Back to our children

We will be traveling back to NameOfCountry today.  As such, there may not be updates for a couple days.  We will leave Slovakia and be in the air this morning.  We should land in CapitalCity this afternoon and then there will be another 16 hour train ride back to the city where our girls live (by the time this is over, we will have spent three days on a train).  We may or may not get to see them Tuesday when we arrive (we hope we do!) because we will be hitting the ground running doing paperwork.  At this point we don't know when we will have Internet next, so it may be Wednesday before we can post the next status update.

Last night we worked with a sweet little girl who had spina bifida.  Although she was only four, she could talk very well and was incredibly smart.  She could use a computer well (she reads, knows her letters, and can type letters deliberately on the keyboard) and had great fine-motor skills (in one hand only).  She had great fun using the talking powerpoint stories the Slovakian teachers made during their training last year (and she picked up the control interface immediately).  We tried her on the talking word processor.  It was so cute - when the computer first said "Hello" her little mouth fell open in astonishment.

I cannot say how much seeing things like this moves me.  The things I designed are actively helping these children in Slovakia.  From the times of their inception to their creation - I have only regarded them as jokes and toys - proofs of concepts, showing what is possible - and to see them actually being used with children touches my heart deeply.

Our time in Slovakia has been wonderful.  Kelly and I are treating it as a last little vacation before children.  The food has been great, the weather has been great, the people have been wonderful.  It has been great to spend time with our friends in Slovakia and they have taken great care of us.  We have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We have gotten much done in terms of training and development.  We have laid the groundwork in a couple critical areas that will allow for future progress.  We hate to leave.