Opposite Forces in the Same Space

Sevastopol has been an interesting area to be in. There is a lot of history here and there is history in the making that is happening today. This city is a port city much like San Diego however a big difference is that although it is owned by Ukraine, Russia rents the port for its Black Sea Navy fleet of warships. Soldiers are about from both countries and some buildings sport flags from Russia while others are Ukraine. These countries don’t always see eye to eye, especially since Ukraine became independent of Russia 20 yrs ago so you can sense the tension.

Today I was talking with Janelle as we walked by the bay how it seems like in our heads there are two opposite forces sharing the same space. One says these kids need us the other says this is way out of our league. To us this is an obvious case of FAS in both children coupled with a history of malnutrition. We have to remember our training before we got here. We take that very seriously and we know when to walk away, as hard as it is, regardless of the children’s’ needs. Despite that this is a heartbreaking decision, our training taught us this. Because everything points us to making this decision, we feel like God has something else waiting for us. Both Janelle and I feel asleep crying and praying for God’s guidance in this situation. The more we lean to the idea of a second referral the better we feel about it. It is like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders. There is a difference between being called to adopt and being called to adopt kids with these kinds of needs. Every adopted child has “special needs” and it is up to us to have the discernment to know that we can meet those needs.

Janelle and I have joked that she is more heart than head while I am more head than heart.  We are both on the same page, which makes us feel really good. I am blessed to have such a caring, wonderful wife with a huge heart. Thankfully we are not opposing forces living in the same space.

Latest Update and Information

Today we went to the orphanage again this morning.  We decided it would be fun to go outside and so the caregivers bundled the kids up, and we went on the playground.  The little boy loved the swing, and just smiled away while Casey pushed him.  And didn’t want to get off.  And, the little girl was very sweet and just wanted me to hold her most of the time.  We decided not to go back to the orphanage this afternoon, we’ll go back tomorrow morning, instead.   We also decided to let our translator go home until Monday, which saves us some money because we don’t have to pay for his apartment here and his meals.  And, on Monday we hope to have enough information from a US doctor back home to make a decision, and our translator will need to be with us then, to start whatever paperwork is necessary.  We requested to talk to the doctor at the orphanage this morning but they won’t let us, until Monday when the director is back.   The director and the orphanage is very well run, and our translator, said it is not in their interest to lie or mislead us, because they are held accountable.  The caregivers show a lot of love, and these kids seem to be a lot better off than some of the stories we have heard about orphanages.  These kids are healthy, as they say, but our concern is not the orphanage care issues, which we expect and are willing and able to handle.  But, there is something more there, and that’s what our instinct is telling us, and it seems weird that we are the only ones out here that ‘see’ it.  I probably shouldn’t go into too many details.  I want to be respectful.  My heart aches for these two, and I want to cry every time I think about that we might not be the right mama & papa for them.  But, I know that we can’t accept a referral based on pity or guilt that we are their only hope.  We were trained on how to accept a referral, and when to proceed and when to go slow, and when to stop.  I’m afraid we’re in the red, with maybe a little yellow.    God has given us discernment, and given Casey the ability to make decisions.  And, most people know that I am on the indecisive side.  We met these kids with the information that they had minor or correctable conditions, but some conditions seem more special needs, and we are not sure that we are ready for everything this could involve.   The more time we spend praying, talking, and going over all this, the more I feel we are being led to seriously consider requesting a second referral.  

Please keep praying, as we still have one day before we make our official decision.  We are hoping to post some more pics soon, so those of you who are curious can see the area we're in.  Bye for now!

A Long Day

Today we woke up on a train at the opposite end of Ukraine, the southern end. Our train ride was an adventure, but the beds were surprisingly comfortable.  Our mattress in Kiev was pretty hard, and tonight's bed is even more interesting!  So, here's a pic of our cabin, if you could call it that.  (Yes, our luggage is too big for this train, and yes it was a little awkward with one other guy in there.)   But, we just tried to enjoy the ride.  They give you bed rolls, sheets, and blanket (similar to a wool Dutch blanket).  But, we slept okay with the train rocking us all night.

Anyways, they say this climate is somewhat Mediterranean. It is definitely less cold and is only partly cloudy instead of rainy, like Kiev was. It is obviously a different part of the country, with a lot of Russian influence.  After the long train ride, we ended up in the capital of Crimea.  There we met our driver and translator, Ed, and headed to Sevastopol, a port city, where the Russian Navy keeps the Black Sea fleet.  There’s a fortress that says “Glory to Russia” on the waterfront and a lot of other statues for the Russians.   We're enjoying being near the water, though.

So, most importantly, here’s what happened on our visit with the children.  We first headed to the social worker and inspector’s offices.   The inspector went with us to the orphanage where we first met with the orphanage director.  She talked about the kids, focusing on their medical history and how well they are doing.  They assured us these two were healthy, and we were lucky to be seeing their profiles, being foreigners, etc.  Then, they brought the kids in where they welcomed us, calling us “mama and papa.”   The 2-year old, red-headed little girl had a bow on, the size of her head, a fancy dress, and black dress shoes.  She’s sweet and seems okay.  The little boy does seem to have some problems that are concerning to us, but he’s very friendly and seems pretty smart, he recited a Russian poem from memory for us.  He doesn’t seem to make eye contact and we’re not even sure when he’s looking at us, it appears to be more than just “cosmetic” like they told us.  We gave the kids a couple of small toys (including a little stuffed cow) and were able to play with them for a little while.   They must be told to love on us, because they gave us lots of hugs and kisses.  We were more worried about them warming up to us, but that is not the problem here!  Then, we were able to come back at 4pm to see them again.   The boy still had the stuffed cow we gave him, and our translator said it was his “first possession” probably and he was very proud of it.  Oh, and as a side note, Casey tried to hand-measure his head, and it seemed fine.  He’s just a little blunt with some things but we won’t try to diagnose this child just based on head size. He does have some other issues, and we’re not sure what they are, and we are just concerned, if we can handle this or not. 

They have been in the orphanage for almost 2 yrs and were removed from the mother by the state because of neglect, malnutrition and alcohol abuse.  If we decline this referral, we can request another appointment, but it will take at least a week or maybe two, to get that, so right now we are praying hard and considering whether or not we can accept this referral.  Either way, we’ll be here at least until Monday.  The orphanage the kids are in seems run very well, and the orphanage director seemed eager to work with us.  She said even if we wanted to re-name them, they would start calling them, their new names.  We are definitely doing our homework and trusting God to send us the right signs and answer our prayers.  Right now we need lots of prayers lifted up to help us make a very difficult decision.

We don’t have internet in the apartment, and it’s about time for us to get out of this smoky café.  So, thanks for praying, we’ll be in touch soon!  Love to all!

Oh, and Happy Birthday Lori & Breanne!!

A Great Lunch

Our SDA Appointment and Decision

Hi Everyone!  Thanks for all your comments they are so great to read and very encouraging to us.  We had our appointment today at 12pm.  We are led into an office and shown a stack of children's profiles.  We were shown around 6-8 different sibling groups.  We were shown young twins, but they had more severe health issues.  We also were shown a sibling group with a very young girl (20 months), and her brother, who was 8, almost 9 years old.  They seemed great, but we felt we weren't ready for a teenager so quickly!  We finally decided to go meet a sibling group with a girl who is 2 years and 4 months, and a boy who will be 4 in a month.  We were told they are relatively healthy, and they are in the same orphanage.  The little boy has droopy eyelids, one worse than the other, but we were told that he was overall pretty healthy and smart.   The droopy eyelids (ptosis) is a correctable procedure, we've been doing some research online about it.  We definitely felt led to this particular sibling group because they are in the age range that we were requesting.  And, while we were there, the SDA lady called and spoke to the orphanage director about them, and she spoke highly of these two.  So, they looked a little skinny and small.  But, nothing some good Mickey D's and Chick-fil-A can't help with!  Just kidding (kinda!) :)
So, tomorrow afternoon we pick up our papers from the SDA and go to the train station to head to Crimea. It's in the southern most part of Ukraine, on the Black Sea, and has a milder climate.  We get to be on the train at least for 14 hours, and will arrive sometime friday morning.  We looked into flights, but they were sold out, and we tried to buy 4 tickets for the train so we could have our own area, but that didn't happen either.  So, we'll get to be in a sleeper type car with 2 strangers.  I guess it's all part of our adventurous ride!
On Friday, a new translator will meet us, and we'll go together to the region's social worker to request a visit with the children.  So, if it all goes on time, we'll hopefully get to visit them sometime on Friday.
We are hopeful that these children will be a good fit for our family, and we're looking forward to spending some time with them.  It was really a surreal process, sitting there, and seeing pictures and profiles of all these children without moms and dads, and most of them with health issues.  They showed us profiles of children who were most recently available.  They assured us that these two seemed like a good fit for us, and if not, said we can come back up to 2 more times for appointments.  Let's hope and pray that's not the case.  We are looking forward to seeing these two and interacting with them to make some health determinations of our own.  Obviously, we're not doctors, but we know the USA has plenty of good ones, so we'll go from there.  Thanks for all your prayers, we really can feel the love, and we are so thankful to all of you for supporting us in this journey.
From the tourist part of us, we didn't take any pictures today.  Boring, I know!  We walked around and went into this huge farmers market with tons of raw meat, fish, caviar, and lots of fruit and vegetable stands.  It was pretty interesting, I should have had my camera.  And, tonight our street is really lively, all the lights are on, it's kinda like the Times Square of Kiev, and there was just a firework show - we kept hearing loud bangs and thought it was cannons or something crazy.  We should have just looked out our window sooner, we just missed the show.  Anyways, that's all for now!  Please pray for our meeting with these kids, that it will go well, and we'll be able to continue to make the right decision whether to go forward with the adoption.  Please pray for our train ride, for safety, and that we can sleep through the night, so Friday we are energized and ready to meet the kiddos!  Hugs to all, Good night! :)

A Few More Pictures

Thanks for all your comments!  We are getting ready for bed now, but I wanted to put up a few more pics from the day.  It's great to have internet in our apartment, we hope it's this easy at our next place.  We'll find out soon enough...  We are supposed leave tomorrow after 5pm to travel to the region where the orphange(s) are.  We had a nice dinner at a pub across the street from our apartment.  We shared a cheese plate (we had to try the local cheeses), they were good, but Casey said the smoked cheese tasted like eating charcoal.  A little too smoky! : )  And, if you saw the pictures of the souvenir stand by the SDA, it's actually a whole street of those booths, kinda like souvinir places in Mexico, but I totally plan on buying some momentos there at some point.  I love the nesting dolls.   We hope that tomorrow we'll be able to tell you about our referrals and who we will be on the way to meet.   Now, the important part of trip will begin.  Thanks for praying!

The Apartment building we're staying in, 5th floor in the center is our balcony

Casey in front of the "lift" we were scared of...at first.

The "Monument of Independence" and underneath the glass is an underground mall.

Our grocery store purchases for breakfast - we're hoping that's milk in the carton.

Our Day to be Tourists

Here's a few pictures from our first full day in Kiev.  Our apartment is nice and we are right in the middle of Kiev, with lots of activity around us.   We met with our facilitator, Valentin, today and he showed us around the area. We walked around and saw a few different churches, we also walked to where our appointment is going to be tomorrow, and had a nice Ukrainian lunch.  We're going to walk around a little more before it gets dark, so we'll write more later.  We're happy to have internet in the apartment, and we bought a cell phone, which makes it a lot cheaper to call the US, and we can stay connected with Valentin as well.  We definitely are a long ways from home and what we're used to, but we feel safe and protected, and surprisingly not too nervous, despite what a big day tomorrow is for us!  God has definitely been answering our prayers.  We'll post more later, when we have more news to share!  

The view of Kiev's busiest street from our balcony.

Janelle and I in front of St. Michael's Cathedral

St. Michael's Cathedral

A souvenir stand near the SDA marketing to parents adopting.

OUR APARTMENT IN KIEV

OUR BEDROOM

In Dusseldorf, Germany - One more flight to go

We are in Dusseldorf and are happy to say that all of our flights have been on time and everything has gone smooth.  We are very grateful to be flying in business class thanks to Casey's Mom & Dad and Tom & Sarah donating their miles. Thanks again!  It's been very comfortable and nice to use the lounges during our layovers.  We were enjoying our delicious dinner on our flight from Chicago to here when we came to the realization that enjoying our meal on the way home is probably going to be a whole other story, with one or two children with us!  It will be an experience I'm sure flying home with small children, but first things first.  We're hoping to get some more rest on our next flight and are looking forward to hopefully an early night once we get settled in Kiev.  We'll be in touch!  Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.  Our journey is officially under way.

The Countdown - 3 days to go!

The time for our big journey is getting closer, and we are getting really excited!  We leave on Sunday at 10:30am, we have a stopover in Chicago, then Dusseldorf, and arrive in Ukraine at 2:15pm on Monday the 26^th.   The facilitator will meet us at the airport, and he will take us to an apartment he has arranged for us to stay in while in Kyiv.  We hope to be able to do some sightseeing on Tuesday and get rested up for our SDA appointment at noon on Wednesday.   A lot of people have asked if we know “who” we are adopting, but we don’t know yet.  We have been approved for one or two children, either gender, from age as young as possible up to the age of 7.  When we started this process we wanted to pursue a sibling group under the age of 4.  But, as we got into it, we learned to be more flexible and we changed our requested age so that we would hopefully be more “acceptable” and get approved.  We know that the youngest possible is usually at least 18 months old.  Children must be registered in the orphanage at least 12 months before they become available for international adoption.    So, not only are we getting surprised on whether we’ll get a boy or girl, but we also get to be surprised on age and how many!!  So much for being a planner!!  J 

At our SDA Appointment we will be shown profiles of a child/or children that are available for adoption in the age range we have been approved for.  We will be shown some information about them and possibly a picture of what they looked like when they entered the orphanage.   From that, we make a decision, and request a referral to meet the child we want to go meet.  We are praying that we will just know who is meant to be in our family the first time around.  Once we get our referral, we make travel arrangements, and head to whatever region the orphanage is in.  We could leave that very same day or the next, either by train or air, depending what region we are headed to.  We’ll either have a translator travel with us, or meet us there.   We then submit our request for permission to visit the child/children in the orphanage in that region.  Once we have a letter to take to the orphanage, we will get to meet the child/children probably in the Director’s Office, and it’s possible the kids will be in two different orphanages.  We can decide “yes or no” for the adoption once we have the answers we need about them to make a good decision for our family.  We can decide that day or request to spend more time interacting with them to make the decision.  Once we sign the request to adopt, there are more details to go through.  But, most importantly, we will be waiting for a court date to officially request to adopt the child/children.    We will continue to get to visit the children, and keep building a relationship with them.  We’ll go to court, and if granted approval, there is a 10-day waiting period until the children become officially ours.  During those 10-days we can travel around, come home, or stay and continue to visit the child/children.  Which is what we are planning to do.  We’ll get the children, wait for their new birth certificate to be issued (2-3 days) and then get to go back to Kyiv.  Then we get to do some more with the US Embassy, medical exams for the children, get a Ukraine passport for them, and then hopefully get to change our flights, buy their tickets, and come home!   Then, we’ll have some settling in to do, and still some paperwork to do on the US side of things.    So, that’s the process in a shortened version.  We’re not even sure of all the details, but that’s okay. 

We are so thankful and are in awe of the support, love, and prayers that we have received.  It is truly an amazing feeling to receive the calls, emails, and people praying with us and sharing our excitement in person too.   We have been truly blessed to live in this community and have the support we need, and are excited that this is the community we can raise our children up in as well.   So, thanks to each one of you, thanks for keeping us in your prayers, and thanks for keeping up with us by this blog.  

Things we’d love prayer for:

Please pray for our safety as we travel.  

For our SDA Appointment, that we will know which child/children God is calling us to, and that it will be an easy decision to make.  

Please pray for our future child/children, that their hearts will be open to meeting us as we begin the bonding/attachment process. 

The Ride, Described

This is our randomly assigned license plate for our Jeep which we bought around the same time we found out that starting a family would not be as easy as we had hoped. Although that was almost two years ago, God was already orchestrating what would become the ride of our lives.  Also around the same time the pastor at our church did a special message on adoption.  And the scripture he used was James 1:27.   Although it took a little time to grasp what God had planned for us within weeks it all began making sense. After a lot of paperwork, numerous medical appointments, fingerprints, interviews, and tons of prayers, here we are, ready to see what God has planned for us.   We can't wait to see who we have been waiting for.