. We only had a short time to visit because she needed to go eat her lunch which was supposed to be later due to quarantine. We walked out of "St. Nicoli's house" and saw all the other children from her dorm already returning from lunch. We quickly went to the eating hall and thankfully our girl was able to get lunch. We were appalled with how little she ate. The soup did not look very appetizing, nor did the three small pieces of pork. She ate a piece of bread dipped in the soup and maybe a few spoons of the soup. She tried one piece of the pork and then ate one spoon of the white porridge that I thought was potatoes. She did not drink any of the compote which looked like only water to me but is supposedly a fruit drink. We have tried compote at the hotel and it was rather thick and tasty. This did not look anything like the compote we had. It made me sad that she did not like the food so most of it was wasted. She just said she was not very hungry. It must be very difficult to feed the masses on a tight budget so tastiness suffers therefore the children do not eat well.

Please continue to pray for complete healing of the sick children and for health for all the children. We were happy to see three more children back from the "hospital" today. One of them came and made a holiday hat with me. For the last two days, she would blow kisses to us from her window in the hospital. I sought out my hugger to give her a hug and a shirt we had for her. I could tell she is still not 100% because I only got a half smile from her. Before we left, I gave her a big hug and silently prayed for God to provide a forever family for her. She is like the runt or the black sheep of the family who often gets left out.

Two of our girl's friends and roommates are leaving this week to be hosted by families in America. I gave each girl a letter to give to their host families with our contact information in hopes that the girls could email each other at least once during their hosting. Please pray that the families will get the letters and that we may be able to be a support to them. It would be wonderful if the girls could stay in touch even just for a short time before the friends go back to the orphanage. One of the girls who is being hosted did not want to let me go tonight. She walked, hugging me part of the way, to our taxi which did not come until after we called. She and our girl were so happy to have extra time with us and when it finally arrived we did a big group hug. We left with both girls calling out "I love you" to us. Our girl is so excited for court. She talked about it many times to us and her friends and was so animated when she was talking to one of her caretakers about it.

After court is finished tomorrow we have to quickly leave to get to the train station to go to Kiev. Please pray that God will work out the timing. We have appointments starting at 8:00 on Friday morning so if we do not make the 5:00 train we would have to take the overnight train that would not get in until 9:00 on Friday morning. We have two places to go Friday morning for paperwork and then it's off to the airport. Our plane leaves at 2:00 p.m. on Friday. If one thing takes longer starting with court tomorrow it will make trouble for the rest of our busy schedule. We are fully trusting God for everything and we truly appreciate your prayers. Pray also for us in saying good bye to our girl. We are so excited to see our children back home but sad to leave our daughter here. Pray for peace for all of us!

Here is a prayer sent to us tonight by dear friends we have met in this adoption process. (They are currently adopting from Ukraine as well.) It meant so much to us that I had to include it although I had to eliminate our daughter's name: "Father of the fatherless, you give your children a home in which to dwell; and like a loving mother you gather us into your household. We give you thanks for this precious child who has come to bless the Aldridge family and for Christy and Jason who have taken this child to be their own. By the power of your Holy Spirit, fill Christy and Jason with trust, understanding and affection; and, through their new daughter enable us all to better know the mystery that we are all your children by adoption; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

We thank our gracious Heavenly Father for giving us such wonderful friends, prayer warriors, and sources of support. Through you He has shown us His great provision (thank you to those of you who recently donated and to our friend who conducted a fundraiser), given us great comfort, and provided the love of friends even from half way around the world!