A Wonderful Lord's Day!

Thank you to Jeff and Lisa Shepherd for bringinig us to church today! It was a wonderful service and we felt great love and acceptance! It was awesome to see Jolynn and her husband there and their precious kiddos, too! We enjoyed a lovely lunch at Papayas after! Thank you all!

We really enjoyed the music! Here is the link to a video of To God Be the Glory! It was awesome! The kids did really well, too, which was such a blessing! 

http://youtu.be/KcpoGc8HNHE

Today was a good day!

So just a quick note. Today was a full day, and actually a very good day. We went out together as a group, and had a good time, but needed to come back for some MUCH needed resting by our little Jeremiah man! Oh my!

Then, Sylvia and I went out to do the quick errands we couldn't do before due to Jerry's meltdown, and got Grace some special items in her favorite color!!!

Then we went down to a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant with our friends. We LOVE Mero the waiter. He's awesome!!! Enjoyed the chocolate souffle for dessert!

Gave the kiddos a bath and now....ahhhhhhhhhh......as they say in the lego movie....

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!! Sweet dreams to the kiddos!!! 

I just LOVE that JoyAnna falls asleep so quicky on her belly!!! What a blessing!

Tomorrow we will meet up with Jeff Shepherd and his family and go to church! Praise The Lord!!! What an encouragement that will be!!!

Good night all!!!

Medicals done and now we wait!!

So today we had our medical exams. TB tests for both kids. Now we wait until Friday for the results! Please pray for favor. Famiy photo before the exam! Look at Jerry...he LOVES Grace, and guess what?? He drives her NUTS!!! Can't you see the love??? Thank you all soooo much for your prayers and encouragement!! xoxoxoxo We couldn't do this without you!!

This is the day....That The Lord hath made...Let us rejoice...and Beglad in it!!

Today (Tuesday) is a free day for us while we wait. It's been wonderful so far. We slept in and had a late breakfast. We LOVE the breakfast buffet at the Budapest hotel!!

Glenn and Jerry are doing laundry this morning to hang up to dry. We have been gone for one week, and so it's time to do some laundry! And so..equipped with a plunger, the bathtub and some laundry soap, they go to work! 

Grace and I are studying her lines for the play auditions which are the day after we return from this trip!! 

JoyAnna a.k.a. "Vicki" is hanging out on the bed enjoying some time with me and Grace! She's is doing soooooo well! What a blessing!

Our dear, dear friend Sylvia is going to watch JoyAnna and Jerry this afternoon (yes, she's storing up her treasures in heaven!!) while Glenn and Grace and I go exploring for a bit! Then  tonight...we will eat at a traditional Bulgarian restaurant down the road!!

It's a good day....a very good day! And we rejoice and are sooooo very glad in it!!

We are in Bulgaria picking up our children!!

Howdy...I'm sooooo sorry not to have posted to my blog sooner. When I logged on, it was all in Bulgarian and I could NOT for the life of me figure out how to get it back to English! I've been praying as I'd much rather be blogging. So...here I am! I figured it out with God's help! Yay!

We arrived here late July 23rd, after being stuck in Frankfurt Germany for many hours and much expense!! UGH....Glenn and Grace went with our beloved Yavor and picked up Jerry, and Sylvia (our nurse0 and I went with Marty and Dani to pick up JoyAnna. We've all been back together in Sofia since Friday evening! It's now Sunday night and what a blessing we have had with each other!

Jerry is doing awesome! He is HIGH energy, but easily channeled and soooooo sweet and loving! I truly wish you all could have been here when he met his sister for the first time. He LOVED her and LOVED her and is still showing her unconditional love! He lovingly nick named her Vicki! This has stuck! It's short for victorious, and that she is!

JoyAnna has made HUGE progress in the few days with us! Here are a few frequently asked questions and answers:

1.  Jerry is 10 and the size of a 5 or 6 year old, but super smart, and NO health problems!

2.  JoyAnna is 7 and spent most of her life in a crib (bald spot on the back of her beautiful head to prove it!) She eats by mouth, and has movement of her arms and legs, but can not yet walk at all, or even crawl. She can roll over, though. She has the biggest eyes I've ever seen and long eye lashes and she loves to take everything in! She laughs and cries, but does not talk at all. She is in for a long haul with many therapies in her future! Her diagnosis is hemolytic anemia. She has had her spleen removed. Her feet are very mis shapen and deformed. It appears she has had some sort of surgery on her ankles at some point. Not sure why. Praying it wasn't to encourage immobility. She truly is a big JOY!! She is very amiable, and loves being in the sun light! I promise to keep you posted!! 

Now to figure out how to post photos in my bog from my i-pad?? i truly am challenged!! 

WE HAVE A COURT DATE!!!

     Rejoice with us!! June 23rd  is our adoption date! 3:00 Bulgaria time!! Hold on Jeremiah and JoyAnna!! We are coming!! The Winslow family will be growing officially by 4 feet!

So that you can best pray!

Good morning everyone! We just received word that our dossier is in need of just one more signature from the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria, and then it will go to Bulgarian court next week. Once it gets to the court it will be assigned a judge, and then the judge will give us a court date. The court will be expediting our dossier as well.  The court date will make the children officially Winslows! Then we will get a travel date at some point after that to go and pick the children up! 

Would you please join us in praying that things would move quickly and that God's will would be done? We just figured out that we started this process just about 20 months ago! Wow! That's more than 2 pregnancies! 

Please pray that we would honor the Lord during this time of waiting. Truly, the waiting has been very hard for me and others in our family.

Thank you all so much. We love you and covet your prayers dearly.

The Winslow Fam

Glenn, Mary, Madelyn, Grace, Edward, Elisha, Jonathan, Jeremiah, Nicole, JoyAnna, and Rosalinda! 

Blessings abounding in Bulgaria!

We are so blessed to be back in Bulgaria awaiting our trip to SZ to meet JoyAnna. We'll leave this afternoon at 2:00 to make the 3.5 hour journey there! Kids back home are doing awesome! That's such a blessing, too! Please take a moment to listen to our new song on our blog. The words are amazing, and really speak volumes to what we've been through in the last 2 months in having God take Zoey to heaven, and then being matched with JoyAnna! Our blessings have truly come through pain and rain drops and tears!, just like the lyrics say! Thank you all for journeying along with us! Here are the lyrics to the song:

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise 

In the meantime, we rejoice in God's beautiful creation! Trying to stay awake yesterday afternoon, we walked and walked in Sofia. It was just wonderful! The temperature was 79 degrees! Totally the shot in the arm we needed! Thank you Lord!  Here are a few shots!

Just had to post this photo of green grass that needs to be cut already! WOW! Beautiful and sooooo green, and it's still winter here!

People were eating outside!

The beauty of the mountains in the distance was just amazing! Clear skies and you could see for miles!

Just had to post this! Michael Winslow playing next week in Sofia! He's known s the man of over 10,000 voices! He did all of the sound effects and voices for the police academy movies from long ago. And yes, he may be a relative our our Jon....seriously...they have a LOT in common! :) :) :)

Just had to share the beauty of the mountain tops from our hotel room this morning!

Such a blessing!

 Thank you God for bringing us here again for such a time as this! The blessings continue to abound and we remain forever grateful!

We are Bulgaria Bound Once Again!

"As cool water to a thristy soul, so is good news from a far away land!"  Proverbs 25:25

 REJOICE WITH US!!!

We just got our travel dates to go and meet our precious JoyAnna!  Praising the Lord today! We will arrive in Sofia, Bulgaria and the 15th of March, and get to meet her on the 17th! We'll visit with her from the 17th, through the 19th, and then head back to Sofia and fly home around the 21st. 


We'll keep you posted!!!

To God Be The Glory---It's a Girl!!!

Thank you for joining us and encouraging us on this amazing journey!! Filled with joy unspeakable, great sorrow, and amazing beauty rising from the ashes!!

May we announce to you this day...our precious Bulgarian blessing from the Lord that we hope to add to our adoption:

Introducing to you:

JoyAnna Deneva Zara Winslow

JoyAnna means:  rejoicing, joy, favor and grace.
Deneva means:  strong and determined
Zara means:  blossoming flower, splendor, dawn, God has remembered!

She will be 7 in April.

She lives at the same orphanage our Zoey did.

We truly covet your prayers! God is moving mountains! Miracles have occurred which have even allowed us to put our adoption on hold of Jeremiah until such a time as our paperwork for JoyAnna is caught up. Our agency has told us:  "prepare to travel on a first trip to meet her very quickly!". Please pray for open doors at the orphanage. For files of the precious children to be released! For life saving changes to be made!

*Due to the wonderful wording on our homestudy, there needs to be NO homestudy update (we first thought there would have to be!)

*Due to Zoey being in heaven, our USCIS officer says there needs to be NO extra fees paid to add her to our adoption!

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17

Thank you precious Zoey. Your life of amazing strength, and joy unspeakable has made an amazing impact on our family and on our world! Without ever leaving your crib, you were a shining light for ALL to see! Our little star! Now in glory...you shine eternal! We LOVE you!