We are counting down to the hosting trip - just three more weeks. Its funny because on one hand we have ton of things going on right now and I feel that I need as much time as possible to get all caught up on everything and prepared for them coming, but on the other, much bigger hand time seems to be dragging so very slowly as we wait to see them.
Last night as Zach I were talking about the girls, I finally allowed myself to get REALLY excited about seeing them :). I realized that I've really been holding back because I've been very concerned with all the changes in plans this summer that the group may not get visas. But as it is so close and the person in charge of the trip assures us that the visas will go through, we are fully in prep mode and high anticipation.
So, I can't wait see them come off that plane and have a much longed for reunion with Nastya and to finally meet Katya, although it seems I know her already. To hold them, to play a slightly different version of UNO with them, to see how Nastya has grown, to tuck them into the beds I am getting ready, to pray for them with them in our home rather than across the world, to feed them as much fruit and veges as they can hold, to see if they really can swim (they say they can :)), to teach Katya to ride a bike, to see if Nastya still remembers how, to cuddle, to ride horses, to see them delight in simple things, to be able to practice my broken Ukrainian and see them crack up at my attempts! I can't wait!
I am making meal plans, lists of fun things we might want to do, installing a program to help them learn English on the computer, and most fun - getting the things together that they will need. Tonight we began setting up a second twin bed in the extra room. I got the box out of the attic with all Allee's clothes from last summer and some even smaller than that. At Christmas Nastya was at best a size 7 so I need a few more things in that size. I don't really know how big Katya is but I am guessing around a 10, which would be perfect because Allee's old clothes is mostly 10s and I have lots of that. If she's bigger she can share with Allee. I think overall we are pretty set! The only thing I'm really not sure of is shoe size.
My sweet Allee helped me with the room and was so excited to imagine them enjoying the new bedspreads and clothes and had to bring in a purse for each of them filled with some lip glosses and a few pieces of jewelry that she wanted them to have. She also insisted that Nastya have one of her Breyer horses, since she was so in love with horses at Christmas. She has such a giving, thoughtful spirit - it is fun to plan together!
And to make things even more exciting, my sis just recently got news that she is traveling to Ethiopia just a few days before the girls arrive to bring home her baby boy!!! They have been waiting quite awhile and we can't wait to meet him. So while she and her husband are gone for 11 days, I get to care for my three year old neice.
So that's right - I'll have SIX children for a while - three that I'm not all that familiar with! And honestly - I can't wait!!! Not too bad for a girl who babysat once in high school and decided she wasn't all that much of a kid person. Who would've thunk it?!? Only God could have changed all that :) And I'm so glad!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Private Blog
Sorry about the confusion with the private blog. I got a little paranoid about the agency that we first hosted with trying to find our blog. It's a long story but I have been assured that they have no power to do anything to cause us any problems and I honestly can't imagine why they would.
I don't mind if tons of people that I don't know read our blog because if it can be an encouragement to anyone as so many of your blogs have been to me, then I am humbled. God used blogs of others - especially Kristina's story (thanks Leslie!) - during the time that He first began to move our hearts toward older child adoption/hosting.
So for many reasons (to share with others who desire to share this journey and because it is a huge source of encouragment for us to have all of you readers sharing with us and praying for us and the girls) I am leaving it open.
As I've mentioned before, we were with an agency at first (when we first hosted) who proved to be quite dishonest to us and mostly to several friends who hosted with us. It's a long story but we are somewhat concerned that they are not very happy that we decided not to use them to adopt. Now, for the record, just because you host with an agency you are in no way obligated to use them for your adoption. But, a few things lately have made us concerned that they could try to cause problems for us either by trying to take us off the list at the SDA to submit our dossier or even by directly causing difficulties through the people at the girls' orphanage.
Our facilitator, whom we completely trust and are so thankful to have, assures us that this cannot be done. And it seems unlikely that they would waste their time with nothing to gain. And even more unlikely that they would come looking for my blog. And even if they did, we are not hiding anything.
If you are reading this, please pray for protection from any who would seek to cause problems. It is beyond my comprehension to imagine why anyone would want to cause problems. They stand to gain nothing but yet seem vindictive - and when they were the ones who were in the wrong. If these people had a reputation of honesty we would have gladly utilized their services to adopt.
I do know that despite my concerns and the anxiety that sometimes grips me regarding the possiblities, God is so much bigger than any of this. I am trusting that He can overcome any evil plans that may or may not exist. I think sometimes I may be overly imaginative to think that these are possiblities, but whether these are real concerns or not, I must lay it before the Lord.
I read and prayed about the verses below this morning and know that worry only causes harm. These verse gave me great peace. Pray that I will remain in that place of resting and trusting in Him. Pray that I will only allow these concerns to push me to pray more and trust more but that I will truly rest in the Lord.
Psalm 37
Do not fret because of evildoers,
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.
2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,
And wither as the green herb.
3Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fret--it only causes harm.
I don't mind if tons of people that I don't know read our blog because if it can be an encouragement to anyone as so many of your blogs have been to me, then I am humbled. God used blogs of others - especially Kristina's story (thanks Leslie!) - during the time that He first began to move our hearts toward older child adoption/hosting.
So for many reasons (to share with others who desire to share this journey and because it is a huge source of encouragment for us to have all of you readers sharing with us and praying for us and the girls) I am leaving it open.
As I've mentioned before, we were with an agency at first (when we first hosted) who proved to be quite dishonest to us and mostly to several friends who hosted with us. It's a long story but we are somewhat concerned that they are not very happy that we decided not to use them to adopt. Now, for the record, just because you host with an agency you are in no way obligated to use them for your adoption. But, a few things lately have made us concerned that they could try to cause problems for us either by trying to take us off the list at the SDA to submit our dossier or even by directly causing difficulties through the people at the girls' orphanage.
Our facilitator, whom we completely trust and are so thankful to have, assures us that this cannot be done. And it seems unlikely that they would waste their time with nothing to gain. And even more unlikely that they would come looking for my blog. And even if they did, we are not hiding anything.
If you are reading this, please pray for protection from any who would seek to cause problems. It is beyond my comprehension to imagine why anyone would want to cause problems. They stand to gain nothing but yet seem vindictive - and when they were the ones who were in the wrong. If these people had a reputation of honesty we would have gladly utilized their services to adopt.
I do know that despite my concerns and the anxiety that sometimes grips me regarding the possiblities, God is so much bigger than any of this. I am trusting that He can overcome any evil plans that may or may not exist. I think sometimes I may be overly imaginative to think that these are possiblities, but whether these are real concerns or not, I must lay it before the Lord.
I read and prayed about the verses below this morning and know that worry only causes harm. These verse gave me great peace. Pray that I will remain in that place of resting and trusting in Him. Pray that I will only allow these concerns to push me to pray more and trust more but that I will truly rest in the Lord.
Psalm 37
Do not fret because of evildoers,
Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.
2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass,
And wither as the green herb.
3Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fret--it only causes harm.
Monday, July 7, 2008
August 7th, 2008
I knew it was going to happen soon. I've been almost obsessive about checking my email, as my family can attest to. But we'll get back to the good news...
I knew at any moment I could have an email with a date. A date we've been hoping and praying for since Christmas. And although we have had reason to hope it would be soon, in the back of my mind, I worried. I thought that maybe there would be a mistake and it wouldn't happen at all or at least not right now.
Well today as I checked my email for the hundredth time since I knew that the August list had been posted, I finally saw what I had been waiting for - an email titled "dossier submission"! We got the date that our dossier will be submitted to the SDA! We can't believe it is so soon - August 7th is amazing! And to make things even more amazing it is likely that we could receive an SDA appointment relatively quickly. My most optimistic guess WAS that we could be in Ukraine by November but it seems entirely possible that we could be there by October or maybe even September. I would LOVE to travel in September - I think the weather would be really nice and of course the sooner the better. The girls are still scheduled to be here for hosting from Aug 8th until Aug 31st, so it could be a short time for them to go home before we are there to adopt them. Of course whether we can be ready to travel and settle the things that need to be settled first could be another issue. The timing seems a little crazy with lots of things going on in our family and extended family, but clearly it is out of our control and we trust that God will provide what we all need.
Okay and if that wasn't enough good news, my dossier also arrived in Kiev today and my facilitator told me it looked really good! I'm so proud of all those papers!
So now it is time to finish a few thousand things we need to do before we go and get prepared for traveling for so long!!!
What an amazing day :)
I knew at any moment I could have an email with a date. A date we've been hoping and praying for since Christmas. And although we have had reason to hope it would be soon, in the back of my mind, I worried. I thought that maybe there would be a mistake and it wouldn't happen at all or at least not right now.
Well today as I checked my email for the hundredth time since I knew that the August list had been posted, I finally saw what I had been waiting for - an email titled "dossier submission"! We got the date that our dossier will be submitted to the SDA! We can't believe it is so soon - August 7th is amazing! And to make things even more amazing it is likely that we could receive an SDA appointment relatively quickly. My most optimistic guess WAS that we could be in Ukraine by November but it seems entirely possible that we could be there by October or maybe even September. I would LOVE to travel in September - I think the weather would be really nice and of course the sooner the better. The girls are still scheduled to be here for hosting from Aug 8th until Aug 31st, so it could be a short time for them to go home before we are there to adopt them. Of course whether we can be ready to travel and settle the things that need to be settled first could be another issue. The timing seems a little crazy with lots of things going on in our family and extended family, but clearly it is out of our control and we trust that God will provide what we all need.
Okay and if that wasn't enough good news, my dossier also arrived in Kiev today and my facilitator told me it looked really good! I'm so proud of all those papers!
So now it is time to finish a few thousand things we need to do before we go and get prepared for traveling for so long!!!
What an amazing day :)
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Whoop!!!
Okay that's for you Aggies out there :) But we are celebrating..
OUR 171H has arrived!!! We are APPROVED to adopt two children from the country of Ukraine!! Praise the Lord!!
I guess I have not been posting much on the paperwork process - it just seems soooo boring! Well, to fill you in - we sent our I600A application to USCIS in early February - maybe even January. It took quite awhile to get our fingerprint appointment - that was March 22nd.
Then we waited...
and waited...
and received in mid-May...
a document stating that our homestudy was missing some items - it was basically like wording was needing to be redone. So, we had our social worker revise the homestudy, add everything that could possibly be needed, had new background checks run (as required by this document), and overnighted it to San Antonio on May 19th. Not to get sidetracked, but does anyone know why USCIC wants these basic background checks run when they are running full-blown, fingerprinted FBI background checks?
Anyways, we had initially thought that we would be able to submit our paperwork in June. Now as I understand it, had that been the case, we would have missed out on submitting at the appropriate time due to missing the 171 and would have had to wait to get in line for 2009!!! But of course God's timing is always perfect and it turns out we will not be submitting until probably August - just the right amount of time to get everything remaining appostilled, translated, and mailed to Ukraine. We have truly seen God's hand in the timing of these events.
And one other thing - just so that I will not forget. We were with a different agency at the beginning - one that will remain unnamed but that we have left for what we believe were unscrupulous practices. We had sent them the initial payment in December when Nastya was here because we were told we had to get signed up in this 'line'. Well, it quickly seemed that this had been foolish and hasty to send this money to them - which we will probably never be refunded - with the concerns we already had. We were kicking ourselves when we realized that we could no longer trust this agency to continue with them. BUT - had we not done that, we would not be in that 'line' and would not be submitting our dossier until at least mid 2009. In other words - it would have put us back and entire YEAR.
Anyways, we are thankful to have this big step of getting the 171H.
OUR 171H has arrived!!! We are APPROVED to adopt two children from the country of Ukraine!! Praise the Lord!!
I guess I have not been posting much on the paperwork process - it just seems soooo boring! Well, to fill you in - we sent our I600A application to USCIS in early February - maybe even January. It took quite awhile to get our fingerprint appointment - that was March 22nd.
Then we waited...
and waited...
and received in mid-May...
a document stating that our homestudy was missing some items - it was basically like wording was needing to be redone. So, we had our social worker revise the homestudy, add everything that could possibly be needed, had new background checks run (as required by this document), and overnighted it to San Antonio on May 19th. Not to get sidetracked, but does anyone know why USCIC wants these basic background checks run when they are running full-blown, fingerprinted FBI background checks?
Anyways, we had initially thought that we would be able to submit our paperwork in June. Now as I understand it, had that been the case, we would have missed out on submitting at the appropriate time due to missing the 171 and would have had to wait to get in line for 2009!!! But of course God's timing is always perfect and it turns out we will not be submitting until probably August - just the right amount of time to get everything remaining appostilled, translated, and mailed to Ukraine. We have truly seen God's hand in the timing of these events.
And one other thing - just so that I will not forget. We were with a different agency at the beginning - one that will remain unnamed but that we have left for what we believe were unscrupulous practices. We had sent them the initial payment in December when Nastya was here because we were told we had to get signed up in this 'line'. Well, it quickly seemed that this had been foolish and hasty to send this money to them - which we will probably never be refunded - with the concerns we already had. We were kicking ourselves when we realized that we could no longer trust this agency to continue with them. BUT - had we not done that, we would not be in that 'line' and would not be submitting our dossier until at least mid 2009. In other words - it would have put us back and entire YEAR.
Anyways, we are thankful to have this big step of getting the 171H.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Disappointing News...
Well how's that for a bummer of a post title! We are a little bummed - we found out the visas appointment for the girls trip this summer is not scheduled until early August. I don't know why this was not done much earlier, but the bottom line is now there is nothing we can do to change it. So, we are still hosting the girls but instead of 10 wonderful weeks, we will have three super fun weeks. We are praying that the visas are granted at this appointment. If they are not, the trip will be cancelled for the summer and then we may try to visit them in Ukraine before school starts. But we may not be able to schedule it that fast. The girls are very sad to not be here, and we think all the time that they should be enjoying the fun things we are doing.
Benjamin asked the other day, "Mom, is it summer now?"
I answered, "Yes, that's why it's hot and we are swimming a lot."
Benjamin then asked, "Then why aren't Nastya and Katya here? They are supposed to be here in the summer!"
We all agree!!! But, we know that God's timing is absolutely perfect so we will trust in that! And it will give us a bit of time this summer to prepare for the girls coming.
Benjamin asked the other day, "Mom, is it summer now?"
I answered, "Yes, that's why it's hot and we are swimming a lot."
Benjamin then asked, "Then why aren't Nastya and Katya here? They are supposed to be here in the summer!"
We all agree!!! But, we know that God's timing is absolutely perfect so we will trust in that! And it will give us a bit of time this summer to prepare for the girls coming.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Talked to Them Just Now!!
Like cold water to a weary soul, So is good news from a distant land.
Proverbs 25:25
How wonderful it was to hear "Good Morning" at 11:00 at night!! We are so thankful to hear their sweet voices and to just have a sweet, lighthearted conversation with them! They think it is so funny when we say 'ya tebe lebleu' which is 'i love you' in Ukrainian:) I guess we sound kinda funny with our American/Texas accents. They are just precious. I must admit that at times I get caught up in the process of the adoption and I don't realize that I have forgotten how very much I love these girls until I hear their voices and a get a quick glimpse into their lives. We thought it was a neat glimpse into their hearts that they when they realized that it was nighttime here, they were so concerned that we had stayed up late to call them (it is 8 hours later there). We told them that we were more than happy to stay up!!
It had been way too long since we had been able to talk to them - issues with phone service over there and busyness on the part of our translator has made it difficult over there. I have been missing them a lot this week and just praying for God's protection over their lives. We are really hoping and praying that the visas are issued QUICKLY!!! Please pray with us for them!
Proverbs 25:25
How wonderful it was to hear "Good Morning" at 11:00 at night!! We are so thankful to hear their sweet voices and to just have a sweet, lighthearted conversation with them! They think it is so funny when we say 'ya tebe lebleu' which is 'i love you' in Ukrainian:) I guess we sound kinda funny with our American/Texas accents. They are just precious. I must admit that at times I get caught up in the process of the adoption and I don't realize that I have forgotten how very much I love these girls until I hear their voices and a get a quick glimpse into their lives. We thought it was a neat glimpse into their hearts that they when they realized that it was nighttime here, they were so concerned that we had stayed up late to call them (it is 8 hours later there). We told them that we were more than happy to stay up!!
It had been way too long since we had been able to talk to them - issues with phone service over there and busyness on the part of our translator has made it difficult over there. I have been missing them a lot this week and just praying for God's protection over their lives. We are really hoping and praying that the visas are issued QUICKLY!!! Please pray with us for them!
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