It All Creates a Wonderful Balance

The things in which motherhood creates a challenge:

Having a clean clutter-free house
Keeping an organized schedule
Being on time ALL the time (although we are pretty close on this one)

The things in which motherhood creates a blessing:

Laughing together at silly things
Having new adventures with Lola
Tons of hugs and kisses - giving and receiving!
Watching Lola discover something new

On a different note, I received an e-mail some weeks back from the young woman who had been teaching English to Lola at the orphanage in Russia. Needless to say, I was so excited to hear from her and very happy she was willing to deliver messages and news of Lola's life in America to the orphanage director and perhaps Lola's family members as well. Mailing anything from the USA to Russia is slow and risky. Many times the letters / packages never make it to their final destination. I have found a wonderful shipping company here in the Atlanta area that is quite reasonable in price but they require a 10-lb. minimum for packages, so normally I will use them once or twice per year to do one large shipment of essential items to Lola's orphanage. So in Liz finding me was most definitely God's answer to my concern as to how to communicate with Lola's Russian "peeps". Liz is affiliated with MIR, a non-profit Russian charity of Christ. She lives in St. Petersburg and does a variety of wonderful things to help the people of Russia who are in need. The capacity in which I know her is as an English instructor to children in several orphanages in the St. Petersburg area. She has a superb and insightful blog about life in Russia and the wonder of its people. It is lizinstpete.blogspot.com and called "On Life in St. Petersburg".
Liz, affectionately known as "Leeza" to the orphanage children, is much loved by Lola and her little friends who are still at Detsky Dom and I found it quite heart-warming to see entries in Leeza's blog about Lola and her friends. I guess reading her blog helped me feel even that much closer to Lola during the times I was not able to be there. THANK YOU, LEEZA!! :) God is good for bringing you into my life and into Lola's life again!