stepping stones

I dont know about many of you, but I grew up in the mountains and had plenty of opportunity to play in streams, rivers and creeks. I had a habit (and still do, I suppose) of starting to cross a stream by stepping on the most easily accesible rocks resting above the rushing water. But occasionally I would get stuck, without a clear path of rocks in front of me. I found that if I stood there long enough, a path would show itself, almost miraculously, and I could continue on across the river. This adoption experience has been a lot like crossing a river, and every time I cant see the path in front of me, a rock appears. in this case, two families of rocks showed up at Betty's place this week. A family from Texas (the mother, Maria, is from Mexico) arrived from Medallin with three kids ages 9,7, and 6 and going through the final stages of adoption. She speaks Spanish as do the kids. Another family from Indiana arrived with an adorable 2 year old boy; the mother is from Puerto Rico and the father is originally from Colombia, they both speak Spanish and a little English. Harry likes to play with the kids and finally has some one to talk to. I can commiserate with the other families about how long this process takes and we can all share horror stories (they have both been here for around 2 months already! yikes!). But the path shows itself in this way; Harry and I have a hard time communicating, my choppy sentences can get my point across, but he cant say his 's's or r's well, so I have a very hard time understanding him, on top of the language barrier. We had some miscommunication today and he threw a fit. a bad one at that. One of the mothers stepped in to translate and we diffused what was quickly becoming a bad, tense morning. and it was all due to poor language and not knowing how each other 'operates'. There will certainly be more of these episodes in the extended future, but for now, I am forever thankful for the stones that appeared before me and allowed me to get a little further along my journey.
-Brian