Hurry Up and Wait

Many people have asked us when we're returning to Russia. We have tickets for the end of January, and prayerfully we'll make our deadline. We call this time period "hurry up and wait" as we need the following documents to go to Russia: Anneka's birth certificate and social security number, Anneka's passport, letters of invitation from the Russian church for all of us, and visas for all of us. We have friends who recently came to the States from Russia to have a baby, and they gave themselves two months after the birth to get all the needed documents... and sadly, they missed the deadline and have to buy new plane tickets. Their baby's social security card took a month and a half to come!! We are very thankful to say that our social security card came in the mail and we picked up the birth certificate yesterday! We had Anneka's passport pictures taken yesterday and it was both hilarious and stressful. They had to take soooo many pictures before we had one that worked... in one you couldn't see her chin well enough, in another Leif's hand was showing, in another her head was the wrong size, etc, etc. Plus Anneka had to have her eyes open and be looking forward- this is nearly impossible with a newborn. After two trips and a couple of hours at the photo place and many prayers, we got a successful picture... hooray! Please pray that Anneka's passport will process quickly and for the process of getting the letters of invitation. Thank you!