Why Russia?

In my college days, I always imagined adopting a child from somewhere within the US. I served in the inner-city of Chicago and definitely thought the Lord would lead me back there someday to adopt a child, but my heart was led in a different direction. As we began to think and pray about actually embarking on this journey, I still felt a bit unsure of where we would pursue the adoption. I led a college women's small group at the time and asked them to pray with me that we would be clearly directed to a place. As I read, prayed, read some more, and put in many hours of research, Russia emerged...it just made sense. Phil's mom, Clara was BORN IN RUSSIA! She has an incredible story of survival, escape, and freedom as she and her family escaped Russia during World War II and walked from Russia to Germany for 2 YEARS! Clara was only 10 years old when they began walking and the journey was tragic in many ways. She lost a young brother to scarlet fever on this trek and finally arrived in Germany with her parents to then live in displaced person's camp for a number of years. Clara still cooks many Russian dishes and is still fluent in the language...What a gift to us as we pursue this adoption from Russia. We have asked her to travel with us on our 2nd trip and are just thrilled to be taking her back to the place of her birth. And so for us, choosing Russia had many factors--it feels in many ways as if it has always meant to be this way.