An Adoption Journey

So our family story began with a haircut, seriously; it was a 9yr old little girl visiting from Ukraine through Orphan Children's Fund. My husband and I own a hair salon, and naturally, when a friend mentioned this program, I offered to do a free haircut for an orphan from Ukraine.
Little did I know how much my life would change from that moment on. The way in which this little girl appreciated every movement, I made to help her feel relaxed from the shampoo to the blowdry and the vanilla-scented finish on her gorgeous hair, and it seemed as though she was learning like when I leaned like a dance. My heart was struck by the idea of letting someone like her into my life and my heart. At the moment, I made eye contact with my husband, who was working at the front end of our salon, and our eyes told each other everything. Lol, it was clear we needed to become a part of this organization's help where we could and possibly make the choice to host an orphan ourselves.
On October 17, 2010, we received photos of not one but two little girls who we could host through this program. They were sisters and were 8 & 9 yrs old. Our hosting journey was to begin December 18, 2010 -January 10, 2011. They honestly had us at "Hello" or as they would say "priviet."
I could write a book about all the details from their first morning in our home to the moment they got back on the plane to go back to Ukraine. But what I can say about all the experiences is :
-it is exciting, like the first movie they watched at a theater where they talked to the film the entire time.
-It's scary, like the moment they cried about something I didn't understand, which ended up being an argument over who gets to take a bath first.
-it's exhausting because I have not had children and did not understand how tired I would feel at the end of every day
-heart-wrenching to see what they do without where they come from but still, find happiness in simple things
-it's addicting to want to do all you can to fix as much as possible before sending them back.
This leads to after their return to Ukraine; we did everything within our power to file for adoption as fast as possible to see those beautiful faces again.
That's all another book for another day. But there is not a day that goes by that I don't thank God for Vinny and an organization like Orphan Children's Fund, who made this all possible.