THE GIFT

Wow. We really got our socks knocked off today. I have posted before about Ms. Leslie - she is a friend of my Nana's. She heard about our quest to adopt Anastasia and decided to help in any way possible. She has done lots of things for us already and two years in a row now, she has involved her kindergarten classes in helping to raise money for us.

They really outdid themselves though. These are 5 year old children and they have pictures of Anastasia up in their classroom - Ms. Leslie has told them all about her and they decided they would like to help. They have been doing chores, making beds and I don't know what else, to raise money for us. This weekend, we opened a little box, with two checks in it, totaling $1000.00.

It brought tears to our eyes. We would have been overwhelmed it if were $50.00, because it is just the thought and work and love that went into it; but that they raised so much money, well, it just shows such a long term comittment from these little sweethearts.

If the truth be known, this money is heaven sent from these little angels. This battle has drained us financially and this huge amount of money will actually purchase tickets to Vladivostok - can you imagine?? There will be enough left over to buy treats for the children at the orphange too. Oh, how wonderful!! I have been praying that these children will be blessed for their love and generousity, but I think they've already been blessed with the greatest joy: Ms. Leslie for their teacher!

Here is a copy of the letter I sent the children. I hope Ms. Leslie will send a copy home with each child and I hope she gives them our blog address too so they can see pictures of us getting Anastasia. How wonderful to help total strangers!


June 9, 2007



Dear Ms. Leslie and Children and Parents of Ms. Leslie’s class,


The Baxter family has just received the most amazing gift and we wanted to write you a note right away and thank you for all of your efforts on our behalf and on the behalf of our sweet daughter, Anastasia.

Ms. Leslie probably has told you all about our little girl Anastasia and about our son, Max. Max has been waiting nearly 4 years to be with his sister again. The Russian government has made a lot of changes during this time and we have had to do a lot of different things to make sure they remember that we want our daughter. All of this work has cost a lot of money, but it doesn’t matter, we have always had faith that we would get our daughter and that somehow all of the problems would work out.

Now, we know we will get to go to Russia this summer and bring Anastasia home. Can you imagine how happy and excited we are? Sometimes, Max gets so excited to see his sister, that he even starts crying. We get to call Anastasia sometimes and she cries too because she wants to be home with us and she misses Max so much. But now, our family will have only tears of joy, because Max and Anastasia get to be together again! Anastasia gets to be in a home with a mom and a dad and a little sister and three brothers – she will be the luckiest girl ever!

We received your gift today and we just about fell over -- we were so surprised. We heard that you had been doing lots of work to help us and we are so touched that you are helping a little girl that you don’t even know. You are all very special children and you must have very special families to have helped us so very much. We would love to hear more about what you did to collect so much money for Anastasia – you all deserve a special thank you and we will be remembering you in our prayers.

We wish we could meet you all and tell you in person how much you have helped us. For now though, please remember that you were able to help make a change in a family’s life. Not many children your age get to learn that they are able to help someone so much, please don’t forget that, you will be able to do so much good in the world with the things you have learned this year. You helped a little girl get her brother back and get her Forever Family – that is a very special gift you have given her. You helped a boy get his sister back; he is just a little boy who misses his sister so very much and you helped to make him happy and excited. You have helped the whole Baxter family; at a time when we really needed help and we thank you so very much.

If you will send us your address or email address, we will send you pictures of Anastasia when we get back from Russia. That probably won’t be until September so you won’t be in Ms. Leslie’s class anymore, but we would love to send you some pictures so you can see her.


Love to you all,
Robert (Dad), Holly (Mom), Alexander (12), Max (11), Daniel (11) and Rosie (2)


hollywinters@hotmail.com