last lap

i ran track in high school. i wasn't good but went to very small school & meets we're only against other small schools so i did okay. my favorite race was the 1600. a mile. only 4x around. my coach often tried to coach me against saving too much for the end. i just kept pace with other runners & did bare mimimun until the last time around, especially the last 200-100. coach always said i had too much in the end. today in ukraine is a huge day for us. matt has traveled with olga to finish chasing regional documents, while i have stayed here to visit lena in the orphange & we are hoping & praying that all works perfectly...if so, we no longer visit Lena...she will come with us! we have been here 39 days & we are in the last lap. the clothes i brought for her will be worn. the diapers will be used. her hair will start to grow out. the questions i've had for so long about her sleeping & eating will start to be pieced together. soon enough, we will start to look for plane tickets home...3 plane tickets. and soon, i will skype hazel & anders & say that we are coming home. so yeah, coach, i may have only kept pace for a while, but that slow pace has just been preparing me to kick it in. to sprint...not to the finish line, oh no, sprinting to only the beginning:) if you didn't see matt's last post with the little video/pics of lena, you need to check it out here. hopefully it will be the last pictures we'll post of her in the orphanage!