The Story Of Our Adoption October 11, 2005 I had heard horror stories about orphanages in the former Soviet Union for 15 years. For a while they were all over the news. Babies neglected. 5 year olds who had never been out of their cribs. Infants who never got held, loved, or coddled. "How could this be," I wondered. "Don't people everywhere love and value kids?" The answer, unfortuantely, is that children are not valued in all cultures. This is especially true of orphans. Many times during our 21 years of marriage Becky and I have mentioned becomming foster parents or adoptive parents, but we never talked about it seriously. It was always a "someday" idea. It appears that someday has arrived for us. On September 16, 2005, I and two of my students departed for Kiev, Ukraine, to teach a youth culture class at Kiev Theological Seminary. We were met at the airport by Mike Manna, who heads up the youth min program there. The first night we went to Mike's home, where we met his family, which now includes a 9-year-old Ukrainian ball of energy and life named Katya. Mike's wife, Judy, immediate began to plant seed thoughts in my head. "There are a lot of other orphans available." "Aren't you and your wife ready to adopt?" "Your family would make a great home for a Ukrainian child," and so on. Seeing Katya interact with them and hearing her story made me curious to learn more. Later that night I IMd with Becky and planted a seed in her mind. "Have you ever thought about adopting a Ukrainian child?" Rather than her usual, "Are you joking? You can't be serious!!" her response was, "Yeah, I'd be willing to discuss that. Plus, Cam would love a little brother." Wednesday, October 12, 2005 I was somewhat shocked that Becky was so warm to the idea of adopting. We agreed to look into it more and pray a lot. We were 8 time zones away but focused on the same thing. Over the next few days we looked at web sites and talked with a lot of people. I chatted with several American missionaries in Kiev that had adopted. I asked Mike about the possibility of visiting the orphanage they were involved with. He arranged a visit for our last Monday in Ukraine. I knew I was toast. I had been preparing my heart, and warning Becky, for what I anticipated experiencing at Komorovka. Prior to our visit, here is what I learned: * There is no foster care system in Ukraine, so the orphanages serve that function. * Kids "age out" of the system at 15. If they are true orphans, then they are on their own and turned out to the street. * Ukrainians do not adopt because they believe there is something wrong with orphans and don't want them in their homes. * 60% - 70% of orphan girls who age out wind up in the sex trade industry somewhere. * Few of the kids in the orphanage are true orphans. Many are brought there by parents who don't want them or can't afford them. Some are brought by the state because their parents are in jail, are drug addicts, or have been negligent or abusive. * Komorovka is a village of about 4000 people. The school at the orphange serves as the school for the whole village. There are about 125 orphans who live at the orphange and about 150 students at the school overall. 25 kids in a village of 4000. Where are the young families? They are moving to the cities to find work. |
Thursday, October 13, 2005 As we pull into the orphanage, I am as ready as I can be for what I might experience. I have visions of the Romanian orphans situation in my head, but what I actually see is quite different. The main building look okay. The grounds look clean. Kids are laughing and playing. The director and an assistant come to greet us, offering us a warm welcome. He likes the connection with the west because it's profitable to him. He is usually drunk, but seems to be sober today. Donations of clothes and blankets over the past year are no where in sight. He has likely sold them and pocketed the money. I watch many of the kids come and hug the American missionaries. Their visits are much anticipated because they often bring gifts or candy. Saturday, October 15, 2005 Vika's Story One of the first questions people ask me about this adoption is, "Why her?" Well, here's why. The first half hour or so we were at the orphanage, I was a bit more like a disengaged tourist than anything else. I was taking lots of pictures and trying to learn the story of the orphanage generically. We were allowed to go into the building where the kids were still in class, and I asked if we could go into some classes and take pictures. When we were given permission, we went into the 3rd grade classroom. I was shooting a fairly vanilla picture from the front, when the ornery Judy Manna said, "She's adoptable," pointing at a cute little blonde sitting in the front row with her hands nicely folded and a big smile on her face, obviously happy to see visitors she recognized. I shot Judy a look, not really even knowing what I wanted it to convey, then I zoomed in and took this picture as Vika looked right at me: I tried very hard to forget that shot and put her blue eyes, freckles, and cute little face out of my mind. We continued our visit and I took a lot more pictures, as did Ryan and Aaron. I observed kids as they roamed the campus and played. I tried not to notice Vika playing with a few friends on the playground. I worked at not noticing if she was happy and joyful, how well she played with others, if she was full of life. Here's some of what I saw: Toward the end of our visit, I was siting alone on a bench watching kids and adults come and go. As Aaron and Ryan came and sat down, we were suddenly swarmed with kids who wanted to have their pictures taken and to see the pictures we had taken earlier (the amazing technology of being able to see digital pictures instantly was not lost on these kids). At one point Judy came and sat down beside me, Vika at her side. Almost reluctantly, I asked, "So what's her story?" Judy and the director filled me in on what they knew. Vika was brought to the orphanage when she was five, which is the youngest they can come to this particular institution. A grandparent, who was nearly blind, brought her and dropped her off. Her father, they were told, died shortly after Vika was born. Her mother is (was?) an alcoholic and has been in jail, though no one seems to know where she is or if she is even still alive. Vika hasn't seen her for years, and she has never been in contact with the orphanage. Sometimes on holidays, the director said, Vika goes to visit great-grandparents who are in their 80s and live in another village. She was brought to the orphanage because her grandparents could not raise her anymore. Evidently there are two older half-brothers, from different fathers, but no one knows where they are. Mandie, Mike & Judy's oldest daughter, has become very fond of Vika. They were considering adopting her until Katya came into their lives. At the beginning of that process, they discovered that Vika does not have "papers," meaning official government documents. In American terms, she does not have a legal birth certificate or a social security number, which means that she is not eligible for any government aid. If she stays in the orphanage until she is 15, she would age out, be on her own, and have no means to regisiter for assistance. She could not get a job, go to university, or receive health care. She is a perfect candidate for a life of prostitution in the Ukraine's extensive and lucrative sex trade industry. As I pondered this, watching Judy and Vika interact as they were discussing pieces of her story, we found ourselves surrounded by more kids, the subjects of a few massive group shots. Out of nowhere the ornery Judy Manna strikes again. "Vika, come sit on Dan's lap," she instructs this innocent little girl in Russian, so I can't understand. Suddenly I am holding her, and Judy jumps up and snaps the picture that appears in the upper left. I was trying not to show that my stone heart and poker face were melting. So, if she is not adopted, Vika will almost certainly wind up homeless, destitute, and uneducated, without even the most basic of adult survival skills. A life of drugs and prostitution is very likely. On the way back to Kiev, I asked for a few more details about how kids like Vika get help. The first and most important step, I'm told, is to pay a Ukrainian lawyer who can get them the legal documents they need. That way they can enter the adoption system and be eligibe for government assistance when they leave the orphanage. That process involves finding out what hospital they were born in and attempting to track down parents and next of kin. Ukrainian courts allow lawyers to show a good faith effort in as little as a month. At that time, if no parents are found, the child is declared an orphan, legal documents are drawn up, and they become adoptable officially. Total cost for this? About $150. I decided at that moment that we would pay for a lawyer to make sure Vika had official legal standing regardless of whether we adopt her or not. That was a more serious conversation I needed to have with Becky and they kids when I returned home. And that's "Why Vika." Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Here is a message from "That ornery Judy Manna" that I got in an e-mail today: Hi Dan and Becky and kids, We have enjoyed reading your web-site about Vika. I’m so amazed that God had you and I and Vika in the right places at the right time. We are SO curious to find out what her great-grandparents will say. We found out on Friday (I went to the orphanage again on Friday with Doug and Suzie and a group from their church), that her great-grandparents have not signed over any rights … but considering their age and the fact that Vika is at the orphanage, we sure hope they will. Dima is after it now. And we are praying for our little Vika. She will always be very special to our family, and we long for her to have a good home. It will be interesting to see what kind of person Vika really is. There is no way to tell in that setting. I want to tell you about my day with Vika. She stayed with me all day, and I had a neat opportunity to watch her interact with her classmates. The group from Virginia brought crafts to do with the kids, and I was put in the 3rd grade classroom to help. I enjoyed watching Vika carefully choose how to decorate her little Styrofoam cross with these Styrofoam sticker things. I watched as she shared stickers with the little girl who sat beside her in her desk – and as she gave and took from children nearby. She was not demanding like some of the others. “I want this one! Give me those!” She worked quietly and often looked up at me with her soft, little smile. Her eyes are amazing. Suzie (another American missionary involved with KCA and the orphanage) commented several times throughout the day, “I can SO see her with Dan! She just fits! I can see Dan in her eyes!” We are all pulling for Vika … and for your family. I long to see Vika in the safety of a godly home. She held my hand the whole day – now that is where Vika shows some strength. She is “my” girl, and by gum, her place is with me!! Nobody else is going to horn in – at least on that one hand. Vika doesn’t talk a lot – the time we sat on the bench with you, Dan, is the most she has ever said to me. But her smile and eyes speak volumes. It was fun to watch her do crafts with the kids. She is not shy with them, but she is not loud or boisterous. She just seems sweet. Katya has told us that Vika is a really nice girl – and that was probably hard for Katya to admit, because she feels a little threatened knowing that our relationship with Vika is special. She informed us that Vika doesn’t ALWAYS obey. J It was hard for me to say goodbye to her. It’s getting colder and colder outside, and their rooms have such poor windows and not enough heat. They don’t have warm outdoor clothes. And if they do get something nice, other kids will probably steal it! There is not nearly enough supervision. The kids at Komorovka are raising themselves. THANK YOU, Dan and Becky and kids for being willing to open your home and take in a child. It is not an easy adjustment for the family, and sometimes you ache to go back to how things were before. Life seems so good and so easy when we look back. But here we are, only 4 ½ months into this, and we are beginning to feel “one” again. Every experience is different, I’m sure, but ours was rough. However, we wouldn’t trade what we have learned, nor would we give up our little Katya. My kids are learning that love is a choice – and that we need to be willing to draw people into even the safe comfort of our home if the Lord so leads. We need to follow God and not our own feelings. God gives us 100% of His love and “rights” to Him the moment we become His child. We don’t have to earn His love with our good behavior. These are a few of the lessons we are learning. The adjustment really brought us all to our knees. We just had to blindly trust God that He knew what He was doing, even though it didn’t feel good. I would encourage you to begin to pray for God to keep you firmly rooted in times of trial. It felt like our hearts had to be pulled and stretched to make room for Katya, and that hurt! We thought that it would be natural. After all, she was just a little girl! Katya and Vika are precious creations of God. He used their biological parents to bring them into this world, but He had His eye on our families from the moment of their conceptions. He had planned all along that we would be the ones to raise them and bring them into HIS family. I realize that NOTHING is for sure with Vika, but I’m going to choose to believe like it is. If God closes the door, then we’ll know otherwise. His plan is BEST. We love you all, even though we haven’t met you all. We are praying for you … and for precious Vika! Judy Friday, October 28, 2005 Well, we have all of our paperwork done and sent off, our physicals are complete (I'm not HIV positive like the lab said initially. Geesh.), and now we're in wait mode. Becky & I go to Ft. Smith on Nov 4 to get fingerprinted for our Dept. of Homeland Security clearance. If the adoption doesn't happen, we can be covert operatives somewhere. How cool is that?! Prayer note of the week, we got an e-mail this week from one of the many people we are working with that said we need to wait 14 months to adopt Vika since she is still the legal responsibility of her great-grandparents. This is the first we have heard about that. We are checking to see if that's really the law in our case and how we might be able to expidite the adoption. Here's yet one more cute picture of Vika taken by a church group that was visiting Komorovka recently: With her brown robe on and holding that cross, she looks like a friar in training. Saturday, November 05, 2005 Well, we just received this e-mail from Dmitri, the lawyer in Kiev who has been working with the Komarovka orphanage: Dear Dan, We would like to inform you that we went to Teenitsa village and met with Vica's grandparents. They appeared to be a pretty good people. They said that it would be great that someone would help Vika but as far as they would be alive they would like to take care about her themselves. After that conversation we found Vika's mother. She was in a prison for one an half year but approximately one and half year ago she was released from it. Now she is located at the same village. She told us that she was going to buy an apartment with her boyfriend and that she was planning to take more care about Vika. On Monday we will send you pictures of Vika's grandparents and mother. It said but it seems like even so Vika's mother does not pay much attention to her daughter Vica is not an orphan. It makes impossible for Vika to get on the list of the Children Center to be adopted. In case if Vica's mother becomes a drag take or an alcoholic she can be deprived of her parent right but if she has a normal behavior (even if she does not pay much attention to Vica) it will be almost impossible to get the parent rights from her. I am very sorry for such information. Please feel free to ask us more questions on the topic.
Blessings,
Dmitri So, we cannot adopt Vika, but hopefully this will motivate her mother to be a better parent for her and to get her out of that orphanage. Becky and I have decided to continue with our paperwork so that we can adopt another Ukrainian child. The need is so great. We will pray for Vika that her mother will come for her soon. Please pray with us for the child God already knows will become a part of our family. Monday, November 14, 2005 We have our first home study appointment scheduled for next week. It should not be a big deal, but there's always a fear that the social worker will spot something really bad in our family and our lives will forever be turned upside down. We also heard about a group of Ukrainian orphans, almost all adoptable, that are going to be in Virginia for a couple of weeks in December. We could go meet them and see if one of them might be a good fit for our family. There's a lot about this that's uncomfortable. * It seems like shopping for a puppy (awww. . . isn't he cute. We'll take that one.) * How do we pay for the trip? We could use frequent flier miles to get there, but what about the other expenses? * Will there be other prospective parents there doing the same thing? If so, will it turn into a race and a competition (I saw her first, she's ours! Back off!!!) So I don't know what we'll do. Pray with us please. I also found out that we have a $600 gift coming out of nowhere. What a blessing. God is good all the time. Monday, November 21, 2005 Great news!!! Ukraine has just announced that they are accepting dossiers from all countries if families want to adopt older children, which we do. Sense is sending some over ASAP, so hopefully ours will be there by Jan 1. We had our first home study interview today. Nearly a three hour chat. Wow!. Becky & I meet individually with the case worker next week, then she comes to visit our house and talk with the kids the following week. Becky & I have decided to go to Virginia on Dec 9th. We'll have a chance to meet some adoptable children and learn more first hand about the whole process. It will be a nice 5-day get away. We got more paperwork to fill out. I'm not sure why all this can't just come at once. More blood work, too. A lot to be thankful for this week as always. I'm glad we have a holiday that helps us focus on thankfulness. Blessings to all. Monday, December 05, 2005 Becky & I leave Friday morning to go to Virginia. We will get to meet some parents who have adopted Ukrainian children, which will be great. We're anxious to learn more about the process and hear about their experiences. We will also meet some of the children who are with the choir group from the orphanage in southern Ukraine. Becky and I have identified about 7-9 of them that are in the age range we're looking for. I don't know how we'll spend time with them, but please pray that we are sensitive to God's leading. Maybe we'll come home next Tuesday knowing which child will become a part of our family. I am praying that will happen. Wednesday, December 14, 2005 We're back from Virginia now with lots to think about. Here are a few things we learned, observed, concluded, and surmised: * Too many great kids need adopting and too few families are willing/able to open their homes. It's sad and frustrating. * Materialistic American Evangelicals make me want to hurl my lunch into the air and catch it again. We saw stupid families shower these Ukrainian orphans with ridiculous gifts. CD players, remote control cars, digital cameras. Why? To make themselves feel better, because it's not for the good of the kids. * Adopting a child is not like picking out a a puppy of buying new shoes, but the vocabulary is pretty similar. I don't think that's good. * We are definitely going to adopt a boy. Or maybe a girl. Or maybe two sisters. Or maybe two boys that are the same age but not related. Definitely. I think. * We spent the weekend at Founders Inn, which is on the campus of Regent University, which was started by Pat Robertson off CBN fame and many infamous quotes. Great place. Beautiful campus and excellent staff. Met some famous folks I didn't know were famous. Pat is pretty funny in person, as well, but his make-up and hair people make him look good on the air. * I hope that when they bring other Ukrainian kids over that someone is assigned to be a liason for the potential adoptive parents who flock to hang around. Nataliya was amazing, but she was in charge of everything and couldn't give a lot of time to individual families. * The musical program was really great. A lot of talent at this orphanage. * We are trying to be smart and realistic about this process, but it's hard not to be driven by the emotion of it all. * We need a lot of prayer over the next few months before we travel as we pray about a referral. We have one chance, so we need to be wise about which child(ren?) to visit with. * I'm pretty drained from all the info and possibilities. * Please pray for these children. They seem to be the most likely to join our family next summer: Thursday, December 29, 2005 We have made a couple of decisions regarding the adoption after getting some updated information. Basically we have decided NOT to identify a specific child to adopt prior to our appointment in Kiev. The emotional risk of choosing a child, then finding out he/she is not adoptable is not one we're willing to take. There are too many kids who need adopting, so we want to keep our options open. We found out this morning that the adoption process in Ukraine is again in a bureaucratic black hole. The president signed a law reassigning governmental oversight of adoptions to a new agency, but the agency hasn't been established yet, so there's no one who can make adoptions official. There are several American families in the Ukraine right now in the middle of this mess. They will likely have to return home and go back to Kiev after Jan 10 to finish the process. (Ukrainian New Year and Christmas fall in early Jan and all work, even gov't work, stops for two whole weeks.) It's impossible to know what the process will look like by the time we get to travel there in late May/early June. Please pray for: * The families in Ukraine now who don't know what to do. * Our future son/daughter * The finances we need to come through. (I'll post more about this later, but let's just say I have a lot of faith). This whole process is not for the faint of heart. It definitely separates the couples that are serious about Ukrainian adoption from those who are only toying with the idea. Our two key thoughts have to be PATIENCE & PRAYER, PATIENCE & PRAYER, PATIENCE & PRAYER, PATIENCE & PRAYER. Thursday, January 12, 2006 Now the boring part begins. We have finished the paperwork and just have to wait. Here are some tidbits that may interest no one: Vocab word: apostille. It's a formal affirmation from the government that the notaries who witnessed all our documents are actually notaries. The Ukrainian government has reassigned authority for adoptions and is in process of redoing the system. I am sure some of us will get caught in the transition some how. Web sites to visit: The Komarovka orpahnage where Vika is -- http://www.ukraineorphans.com/ The Bendyansk orphanage -- http://www.life2orphans.org/berdyansk.htm or http://kidsukraine.azovintel.com/page22.html Sense Resource Center, the adoption agency we are using -- http://www.adopt-sense.com/ukraine.htm Bethany Christian Services, the agency in Arkansas that did our home study -- http://www.bethany.org/arkansas I'll update when there's more to share, but I don't know when that will be. Tuesday, January 24, 2006 We just received an e-mail stating that our documents have been apostilled (authenticated by the government) and the whole dossier is being sent to Kiev today. It should arrive there by Friday and will be translated into Russian in about a week. It will then be delivered to the Ukraine Centre for Adoption, where it sits on a desk until someone gets to it. That raises a few questions in my mind: 1) What happens if our dossier is approved by the Kiev adoption office and they want us to come before the end of the semester? Can we be American & say "We will only come on our convenient time table. Reschedule us for May 22."? That doesn't seem right. But how can Becky & I take 3 weeks off before then? A) Who will we adopt? There are two sisters, Feruza (10) & Ziyeda (7), orphans from Berdyansk we met in Virginia, that I can't get out of my head. There are three problems with us adopting them: 1) That would give us 5 kids. Yikes!!! Major implications for vehicles and bedrooms. 2) I think another couple who met them in Virginia is also interested in adopting them. Is it right to play "first-come-first-served" with these young lives? 3) The finances to adopt two sisters would add about $2000 to the cost, including getting them home. 4) Minor issue -- I think we'd have to find nicknames for them so they wouldn't get killed in jr. high. I know Becky & the kids have other thoughts on who to adopt as well. #) I know I have to be patient & focus on my many tasks at hand, but it's tough to not be excited and think ahead. We lost our Russian teacher. Her parents said she needs to focus more on her studies and not teach us Russian. Bummer. I'll update next when there's more to share. Tuesday, February 14, 2006 Good news from Kiev. Our dossier was submitted and accepted at the National Adoption Center. Here's the e-mail we received: "I just wanted to let you know that your dossier was submitted today. You should receive a letter directly from the Adoption Center in Ukraine in the next 3 - 4 weeks informing you that your dossier has been approved and giving you a registration number." My understanding of the process now is that we request an appointment to go to Kiev after we receive our registration number in the mail. Then we wait some more. Please continue to pray for the child we will adopt. We don't know who that will be yet, but God does. Wednesday, February 22, 2006 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We got word this morning that we could be in Kiev to adopt by March 16th!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will be gone for three weeks, but one of those will be spring break. We need a lot of prayer for all the details to come together soon. Becky & I have job responsibilities to cover. We need to take care of the kids' school work somehow. We have vehicle, bed, and language learning issues to address. We have decided to refinance our home to pay for the rest of the process, so that paperwork needs to be expedited. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is about two months ahead of what we anticipated. Please join us in praying . . . That we will surrender our anxiety to God. . . . That we will work diligently on the things we can control. . . . That our health and attitudes continue to be positive. . . . That whoever joins our family will be as excited as we are! Leave comments, please. I know it's crazy, but they are comforting. Did I mention AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!? Sunday, February 26, 2006 Here's what we think we know: We have asked for a March 16 appointment at the Centre for Adoption in Kiev. We hope to leave between March 11-14. We won't find out for sure until March 9. We have declared a desire to adopt a 10-year-old boy named Roman. We should know this week if Roman is adoptable for us or not. All of this is tentative and subject to change. There are a lot of details, not to mention human lives, to pray about. FYI, here are some links with excellent pictures of the Berdyansk orphanage we'll be going to: http://www.karensprings.com/gallery/album03 http://webpages.charter.net/cswan101/AdoptionPics2.html http://sevenloaves.org/01-02photo-gallery-orphanages.htm http://hearttoheartukraine.photosite.com/Orphanages/Berdyansk/ Thursday, March 09, 2006 Well, today is the day we've been waiting for since a couple weeks ago. We have been waiting for an official owrd on an appointment date for us to go to the Centre for Adoption, which we had hoped would be March 16. The Centre director is the only one who can issue appointments, and she has been out of the office until today. When she returned today, her staff had all the appointment requests ready for her to approve, and over a dozen reps from different adoption agencies were there ready to communicate information back to America. The director decided to give each of these reps individual appointments to discuss the appointments they wanted to make. So, we don't know anything. We have to wait for our rep to have an appointment with the director so she will set our appointment. PRAY for her to agree to let us come next week. Also pray for all the families waiting to hear. This is nerve-racking!!!! Monday, March 13, 2006 And we still don't know anything. . . so we wait. . . Tuesday, March 14, 2006 It's beginning to look like we won't travel until May after all. Our adoption agency rep, Yulia, has not been able to get in to see the National Adoption Centre (NAC) director, who is only keeping Tuesday and Tuhursday hours for some reason. If we can't leave here by Monday we'll just have to wait. More news Thursday afternoon I hope. Thursday, March 16, 2006 Just found out that traveling soon will not be an option. We have to take our chances and wait until May. Not what we wanted to hear, but we'll deal with it. Tuesday, March 28, 2006 We have been working to get some news of what is happening in Ukraine and how the National Adoption Center (NAC) is being affected. Sunday was national election day, kind of their equivilent of our mid-term elections when only congress and not the president is on the ballot. The results will likely mean a big change for the Ukraine. The party of the current president came in third of the three major parties. The party he defeated over a year ago won big. The second-place party, headed by the former prime minister that the current president fired back in September, took a large percentage of votes. It's hard to say what that means, except that the winning party is more Russia friendly and less west friendly. Confused? The oversight of the NAC is being shifted to a different government agency as of May 1, so they have closed their doors until then to do transition stuff. No one knows what will happen then. The Ukrainian gov't claims there are over 1000 foreign families with accepted dossies at the NAC, 600 of which are from Americans. They also know that adoption is good for these orphans. While any countries first option is to have domestic families adopt orphans, Ukrainians are just not very open to that idea yet, so they know foreign adoption is important. There will be a priority placed on families who want to adopt older children (10 and up, which is us) or children with medical problems. That means we should get an appointment sooner rather than later when the NAC does reopen, but it's impossible to know what that time table is. In the meantime, we are focused on finishing the semester at JBU, working with Alexa as she chooses a college and finishes high school, rooting for Caley and the SSHS soccer teams (both the guys and girls teams are undefeated at 11-0), and shuffling Cameron to all of his stuff. Becky has a couple of trips coming up in the next few weeks, so I get some Mr. Mom time in there as well. We covet your prayers and appreciate all the words of encouragement you share with us. God is good, all the time! Friday, May 12, 2006 It is taking longer than expected for the Ukrainian gov't to restart the adoption center. Here is an update from our adoption agency: "Dear families, I called over to our office manager in Ukraine today to get an update on the situation. He was able to speak to a Ministry official today who said they hope to be able to bring couples over near the end of June, and that they absolutely had to by July 1st, regardless of being ready or not. We believe that appointment letters will not be mailed out. Appointments will be given directly to your powers of attorney about 10 days before they are ready to start bringing you. So, some couples will get about 10 days notice, others a little more notice. It also appears that they will not accept dossiers until that time frame also, and again , dossiers will only be accepted for children over 10 years old UNTIL ALL OF THE CHILDREN WHOSE MISSING REGISTRATIONS AND ANNUAL REPORTS are accounted for. So, unfortunately, we do not expect to hear much more for another month. I hope this will help you to make some plans, so that your lives are not totally on hold." What does that mean for us? It looks to me like traveling to Ukraine in July is a real possibility. Friday, June 30, 2006 It's been 6 weeks since we've had anything to update, but we have received some (potentially) exciting news this morning. The new Ukrainian agency dealing with international adoptions is ready to begin making appointments. We have been asked to submit a new appointment request letter, which we have already done. Monday we should know more, but signs are looking very good. The agency is having a big meeting right now (Friday afternoon Ukraine time) with all the adoption agency people to tell them the plans and procedures. I'll update when we hear more. PRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tuesday, July 04, 2006 More frustration. . . For whatever reason, the Ukrainian agency has decided not to allow international adoptions until at least September. They said they will have another announcement Sept. 1. So we wait. . . still. . . Tuesday, October 03, 2006 After 3 months of not posting, I actually feel like there's some movement to report. Here's what's been happening: * In August we were notified that Ukrainian State Department for Adoption (SDA) would begin making appointments for foreigners wanting to adopt Ukrainian children. The first families had early September dates. The word was that they would invite families wanting specific children 10 and older to come first (which means us). So we excitedly waited for a phone call telling us our date. * That phone call still has not come. It seems that there was some confusion on their part about who we wanted to adopt. I'll spare you the details, but we had to submit a new appointment request letter with Roman's full name and birth date. It's the fourth version of the same letter we have submitted since February. That letter should be in Kiev by now. * A few American families have dates next week in Kiev to adopt children from the Berdyansk choir, which is the group Roman was in. We were encouraged to write a letter and send some pictures to Roman with one of these families. We overnighted that yesterday to a family leaving Saturday. Roman should have it Thursday or Friday next week. It felt good to write to him and let him know that we are coming. He knows nothing about us or the process we have been through for a year now. Here is the text of that letter: Dear Roman, Our names are Dan and Becky Lambert and we believe God wants us to be your family. We have been praying for over a year about adopting and we met you when you were in America with the choir in December. We watched you a lot at that time, and saw that you are a sweet, happy, and fun boy who likes to eat a lot! We love your smile and your wonderful attitude. We have three other children. Alexa is 18 and in college. Caley is 15 and Cameron is 13. They are all excited about welcoming you into our family. We live in a great city with a wonderful school. We teach at a university that has many students who speak Russian. Hopefully we will be there in November. As we have prayed for you, God has made our love for you grow and grow. We will do everything we can to make you feel welcomed and loved in our family. We can't wait to come to Berdyansk and see you!! With much love, Dan & Becky Lambert Siloam Springs, Arkansas We sent him pictures of us and our house. Hopefully we'll have a travel date in the next week or so. It looks like a November in Ukraine for us. I'll keep you updated more often now. Keep praying! Tuesday, October 17, 2006 Over the last two weeks we have been trying to figure out what happened to our updated documents the went to the State Department for Adoption in Kiev. We know that they were delivered to people who then translated them and sent them to the SDA. No one at the SDA seems to know where they went, though. This could be very bad for us because next week they start purging all the families whose dossiers are not up to date. If our documents are misplaced and we are removed from the waiting list I'm not sure what we'll do. There are two families in Berdyansk right now adopting kids from the choir Roman was in. These families started their process after we did, so it's hard not to be confused, upset, and envious that they are there and we might be removed. I find myself thinking like a legalistic Pharisee. If only I can live this day without sin, then maybe I can earn God's favor and He will let us have an appointment. It's funny how hard it is to rest in God's grace and how easy it is to slip into works righteousness or "good luck charm" spirituality. I don't know how or when this process will end, but I do know that God works all thing to His glory. I have to check my attitude and motives dozens of times a day as i try not to obsess over this adoption process, but it's hard. Almost everyday since February we have awoken hoping that today will be the day we get word from Kiev. That is hard. Even when you're pregnant there's only a couple of weeks when you wake up wondering. It's been 8 eight months of that for us. It has to be taking a toll that we can't see or perceive. Thanks for listening. Wednesday, October 25, 2006 This week's exasperating news. . .It seems that there has been a personnel shake up at the Ukrainian department that oversees adoptions and the directors are on edge and have become hard to work with. Here's a message that was recently posted: "Yes, we have heard that she (the Director) has become more difficult to work with. The Minister of Youth, Family and Sport resigned recently and he is the one that appointed her, so her job is probably on the line. "If she doesn't approve appointments for older, specific children by the end of this week, I would think that everyone would now go in order. Your registration number is # 15983. They are almost up to #15400 and quite a few people in between should have already travelled for older, specific children and some have probably dropped out or didn't update their paperwork. "I guess we'll know for sure by Friday." My guess is that we will not have an appointments until at least December if that is true, but who knows. As frustrating as the continued delay is, and the extra expense that goes with it because of having to update all our paperwork, it likely means that we will be here for Alexa's 18th birthday (November 14), Thanksgiving, and Clint & Amy's wedding. I am very glad to be here for those days. It does make Christmas in Kiev pretty likely, which does not make me happy. Either way, I have no control, so we'll roll with it. Thanks for the continued prayers. | 
