Four!

It still seems unreal but we are officially a family of four!!

We have had a good evening and both boys went to sleep rather easily. Praying we all get a good nights sleep as we have a long day tomorrow!

More to come about today sometime soon!

Orphanage Tour!

Cannot believe tonight was our last visit with Rance at the orphanage. It seems like it has taken so long to get to this point that its hard to believe we've finally arrived at this long awaited time! Tomorrow we will get the official court decree and finally get to pick Rance up from the orphanage! God is faithful!

Here is a tour of the orphanage....

 

This is the front of the orphanage.

 This is immediately inside the front door.

 This is right on the other side of the curtains. To the left is the room for the kids 4 and under that we rarely got to see. To the right is the kitchen, offices and the room in which we visited Rance.

This is the room in which we were allowed to visit with Rance everyday. We visited 38 days, for a total of 76 hours spent in this room!

This is the upstairs "foyer."

 This room is to the left of the upstairs foyer. Each child has a locker where they keep their outfit and pajama's and slippers for the week. You can't see the other set of lockers which includes Rance's, but they are immediately on the left when you walk  through the door. The door on the right is the toilet and the door on the left is the sleeping room. You can see a glimpse of a doorway just before the lockers on the left which goes into the main room where Rance's group spends all of their time.

 This is the sleeping room where all of the 9 kiddos in Rance's group sleep. Rance's bed is the fourth one back on the right side.

This is the room Rance's group spends all of their time in. Rance said he doesn't even remember the last time he was outside. Its not a large room, I am standing against one wall to take this picture. Its not child friendly in its decorations, just plain white walls and plain white lace curtains. There are few toys for the children to play with, in the left corner is their "house" area, with a small table and 2 plastic chairs and 2 dolls. Then there is a small kitchen set and then the wooden "desk" with the mirror is their barber shop. The wall I am standing against is just shelves that hold their stuffed animals and few toys. In one corner there are some plant stands with small green plans and an aquarium, but I don't remember if there are any fish in it or not.

That's all we were allowed to see and take pictures of. Its a rather small orphanage with only 23 kids in it (soon to be only 22!!). It is also a special needs orphanage. Rance was put there because of his eye condition, there were a few with down syndrome and several with symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome and several that looked healthy and normal!

Tomorrow we wait until the court gives us the official court decree saying Rance is ours and then we will go straight to the orphanage to pick Rance up! We will have to sign papers, change Rance's clothes and help Rance say good bye and that will be the last we will see of this place! 

We have asked Rance several times if he is ready to leave the orphanage forever, to never come back, and each time he says yes without hesitation. However, I think tomorrow will be hard on him and I know it will be hard on the caregivers who love him very much and his friends who will be left behind. 

As we were taking pictures Friday night of the orphanage and of Rance's group both Matt and I's hearts were breaking. They were breaking for all of the sweet children left behind, one little girl in particular stole our hearts right away. She is also Rance's closest friend. 

There is a caregiver there who loves Rance very much and is very close to him. We wanted a picture of her with Rance but she wouldn't even come in the room because she said it would be too hard on her and she knew she would cry. 

So tomorrow while we will be so excited to finally make Rance a part of our family, we realize we will be breaking hearts of those left behind in order to do so. 

Please pray for the caregivers and the other children, specifically the other 8 left in Rance's group tomorrow. Pray that God will comfort their hurting hearts and pray that the children will understand why they were "left behind." 

Please pray for Rance. Although he says he is ready I know leaving tomorrow will be hard on him. This orphanage is almost all he has ever known. 

Please pray for Cavin as he will adjust to having big brother around full time, not just for two hours everyday.

Please pray for us, pray that we will be compassionate for those who are hurting and that we will have wisdom to help guide Rance through this life change.

Taxi

 

This is our mostly faithful taxi. 

We have been using this taxi for over a month. We discovered they were $5.00 cheaper per round trip to the orphanage and back, which doesn't sound like a lot, but times that by 30 days and we've already saved over $150! The orphanage is about a 20 minute drive one way from the orphanage, depending on who we get stuck behind and the weather conditions. We are thankful they were willing to cut us a deal and have been able to drive us wherever we need at anytime.

We have 2 drivers, Roma and Oleg. They are both in their mid to upper 20's and are really nice guys. Through our translator we have gotten to know a little about each of them, as they have learned about our story as well. 

We say this is our mostly faithful taxi because its a very old car and we've had a few occurrences when it would not start. Its funny because each time it happens it is with Oleg, the younger and seemingly not as car smart of the two drivers. The first time happened when Oleg came to pick us up to take us to the orphanage. It wouldn't even turn over so within a few minutes he was pushing us down the road to get it started.

The second time it happened when Oleg was picking us up from our visit at the orphanage. This time the car would turn over, but still not start. Oleg tried several different things but still couldn't get it to start. He finally called another taxi to drive out and get us. We finally suggested push starting it about the same time a group of 4 teenage boys were walking down the road. So the 4 boys pushed from behind (Oleg wouldn't let Matt help) and Oleg pushed from the driver's side door. We were thankful for the help as the roads in the village where the orphanage is are not cleared of snow. The car finally started as we neared the end of the road!

We especially love the way the taxi lights up at night, you know me, I love colors so this taxi is perfect for me! Ha! Roma laughed at me as I took a picture, but I wanted to remember our mostly faithful taxi, especially all lit up at night!

New Clothes!

I have been browsing for clothes for Rance for quite a while now, trying to see what was out there, what store had the best prices and where I could find what. All of the stores are tiny and just like the States, have only a few racks of boy clothes compared to the racks of girl clothes! Plus, you're lucky if they have more than one size in what they do have. Top that off with most of clothes being far from cute and me being picky and frugal, well, its been a challenge to say the least!

However, I knew I had to get some things for Rance to wear while here for 10 days before flying home. So yesterday I began by going to the outdoor market in the freezing cold. We got there right as most people were closing up shop so we didn't get to look much at all. Then we hit all but a few of the kids stores in town on our way home. I came home with one long sleeved t-shirt with Spiderman on it. Not that I liked it, but Rance seems to love Spiderman (about the only superhero he knows I think!) so I knew he would love it.

Today's Shopping Start Time: 9:30am.

Today we got up earlier and headed to the clothes market. We got more snow overnight and this morning was the coldest it has been yet. We walked all over the clothes market. I finally gave in and bought a pair of tennis shoes that I liked the best out of all we'd seen in this small town (very small selection!!). By that point in time we were so frozen we could hardly feel our fingers and toes and our legs were beginning to numb, and I hadn't really found anything else I liked, so we decided to call it quits on the outdoor market.

We decided to grab some pizza for lunch and to warm up before continuing our journey! On the way to the pizza place we did stop and buy a coat I had scoped out the day before. Much to our translators embarrassment I think, I had her ask for a discount on the coat twice! I had a really hard time buying a coat, they are so expensive here, and I knew I could get a great deal on one in the States right now. Unfortunately with this bitter cold weather we have to have a coat for Rance now. I ended up paying $48.50 for the coat, and it still bothers me that I had to pay so much!

After lunch we went into several banks to see about getting some cash. We ran out of the cash we brought with us and they sure don't make it easy to get cash here. After checking with several banks we realized we were just going to have to deal with the ATM fees as that's the only way to get money. Just thankful we found an ATM that will let us get more out per day than what we had been using!

We were once again freezing so we went back to the hotel to use the restroom, warm up and rest a bit.

After convincing ourselves to brave the cold again we bundled back up and headed out. We found a pair of Spiderman tights at one store (to go under his pants-its cold here and we are outside a lot!) that I knew Rance would love. Then at another store we got a pair of jeans, the only pair of jeans in this entire city that I found that were plain and not covered with pictures or writing. Jeans are also expensive and I am still getting over the fact that I had to pay $23.50 for a pair of children's jeans!! Our translator wasn't with us because she was working with some of our documents at the notary so I couldn't even negotiate! I would have come back later, but they only had one pair in his size and I wasn't going to lose this pair of plain jeans!

Finally at one last store I found a pair of grey sweatpants that are mostly plain, although they have "savage animal" embroidered on the knee. Not sure what that's all about, but they are about the only pair of sweatpants I have found in his size in this entire city so I gave in and purchased them. He needs something comfy to wear on our 24 hour journey home. At the same store I found a long sleeved t-shirt, a white long-sleeved undershirt and a fleece pullover. All but the white under-shirt were 30% off (bonus!) and I got all of this for only $31.50!! For here, that's a bargain!

Shopping Day Ended: 3:00

We had to end our shopping adventures to head back to the hotel to get things ready for our visit with Rance. We took all of our purchases for him to try on. At the orphanage Rance wears slippers, a pair of tights with a pair of shorts over them, with a long sleeved shirt or two. He typically wears each outfit for at least a week. None of his clothes are his--when he's not wearing an outfit another child is. He couldn't believe this was all for him! He said thank you after each item was pulled out of the sack and was thrilled to wear an outfit for our entire visit! Looks like a completely different kid in real clothes! If possible he is even cuter!!

I still have to find underwear, socks, a pair of PJ's, a hat and gloves, hopefully tomorrow. Matt has already informed me that after two days in the bitter cold shopping he and Cavin are done and will be staying home tomorrow while I finish! 

Only 4 more days until we get the court decree and get to pick Rance up from the orphanage!!


Only 2 weeks until we fly home!! (If everything goes as planned--praying!!)

Here are a few pictures of the outdoor market. After this my hands were too cold to function to take anymore! The market is open Tuesday through Saturday from 7-3. Everyday each booth owner/worker has to cart in their goods, unload them and set them up. Stand out in the freezing cold or hot weather all day, and then repack everything, load it up and cart it back to storage. Not an easy job, for sure. 

Sick

The past few days have been very hard and difficult on Matt and I, due to me being quite sick. For the past week I had wondered if I was not getting a kidney infection, but I wasn't sure about it or going to a doctor here.

I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday feeling very sick and in a lot of pain. I finally broke down and decided to go to the doctor mid morning on Tuesday. I was very nervous about going for two reasons. One, I had seen a hospital here and they are scary. Two, I had no idea how much it would cost and we are already running out of money. But my pain was more overwhelming than my worries so we called a taxi and headed out.  My guess was I had a kidney infection gone bad, along with the flu or food poisoning.

The hospital was what I expected, very shabby looking on the outside, dark, all cement, cold and old school. We started off seeing the head of the hospital, who was very nice. He ended up calling in another specialist, who was also very nice. Together they examined me and decided to run some tests.

So we went up a few flights of stairs (definitely not handicap friendly!) where I was to get blood drawn. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but the "lab tech" came with a tray of glass viles with liquids already in some of them and a box full of glass slides. She went on to tell me not to worry, everything was sterile, a speech I heard with each new person. Then she pulled out a suction bulb connected to a long, skinny glass tube that narrowed on one end. Then she opened up a package to reveal a small looking scalpel which she then used to "prick" my finger. Then she used the suction bulb connected to the glass tube I described earlier to "suck" the blood out of my finger. I felt like I had went back in time for sure!

After getting blood drawn they wanted to do an ultrasound, which was in a completely different building. So we walked over in the snow, and got right in (I think it was because I was an American!). The ultrasound doctor was the only one who spoke any English, and his was very limited. Very thankful for our translator!

Then we waited. Finally one of the doctors got the test results and looked over them. She wanted me to see two more doctors, the chief of surgery and a doctor of infections. I asked what she thought was wrong, and we were told that my white blood cell count was really high and something about an appendix. Not really sure, and knowing how much pain I was in, we went along with what they suggested.

The chief of surgery checked me out and deemed me "healthy." This was a huge sigh of relief! Then we saw the doctor of infections. So 6 doctors, bloodwork and an ultrasound later, I was finally diagnosed with a severe kidney infection. Then we debated over the treatment. The doctor wanted to hospitalize me, and I was hearing none of it. We finally compromised. I would stay at the hospital and receive antibiotics and fluids via IV, rest at the hotel for the night, then return in the morning.

So Matt and Cavin headed back to the hotel to get things ready to go see Rance while our translator and I went and bought the supplies and drugs for my IV and then headed to the hospital to begin my treatment. My IV was classic, a metal stand in which the two glass bottles were placed, one with antibiotics and one with saline solution, held onto the stand with rubber bands. It took about three hours in all. We finally got back to the hotel and I climbed into bed and tried to warm up as my fever rose.

In the meantime, Matt and Cavin had a great visit with Rance. He said Rance asked several times where mama was and Matt did his best to tell him/show him that I was sick. Matt took a few pictures of their visit to show me as well, which was very thoughtful and sweet of him.

My fever finally broke late Wednesday night so I was able to get a much needed good nights rest.

I returned to the hospital Thursday morning, and after an examination it was decided to do another round of antibiotics via IV. I asked about pills but the doctor was worried about them being effective enough, so I didn't argue, having never been this sick before.

Today, Friday, I am feeling much better, although I am still feeling weak and a bit queasy. I hate being sick, and it is even worse when you are not home, harder in a foreign country, and well, a bit scary when you are in a very poor area. However, I am very thankful for nice doctors and medicine, even if it was all "old school" to make me feel better.

Please continue to pray for me as I regain my strength and appetite (I would love some of my mom's Chicken Noodle Soup!), and for Matt as he mainly takes care of Cavin while I rest.

Court

What a long and exhausting day we have had!

Thank you all so much for covering us in prayer as we had our court session today. Although we did not get the answers we really wanted, God was present and still moving on our behalf, according to His will.

The orphanage director went to the wrong court building so we didn't get started until almost 3:30. From what we have heard, court was "easy" for us as not many questions were asked. We were asked in the beginning to state our full name, date of birth and home address, and for Matt, his occupation. Then our translator, the orphanage director, the social worker and the persecutor were all asked to introduce themselves and give their credentials as well.

These were the questions we were asked...

1. Why did we choose Rance, a sick child. (Asked by the Judge, Answered by Matt)

2. Why we were adopting when we had a biological child of our own. (Asked by the Judge, Answered by Stephanie)

3. Why we chose to adopt from Ukraine. (Asked by the Persecutor, Answered by Stephanie)

4. Again, how did we choose Rance and why, knowing he was sick. (Asked by one of the two judge's assistants, Answered by Stephanie)

Then the social worker and the orphanage director gave a summary of their conclusion and why they were in favor of us adopting Rance. Then the persecutor said after hearing all of the above, she too was in agreement with us adopting Rance. 

Finally they read through all of the official documents, which was boring and took forever. Then the judge and his two assistants left the room to make their decision.

Oleg was not allowed in the court room with us, and we were so thankful he volunteered to watch Cavin for us during our court session. What a blessing it was not to have to entertain him and keep him quiet while trying to pay attention and answer questions!

After about a 15 minute break the judge and his assistants returned and read us their lengthy decision, which basically said....

"The request of Matthew and Stephanie Richards to adopt Rance is satisfied!!"

It also included permission to legally change his name to Rance Matthew Richards and to list us as his parents on his new Ukrainian birth certificate. Court ended right about 4:45.

We knew beforehand that the 10 day appeal period would not be waived, but we were praying the judge would allow us to get the official court decision at the end of the 10th day. We were definitely disappointed to find out that we would have to wait until Monday, the 31, to get the official decision, and in turn, be able to get Rance from the orphanage and begin the paperwork to come home.

After court we waited around for what felt like forever until we left to go to the orphanage to tell Rance the big news.

Matt told Rance that we went to court today and that the judge said it was okay for Rance to be ours forever. Rance's response was, "tomorrow?" He is so ready to be with us always and forever! It broke our hearts having to tell him it would be yet another 13 days until we could come and get him forever.

I have much more to write, but its late and as I said earlier, its been a really long day and we are exhausted.

Again, we thank you all for praying with us, and we continue to praise God for his faithfulness to us throughout this journey!

Prayer Requests for Court

Today we were at the orphanage visiting Rance when Yuri, our facilitator sent us a text...at 5:10.

"Hi. I am still waiting for the approval from the SDA. It is waiting to be signed now, please pray."

The SDA closes at 6, and it was supposed to have already been done, I knew something wasn't right. I felt sick to my stomach. Without the SDA approval we couldn't go to court. We would have to reschedule court for Thursday...two more days of waiting...

I begged God to move on our behalf. I know its only two more days, but after the past two days which have been extremely difficult, I couldn't think about waiting two more days.

I had not stopped petitioning God with our request, it was past 6, we had said good bye to Rance and were on our taxi ride back into the city. I knew Yuri should have called by now, so I began to prepare myself for another delay.

Finally the phone rang. Apparently a document that the SDA had needed to write their letter of approval was missing. Praise God Yuri was able to somehow take care of it, get the SDA to complete their letter of approval, and get it signed by 6.

With a sigh of relief I began to thank God and praise Him for working and moving on our behalf. All of our documents are completed, and we get to go to court tomorrow to legally make Rance ours!

When Oleg met with the judge to go over our paperwork and set up the court date he also asked about the possibility of waiving the 10 day waiting period, at least letting us start the paperwork. The judge said no on all accounts.

However, Yuri has again asked Oleg to speak to the judge tomorrow before our court session about the 10 day waiting period. We realize there really is no chance of him waiving the 10 days completely (it is technically illegal), but we are praying the judge will go ahead and allow us to start on the paperwork for Rance (changing his social security number, getting a new Ukrainian birth certificate and a Ukrainian passport).

Our 10 day waiting period will start on Wednesday the 19 and end on Friday the 28. There has to officially be 10 full days in which people have the option to appeal the courts decision, with the 28 being the tenth full day. This means we wouldn't  be able to pick up the official court decision until Monday the 31. Without the court decision we cannot pick Rance up from the orphanage or start any paperwork (unless the judge gives us special permission as I mentioned earlier).

So, prayer requests:
-Pray that the judge will completely waive our 10 day waiting/appeal period.

-If not, pray that the judge will at least allow us to start paperwork during the 10 day waiting/appeal period.

-At least, pray that the judge will allow us to get the court decision on the 10th day of the waiting/appeal period, so we won't have to wait all weekend to get Rance.

Court is tomorrow, Tuesday January 18, at 3pm our time, which is 7am in STL. Oleg will be speaking with the judge before our court hearing about the waiting/appeal period options.

Thank you for praying with us. We will update tomorrow around 8pm our time as we will go directly from court to the orphanage to visit Rance.

Court Date!!!!

That's right folks--we FINALLY have a court date!! We were beginning to wonder if those words were ever going to be written on this blog! Ha!

On our court date we will have been here 46 days. We never in our wildest dreams dreamt it would take this long. We have at many times, mainly as we met each delay, wondered what God's plan was in the adoption taking so long. We have never questioned his plan or his timing, but we have definitely wondered WHY?! Sometime I will write more about how God has used this time to work in Matt and I's hearts.

This morning Yulia went and got us registered with the court. In order to be registered they check every minute detail in the mound of paperwork we have acquired and make sure it is all perfect. Ours was, and we were easily registered. Then Oleg met with the judge who will be handling our case to again make sure everything was in order and to discuss a court date. Oleg also asked the judge about waiving the 10 day waiting period and the judge said no. So we will be waiting another 10 days with nothing happening. This was a bummer to find out for sure. But we can still pray the judge might change his mind, eh?!?

So Tuesday, January 18 will be the big day! We can hardly wait! Our 10 day waiting period will begin on Wednesday, January 19, and after the 10 days, we will finally get to pick Rance up!! Although we are definitely excited for our court date, we are most excited (and a little nervous!) about January 28--the day Rance truly becomes ours!

Today's visit with Rance was another good visit. Yesterday Cavin wouldn't leave without his punching balloon so today we took two! Rance and Cavin spent most of our two hour visit playing with their balloons. Well, Rance would play with his and Cavin spent his time trying to do everything Rance did. Too cute.

Everyday Rance asks questions in regards to becoming ours forever or us visiting him. Today he asked why we only come to see him once a day and only stay for a short time. We are hoping and praying that the orphanage director will allow us to spend more time with him after the court hearing.

Our return tickets were for Friday, January 14. When we booked our tickets and our adoption agency recommended that date as our return date we were sure we would have to pay to change them as our adoption wouldn't take that long. Funny. So we have spent this evening figuring out, more like guessing, what date would be best for our return. We have also been looking at our finances, as we planned on being gone for 6 weeks and will end up being gone for almost 11 weeks. Ugh.

We again thank you for continuing to follow our journey and providing us with support and prayers. It has been so hard to be here for so long, and each day it becomes more and more difficult to be away.

News

January 11, 2011-

Yesterday's visit with R was just what we needed. It was one of our best visit's yet. Here's the highlight of our visit and our heart to heart talk.

We explained to R that his Ukrainian name will not be common in the States and that we have picked a special name for him. We asked him if it would be okay with him if we gave him a new name, and he said "yes!" with a big smile on his face. So we told him his new name and why it was special, and he loves it!

In Ukraine every child's middle name is their father's first name. Boys and Girls. Rance has never known his father, they are not even sure who he is.

Until now. So keeping with Ukrainian tradition...

We cannot wait to introduce you to Rance Matthew Richards!

He is doing really well answering to it already! He is probably doing better answering to it than we are breaking the habit of calling him his Ukrainian name!

January 12, 2011-

Today has been a hard day for all of us in Ukraine. Matt and I have had a down day and  today's visit with Rance was a roller coaster. We are all getting so tired of the waiting and are just ready to be done and be home.

We found out that the SDA will not have their conclusion finished until Monday because the lady who does them is on vacation. Go figure! We wouldn't want to break our streak anyways! Ha! We were definitely disappointed with this news.

We did finish our application for court today. This was a better part to our day. It includes information about us, about Rance, his name change, and of course asks permission for us to adopt him.

So all we are waiting on is the SDA's letter of conclusion, and then we are court bound!

Please keep praying!

Meetings

Apparently after all of the days off due to the holidays the regional administrator was busy with meetings all day today. So we are still waiting for his signature.

We are praying that the social worker will be able to get his signature first thing tomorrow morning.

Once we have his signature, our documents will be sent to Kiev to be filed with the SDA. After reviewing the documents we submit and a few other things such as interpol clearance, then they will write their letter of conclusion giving their approval for the adoption.

Once we have that, then we can apply for a court date.

We are praying to have our court date set by the end of this week and are praying that it will be during the first part of next week.

In other news...

Today was a good visit with R at the orphanage. They had visitors today who came in and put on a puppet show for the kids. We asked the orphanage director if it would be okay if we went with R and she said yes. It was a cute little puppet show about Christmas and they also told the Christmas story using a felt board for their visual aid. I felt like I had walked back in time! The kids loved it, and loved playing a few games and receiving prizes for playing! The toys they got were small, cheap, worse than happy meal toys and what most of us would consider "junk." Yet to these kids who have so little together, let alone anything of their own, they were treasures. It was so fun to watch their eyes light up as they got them and began to play with them.

Spending time with these children is heartbreaking and humbling.

How much we take for granted. How much we do not truly appreciate. How much we waste.

How selfish and greedy we are.

Signature

The social worker finished her conclusion around 11am this morning. Now we are waiting for the regional administrator to sign it.

It is too late to get our paperwork to the SDA today, but we will continue to pray for things to move along quickly.

Back to Business!

We are so excited tomorrow is Monday and it will be back to business on the adoption process!! So thankful that the holidays are over now, so hopefully things will speed up and we won't have any  more delays!!

At 9am our time, Yulia, our translator will be arriving at the social workers office to plead our case and beg her to get her conclusion completed and signed within a few hours. We are really praying it will be done by noon at the latest so we can rush it to Kiev.

Typically the SDA only receives paperwork for adoption approval on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9am-12 noon. We are praying they make an exception and will accept ours a bit past noon tomorrow! We don't want to wait until Wednesday!

We are also praying it will only take them a few days to finish their conclusion! If they could, it would definitely be a miracle, but we are praying for a court date this week!

Thanks for praying with us, we'll keep ya posted.

Boredom at an all time High

It seems our boredom is rubbing off on Cavin. Or the fact that he has only a balloon, the busy book I made him, a small ball, a truck and an airplane to play with in our tiny room. We packed this punching balloon because Cavin loves balloons, specifically punching balloons. We always keep one blown up at the house! It has been great to have one here, as we can blow it up and then take the air out as needed to take it to a new place. Needless to say, Cavin has continued to have a lot of fun with his punching balloon while we have been here in Ukraine. Regardless, after you have punched it a million times, and thrown it off Dad's head a million more times, you have to start being creative. So Cavin created his own new use for his balloon. Not only did it entertain him, but us as well! Enjoy!

We have been keeping busy as much as possible, but the weather here is super cold. At least there has been snow on the ground the entire time we have been here to offset the cold! So we stay out as much as we can, typically until our hands are frozen and then we head back to the hotel. Some days this is longer than others depending on the temperature and whether or not there is a frigid wind.

One more day, and then its Monday and hopefully with Ukrainian holidays over for a while, things will speed up! Keep praying!

Merry Ukrainian Christmas!

The social worker was not able to get her letter of conclusion which includes her approval of the adoption finished before noon, when the office closed for their Christmas holiday. So we will pray she is able to get if finished first thing Monday morning and the other person who needs to sign it will be there also!

Since this delay I have updated the estimated adoption time line on the right side of the blog. I will try to keep it as up to date as possible. The dates I have used are the "worst case senario" dates, which seems to have been our luck. Things could progress faster, which of course is what we are praying for.

We are just thankful that the sibling separation is complete, and R is ours! The rest of the process (paperwork and court) is more of a formality.

Even though we have told R that we will be there to spend time with him everyday until he is ours forever, he still asks everyday if we are coming back tomorrow. Yesterday he again asked, "how soon will I be with you forever?" Today he was very cuddly, and told us that he misses us when we are gone.

For the first time, R told us that he loved us today, in Ukrainian and then in English, with the help of our translator. I cannot even begin to tell you what that did to my heart! R is a very sweet boy with a very tender heart. I cannot wait to see how God is able to use his tender and compassionate heart for His work.

Yesterday we had bought and taken a bunch of kiwi to the orphanage for the kids there. Today we asked R if he had any kiwi to eat, and he told us no. Then our translator asked him something, and he answered, saying he did eat something green today and it had a lot of seeds. Apparently today was the first time R had tasted kiwi! He liked it!

Today we took 24 lemons to the orphanage for the kids. It was fun to buy something we knew they rarely ever got, and even more fun knowing we were able to provide a first experience for many of the kids! Although I still can't imagine eating plain lemon!

Today another first happened, we went to a new cafe to eat lunch. We got there around 12:30 and after hearing the menu translated, we picked what sounded good and Yulia placed our order. As normal, a few of the things we had picked they weren't fixing that day, so we had to pick a few new things. Once we placed our order the waitress went back to the kitchen and came back shortly after saying that it would be 20 minutes before they were able to start cooking the food, and then it would take them about 30 minutes to prepare it. (They opened at 11). So we asked if we could place our order and then go to the grocery and come back. She said sure, if we left some money to ensure we would come back. I am pretty sure that would never happen in the States!

Still Waiting

It finally happened. On our way home from dinner Matt fell on the ice. Everywhere (except parts of the roads) are solid sheets of ice. Not kidding. Parents pull their kids everywhere on sleds. People pull their groceries on sleds. Everything is covered in ice. Thankfully he wasn't hurt too bad!

It has been another frustrating day for us. Apparently it takes an entire day for the mayor to sign the official separation document. It took until 5:00 to get the document signed. Its an hour drive from there to where we and the social worker are, so that means the social worker won't get the separation document until tomorrow morning.

And guess what? Tomorrow begins their Christmas holiday (their Christmas Eve) so the social worker's office will close at noon. So you would think it still wouldn't be a big deal to get a conclusion and approval of the adoption done in 3 hours, (they open at 9), but we will be lucky if we get it done tomorrow.

Without the social worker's conclusion and approval of the adoption we cannot send our paperwork to the SDA to get their approval paperwork, which takes them a week. We need both conclusions to get our court date....

It truly is unbelievable how long it takes people to get things done here. We are trying to be patient and not to get frustrated, but we have been here over a month and we are just ready to be home with our boys.

So on that note, we covet your prayers for tomorrow, that the social worker will graciously get her conclusion and approval of the adoption completed by noon.

This afternoon at our visit with R we talked to him a little bit more about the adoption process, hoping it would help with the meltdowns we have been having. In this conversation he said he is sad everyday when we have to leave, to which we told him it was also very sad for us to leave him everyday. We love this little boy so much and we are so ready for him to be with us always!

We asked the orphanage director if we could get the kids a little something for their Christmas. She said they would love to have lemons and kiwi, a treat they hardly ever get. I am more than happy to indulge them! Something so simple, but when the only fresh fruit you get on a regular basis is apples, I am sure its a treat!

Praying

Today has been a hard day on everyone over here. Matt has not been feeling well the past few days and last night I also began not to feel well. Needless to say, today was rather dull. Matt got quite a bit of work done while Cavin and I napped and we just  ate a late brunch at the cafe here at the hotel. Then this evening we went to visit R then ate some dinner. After a really cold walk back to the hotel we are hoping for an early bedtime.

Our visit with R was rather difficult today. Three times we had meltdowns involving tears, all of those times we couldn't get him to tell us what was going on. He just sat on our lap, all cuddled up and cried. It broke our hearts. Then as we were getting ready to leave, he curled up in a ball on a chair, and wouldn't look at us or talk to us. Although when his caretaker came to take him back to group he did smile and give both of us really big hugs.

Last night as we were leaving he crawled under the table by the door and said he was the guard dog, that he was going to keep us there forever.

I am praying with all my heart that the rest of the adoption goes quickly, as the waiting is not only difficult on us, but so much more difficult on R's tender and young heart. He does not understand why we cannot take him with us and why we are only allowed to visit him for two hours everyday.

So, today we did not hear the news we really wanted to hear, but it wasn't bad news either. The separation has been approved, but they need one more document before it is finalized. They need a document stating that we are open to communication between R and his siblings. So Yulia will go first thing tomorrow morning to prepare this document with the notary, and we will follow 30 minutes after to sign it once they have completed it. Then we will go to get it scanned and emailed to Oleg, who will then take it to the social worker.

We are praying the social worker will finish his conclusion document tomorrow, right after receiving the document we are sending. As far as we know, it is only a one page document, so nothing too time consuming, just a matter of him doing it. We are hoping he will finish it before lunch so Oleg can get all of our documents to the SDA in Kiev before they close tomorrow.

Please pray that the social worker will finish his conclusion document as soon as possible tomorrow. Please also continue to pray for R, that God will give him peace and understanding through the rest of this process. Pray for a restful night of sleep for all of us, and that Matt and I can both get to feeling better soon!

Prayers Please!

Tomorrow is kind of a big day for us. Tomorrow everyone will finally return to work from celebrating New Years. They will work a whole 2.5 days before being off work for their Christmas celebrations. Not much time to get a lot done, in our case.

Tomorrow the long lost social worker will finally be at the office and we are praying he will sign off on the separation and we will not have to do a consult. I don't even want to think about how long a consult would take. The official separation document is all we are waiting for. Once we have it a bunch of documents will travel to Kiev and be given to the SDA.

Once the SDA has these documents, they will write a conclusion document giving their approval for the adoption. This typically takes one business week, and they only do it on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's. We are going to request to have it done sooner, so please be praying it will not take a full week!

We are praying the SDA will give us a date for when they will have their conclusion document finished. With that date, we are hoping to go ahead and get a court date set. Thanks to Yulia and Oleg, we already have all of the documents we need ready for court, other than one we will get tomorrow, and of course the separation and conclusion document from the SDA.

Prayer Requests:

-Please pray that we can officially get the separation completed tomorrow!!

-Please pray that our paperwork will get to the SDA as soon as possible, and that they will be willing to write their conclusion in less than the typical business week.

-Pray that the judge will allow us to go ahead and set a court date without the SDA's conclusion letter!


Today:

Today we went to exchange money and discovered that all of the banks were closed due to a holiday. So on December 31 they celebrate New Year's Eve, on January 1 they celebrate the New Year, on January 2 they continue to celebrate the New Year, and we have deemed January 3 their recovery holiday.

Not much else to report from today, did the usual long walk in the morning after breakfast. Bought a few toys for R's group for Christmas this weekend. We found out that they don't typically get anything for Christmas. So we decided to get a few toys for the group to share and will be buying something small for each kid at the orphanage. Thankfully this orphanage is only for kiddos 6 and under, so there are only 23 kiddos, which is a little easier on the budget. We found an aqua doodle, a magnetic drawing board, and a matching puzzle game for R's group of 9, 5 and 6 year olds. We are going to ask the director tomorrow about the something little to get each child. We are thinking probably fruit since the only fruit they normally get is apples. We would like to get them a cake to share or a piece of candy per child, but the orphanage director may not let us since they are not used to fatty foods in their diet.


If we come back to the States during the 10 day waiting period we may take up a collection of things the orphanage needs. This orphanage is nice, but in need of a lot. There are very few toys, and the few they have are very worn. Plus they always need clothes, socks, gloves and other clothing items for the children. This past week R was in a girl sweater all week, hot pink with even a few sparkles. It drove me nuts! Today was shower day and I was so thankful to see him in a blue shirt this evening!

 Please continue to pray, and we will continue to keep you updated! Thanks in advance!

P.S.

One of Cavin's newest words is "woah!" and it is so cute!!

Last night when we were walking home from dinner, people were again shooting off fireworks and each time one went off Cavin would say "Wo-ah!" or "Uh-Oh!"

It is so cute when he says it I find myself doing things to make him say it!

Hunrgy and Sick!

Last night Matt's throat started hurting and this morning he isn't feeling much better. As I write this, he is taking a nap. Please pray that he will not get too sick and will be feeling 100% soon!

This morning we left at 10 to go eat breakfast. We went to the first place, they mainly had drinks and only a few food items on their menu. So we kept walking...and walking. We headed to another cafe we knew of, got there, then realized it was Sunday and they didn't open until 2. So we went back to this other cafe we had found on the other side of town, that was supposed to open at 11. We got there about 11:15 and they were not open yet. Yulia knocked on the door, and someone answered. They told us they were up late celebrating the New Year again last night so they were not going to open until this afternoon. This was true of the other two cafe's we walked past in order to get to the cafe we went to first.

We were quite hungry, not having had breakfast and walking around for an hour and a half! I will admit, my caramel latte and caramel pancake (crepe) were quite tasty, although not that filling for them to be my breakfast and lunch! Matt had a ham and cheese pancake (crepe) and hot tea. If you know Matt, he doesn't like hot drinks, so you know he isn't feeling well!

In just over a hour we get to go see R! Its the highlight of our days!

Forever

Last night was New Year's Eve, the most celebrated holiday in Ukraine. We were lucky enough to have endured another sleepless night due to New Year celebrations.

Friday morning we came down to the city center to pick up R's new glasses. As we were walking to a cafe to eat, we walked by a hotel that looked nice. We went in and asked about prices and to see a few rooms. This hotel is not as nice as the first one, not as roomy, but was still nice with hot water and is clean. Not to mention it would save us $25 a night. So we moved hotels Friday morning, from our first hotel on the outskirts of the city to the new one, which is in the middle of the city center. It will be, and already has been, nicer to be closer to grocery stores and cafe's.

So Friday night we were right in the midst of New Year celebrations which included a LOT of fireworks!

This morning we went for a long walk, over an hour long. The city was dead, everything closed and only a few people out. We did find a pizza place open to grab some lunch. We rested this afternoon and then headed out to the orphanage for our visiting hours with R from 4-6.

As we were saying good bye to leave, R asked Yulia, our translator, if we were coming back tomorrow. I answered, "I don't know, should we?" I wanted to see what he said. He said yes, accompanied by a big smile. Then he asked Yulia a question..."when will they come to take me forever?" Holding back my tears, I answered, "as soon as we can, as soon as they will let us." With a worried look, he told us that someone had told him we wouldn't come get him forever until spring. Yulia chuckled and told him it would be much sooner than spring, but still a few weeks away.

As Yulia translated R's question, "when will they come to take me forever?" my heart was so overwhelmed with emotions. It was breaking at the thought of him being separated from his siblings because he was cross eyed and not wanted. It was breaking because I knew he had been alone in the orphanage for years, desperately wanting a family. It was breaking because I knew we had to leave him there, and still had weeks until we could take him. Yet at the same time my heart was overwhelmed with love for this sweet boy. I was filled with joy knowing he wanted to be ours, to be part of our family forever!

I know we have asked before, but through this process, please continue to lift R up in prayer. This process is so hard on him, and it will only become more difficult. In his young mind he doesn't understand the adoption process. All he knows is we want him and he wants us. I imagine it will become more difficult on him after court when he is ours, when we change his name, yet we still have to leave him at the orphanage for ten days. Not to mention the emotions he will deal with at wanting to leave with us, yet having to leave those he loves and all he has known in the orphanage behind. He has hardly been out of the orphanage, so culture shock will be overwhelming and difficult as well. I imagine he will be sick with the adjustment in food as well. From what I understand he eats porridge for breakfast each morning, soup and bread at each meal along with something else, I hope and pray. Not to mention the adjustment to clothes, toys, television and movies and so much more. I hate that he has to experience and feel so much at such a tender age. Please continue to cover him with your prayers.

It has been a long and emotional day to say the least, praying for a restful night for all of us, even as the New Year's celebrations continue around us.