Farewell St. Pete, Hello Moscow

We said farewell to St. Petersburg yesterday. I was so sad to leave Natasha. I have come to love this dear woman who has literally laid her life down for the sake of helping children find forever families. We took a bullet train from St. Petersburg to Moscow. I had never been on a passenger train before. It was really quite fun.

We are traveling with another family from Dallas. We have known them for some time through Buckner and are having a great time together. Their new son is 10 years old. He and Sasha seem to really enjoy talking and playing games together. We talk with Sasha, but we only know enough Russian to have "baby talk" in a sense. Simple 2-3 word sentences. The kids tire of this after a while. When they get together they both talk all over the top of each other barely taking a breath. I guess they're just trying to get in as much Russian speak as possible not knowing how long it will be before they get another chance.
Sasha wanted to dress nice for the train ride. She chose an all pink and black ensemble so that her clothes would also match her luggage. Oy. :0 What you don't even see in this photo is the hot pink sweater that goes with the outfit. Too hot out in the sun.

As I shot this next photo I thought to myself how these two kids are so brave. They are leaving their city. They are leaving their country. They are leaving their culture. They are leaving the only home they have ever known. Could I do that? I just don't know. I admire their brave little hearts.

We have had so many people say such nice things to us during this process. People have said that Dan and I are brave, that we are doing such a good thing, that Sasha is lucky to have us, etc. Don't get me wrong, these are very nice things to say to us and we are grateful for people's kind thoughts. I am just struck with these older kids though. We are adults, therefore we have some control. They are still kids, they really have no control. They don't really know what lies in store for them in a new family and a new country, and yet they choose to be adopted. Very brave.
Any family who is blessed enough to adopt an older child internationally is blessed with a very brave child indeed.