I'm not sure how to begin this post. It has been a bit crazy around here. Everyone has been so excited and happy for us. We really appreciate it.
I think the most common question has been, "Aren't you excited?"
Of course we are, but we are also overwhelmed and panicked. We have been praying for this for so long, and now it is finally happening! It is a bit hard to take in.
We also hit a new road block this week. We learned last Friday, we have to redo our entire home study before we go in order to renew our US government paper work. It threw me into a bit of a tizzy to say the least. Thanks to our wonderful friends and family, we were able to get ALL OF THE PAPERWORK together in one weekend. This is pretty much miraculous. I paid the fee for the government forms this morning (ouch) and then turned in all the papers to our homestudy agency and paid them as well (double ouch). With the papers now turned in, we should be okay. Worse case scenario is that I have to stay in Kiev with the child/ren while, Bruce comes back to get a week or two of work in before we come home.
We are both frantically trying to get the house ready and get things at our work tied up and ahead in preparation for our long absence. Pray for Bruce, especially, as he has a mountain of paperwork he needs to get through. He is pretty overwhelmed by it all.
There is a new link to the blog of one of the families traveling with us. Her page has links to many other families that are adopting from Ukraine. Many of them are in country right now. Their blogs will give you the best idea of what we may experience. So far, it seems that everyone is having very positive experiences! They also seem to have no problem getting to the Internet to post to their blogs.
That's all for now.
Peace of Christ,
Lori
Monday, November 20, 2006
Friday, November 10, 2006
Appointment Date
It has been quite a journey for us to this point, full of ups and downs and deep insights into God’s love for us. After our long delay, we finally received our appointment date this morning.
It is December 11! That gives us a month to panic, get everything ready, and finally travel to go and find the children God has chosen for us. We anticipate being in Ukraine for 3 to 4 weeks. I cannot think of a better Christmas gift than the one God is giving us.
For those of you who don’t know I will recap a little of the story to this point. After several months of pondering (and being hit upside the head by God’s 2x4) Bruce and I decided to adopt from Ukraine in October of 2004. It was something we really felt called to do. It has been a long journey and we have spent the last 18 months or so living in limbo. The Ukrainian government decided to completely revamp their adoption system and that basically shut everything down. We kept hearing that the new system would get rolling and then we would travel in early spring, no, it will be June, wait, make that August. People finally began getting appointments in September and we found out this morning that our date was in December for sure.
By all accounts the new system is much better than the old and things are running much more smoothly. Here is how we anticipate it will go. We will leave here, probably on Dec 9 fly to Kiev. We will be traveling with 2 other families from our area. Our Ukrainian facilitator will pick us up at the airport. When we go to our appointment, we will be shown a book that has pictures and medical histories of the children that are available for adoption. We will choose our referral from that book (i.e. We want to meet this child). We will then travel to where ever that orphanage is and spend time with the child. If we feel it is not the child God has chosen for us, we will return to Kiev for another appointment. You generally get 3 chances to choose a child. If we feel it is the right one we will begin the legal adoption process. Once the legal process is finished, the child will come stay with us, but there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period before we can leave the country. We will go back to Kiev to get the Visas for our child(ren) to get into this country. [You have probably noticed the use of the plural. If we can find siblings, we are open to adopting more than one. But by Ukrainian law they must be siblings to get more than one child.]
When we return, we hope that Bruce will be able to take at least one more week off as we settle into our home and new routines. We will need to isolate ourselves for a few weeks so our children will be sure that we are Mom and Dad. The orphanage situation is not good and the children do not learn how to make healthy attachments. By our isolating ourselves for a little while, the kids will learn to trust us and that we are not going anywhere. Once they are firmly attached to us, we will come out of hiding and begin introducing them to their broader world of family and friends.
We don’t know what ages we will come home with. By Ukrainian law, we must be at least 15 years older than the child we adopt so that would make the oldest we could take 10. By Ukrainian law, a child must be in the system for 1 year before they are eligible for adoption, so the youngest we can get is 13 months. The exception to that rule is if they need some kind of medical attention that they won’t be able to receive if they stay in the orphanage. (Things like a cleft palate or a heart defect, often things that are easily fixed over here.) We also have no preference in gender – this has been a God thing all along and we just want whatever God has chosen.
It has been quite an adventure, and I am sure the adventure is just beginning. I alternate between being incredibly excited and unbelievably scared. I am also very humbled that God is allowing us to participate in this venture that is so like what He has done for us though Son. In the future we will be able to tell our children that they were chosen, not because of anything they did or would do, but just because we loved them and wanted to rescue them from the horrible position of isolation and pain they were in.
Please pray:
For clear paths through the adoption system in Ukraine. For clear discerning as to which child/children we should bring home. That God would prepare our children’s hearts to be loved and be able to give love in return. That God would begin the healing process in these little lives who have already lost so much. That we would have wisdom as we begin our role as parents.
It is December 11! That gives us a month to panic, get everything ready, and finally travel to go and find the children God has chosen for us. We anticipate being in Ukraine for 3 to 4 weeks. I cannot think of a better Christmas gift than the one God is giving us.
For those of you who don’t know I will recap a little of the story to this point. After several months of pondering (and being hit upside the head by God’s 2x4) Bruce and I decided to adopt from Ukraine in October of 2004. It was something we really felt called to do. It has been a long journey and we have spent the last 18 months or so living in limbo. The Ukrainian government decided to completely revamp their adoption system and that basically shut everything down. We kept hearing that the new system would get rolling and then we would travel in early spring, no, it will be June, wait, make that August. People finally began getting appointments in September and we found out this morning that our date was in December for sure.
By all accounts the new system is much better than the old and things are running much more smoothly. Here is how we anticipate it will go. We will leave here, probably on Dec 9 fly to Kiev. We will be traveling with 2 other families from our area. Our Ukrainian facilitator will pick us up at the airport. When we go to our appointment, we will be shown a book that has pictures and medical histories of the children that are available for adoption. We will choose our referral from that book (i.e. We want to meet this child). We will then travel to where ever that orphanage is and spend time with the child. If we feel it is not the child God has chosen for us, we will return to Kiev for another appointment. You generally get 3 chances to choose a child. If we feel it is the right one we will begin the legal adoption process. Once the legal process is finished, the child will come stay with us, but there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period before we can leave the country. We will go back to Kiev to get the Visas for our child(ren) to get into this country. [You have probably noticed the use of the plural. If we can find siblings, we are open to adopting more than one. But by Ukrainian law they must be siblings to get more than one child.]
When we return, we hope that Bruce will be able to take at least one more week off as we settle into our home and new routines. We will need to isolate ourselves for a few weeks so our children will be sure that we are Mom and Dad. The orphanage situation is not good and the children do not learn how to make healthy attachments. By our isolating ourselves for a little while, the kids will learn to trust us and that we are not going anywhere. Once they are firmly attached to us, we will come out of hiding and begin introducing them to their broader world of family and friends.
We don’t know what ages we will come home with. By Ukrainian law, we must be at least 15 years older than the child we adopt so that would make the oldest we could take 10. By Ukrainian law, a child must be in the system for 1 year before they are eligible for adoption, so the youngest we can get is 13 months. The exception to that rule is if they need some kind of medical attention that they won’t be able to receive if they stay in the orphanage. (Things like a cleft palate or a heart defect, often things that are easily fixed over here.) We also have no preference in gender – this has been a God thing all along and we just want whatever God has chosen.
It has been quite an adventure, and I am sure the adventure is just beginning. I alternate between being incredibly excited and unbelievably scared. I am also very humbled that God is allowing us to participate in this venture that is so like what He has done for us though Son. In the future we will be able to tell our children that they were chosen, not because of anything they did or would do, but just because we loved them and wanted to rescue them from the horrible position of isolation and pain they were in.
Please pray:
T minus 1 month and counting . . .
Waiting
October 20, 2006
I have learned a lot about waiting. As we wind down our 25th month of this process we have done A LOT of waiting. At times I have despaired that the process will ever be complete and we will live in limbo forever. But God is faithful. He called us to this path and I believe he will see us through.
At our church, we take communion on the first Sunday of every month. That meant that we were taking Communion on the 2nd anniversary of our beginning the adoption process. I was very discouraged that Sunday. As I came to the communion rail, I began to pray, not really in words but just a lifting up my heart to God.
Our associate pastor came over and repeated the same words I have heard many times before, "Lori, the body and blood of our Lord, broken and spilled for you." I looked up and made eye contact with the pastor and for a moment it was not my friend Brian offering me communion, but Jesus himself. In that moment, I could hear the Spirit saying to me, "I waited so long to bring my children home -- thousands of years until the time was right and all things were ready. I still wait for so many of my children to answer my call and come home. You are sharing in my cup of waiting and suffering. Can you bear it? Can you wait with me?"
Philippians 3:10 says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." In some small way, I feel that this time of waiting has been a time of sharing in the suffering of Christ. As we long to be able to go to Ukraine and find our children and bring them home, so Christ longs to gather each of his children in his arms and bring them home.
We are still waiting, although there are indications that we might travel in late November or December. May God grant us the grace to carry this burden until the appointed time comes for us to go find our children.
Then the LORD made answer:
Write down the vision, inscribe it on tablets ready for the herald to carry it with speed;
for there is still a vision for the appointed time.
At the destined hour it will come with breathless haste, it will not fail.
If it delays, wait for it; for when it comes will be no time to linger.
I have learned a lot about waiting. As we wind down our 25th month of this process we have done A LOT of waiting. At times I have despaired that the process will ever be complete and we will live in limbo forever. But God is faithful. He called us to this path and I believe he will see us through.
At our church, we take communion on the first Sunday of every month. That meant that we were taking Communion on the 2nd anniversary of our beginning the adoption process. I was very discouraged that Sunday. As I came to the communion rail, I began to pray, not really in words but just a lifting up my heart to God.
Our associate pastor came over and repeated the same words I have heard many times before, "Lori, the body and blood of our Lord, broken and spilled for you." I looked up and made eye contact with the pastor and for a moment it was not my friend Brian offering me communion, but Jesus himself. In that moment, I could hear the Spirit saying to me, "I waited so long to bring my children home -- thousands of years until the time was right and all things were ready. I still wait for so many of my children to answer my call and come home. You are sharing in my cup of waiting and suffering. Can you bear it? Can you wait with me?"
Philippians 3:10 says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." In some small way, I feel that this time of waiting has been a time of sharing in the suffering of Christ. As we long to be able to go to Ukraine and find our children and bring them home, so Christ longs to gather each of his children in his arms and bring them home.
We are still waiting, although there are indications that we might travel in late November or December. May God grant us the grace to carry this burden until the appointed time comes for us to go find our children.
Then the LORD made answer:
Write down the vision, inscribe it on tablets ready for the herald to carry it with speed;
for there is still a vision for the appointed time.
At the destined hour it will come with breathless haste, it will not fail.
If it delays, wait for it; for when it comes will be no time to linger.
Habakkuk 2:2-3
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