Denied

Our big family visit today with Gianna and my mom did not happen. Instead we were told by the nurse "kinder no", this of course confused us so we had to make a few phone calls. We were told on Thursday by our lawyer, Natasha, and Serge, one of our facilitators, that Gianna and my mom could come to the visits. When we met with the council on Friday, one of their questions to us was if our daughter had met the kids yet, so we were completely surprised today to be turned away. We immediately called our translator Katia who spoke with the nurse lady and the doctor. They told her that we needed permission from the orphanage director and she was not available until tomorrow (they have a different crew on the weekends). Katia was very unhappy and told us that Natasha (our lawyer) was going to have a few words with the director tomorrow. We also called Serge and he was more than unhappy with what the nurse and doctor had to say, but unfortunately he couldn't do anything until tomorrow either. He also told us that they didn't want us to bring food for the children anymore. We don't know what that is about because the director told us on Thursday that we could bring bananas or large cookies for the kids. We think that maybe Tatya didn't eat her lunch because Daddy gave her a few more cookies than normal at our morning meeting (he just can't say no to her pouty face!), but who knows? So after our conversation, Katia called our taxi driver back to pick up Gianna and my mom and we went on to visit with the children. I must say that after all that drama our afternoon visit didn't go so hot. Tatya didn't seem very interested in us this afternoon and had a few temper tantrums when we weren't able to share our usual snack. She knows what I have in my bag and where I have it, so she was NOT happy with us when we had to snatch it away from her. Eli and Ana seemed pretty mellow and our time with them was shortened because we spent much of our visitation time trying to figure out why Gianna couldn't come in. Oh well, hopefully all will be straightened out tomorrow and we can have our first family visit soon. Gianna handled not being able to see Tatya, Ana and Eli well, which I was a little worried about because we had been talking it up to her. ;) Sometimes being here is just so frustrating!!! What we saw when we left was really disheartening too. An orphanage worker, who looked like she ABSOLUTELY hated her job, was pushing a double stroller around the orphanage yard (literally going in circles) VERY slowly. Inside the stroller were two absolutely precious little ones (maybe 10 months old?). They looked so sad just slowly being pushed around. No one to love them, no one to snuggle them, no mama, no papa. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly I was just so frustrated. What a very sick world we live in. People spend money on new cars, vacations, huge houses...we have SO much. But here these precious children are just waiting, hoping, praying for someone to sacrifice and come and find them. I guess it's just so much easier to pretend they don't exist. And it's so much harder when their faces are imprinted in your head. I just pray that God would stir up the hearts of His people to be mothers and fathers. People whose hearts would break with what breaks His. People who would not be content with what the world says to chase after, but who would chase after the real treasures of this life.