God's Providence

We don't have any new news at this time, but just wanted to update all of you on how God is working in our lives regarding the adoption. Each week it seems God places more people in our lives to help us in our preparation. Just recently we talked to some friends who adopted a boy from China, and then two days later we talked to two different families who each adopted. Each story and experience is different, but each family we talk to in an encouragement and reinforces what we are doing.

This week I was reading in Exodus about the adoption of Moses in chapter 2. I was moved at how God orchestrated the people in and around Moses to carry out His plan. He prepared Jochebed, Moses' mother to give him up. He placed Pharaoh's daughter along the river and opened her heart to take Moses in. He allowed Jochebed to nurse Moses and raise him, and receive money for doing it. All these things give us confirmation that God is in control of our adoption destiny, and He is working out all the details, from uniting us with our kids, to raising them and loving them into our family.

We have been in contact with some new friends we met on the blog who are getting ready to pick up their son in a week. They have been great encouragers, and have let us know the lady who places kid from our region is very nice and fast in placing children. They are going back for the second trip in only 7 weeks! We are blessed to have so many encouragers on our side. If you would like to make a comment please do so by clicking "comments" just under this entry.
We will let you know when we hear something more.

And we wait ...

I met a man this week who adopted 3 kids at once from Russia in 1997 in a region near ours. It was interesting how much he remembered. He remembers that it is cold there, and the women will scold you if any skin is showing on your child, even if it is not cold. He remembers the judge, and her kindness, as well as the women who worked in the orphanage.

Many have asked how our progress is going, and it is going according to plan. Maybe not our plan, but surely God's plan. We are hopeful to receive a referral this fall or winter, but of course there is no guarantee. We would like to travel before or after the dead of winter. If you have looked at the weather link you notice that it is starting to get cold in Krasnoyarsk. Mondays high is expected to be 44, and low of 25. It actually snowed there the other day. My friend said they are in the permafrost region, which I think means cold.

Some people have asked if the political instability will effect our adoption. We don't know at this time, but if for some reason Russia closes its doors to international adoption, we will probably change to a neighboring country. We will cross that bridge when we get there. God has our children picked out, so we are open to whatever path He leads us on.

We will wait and pray for the call to come.

And we wait . . .

Things shut down in August in Russia due to vacations. But we are told that September through November should be a busy time for referrals. There are several families adopting siblings ahead of us. However, we are hopeful that we will hear something this fall and possibly make our first trip before Christmas! We won't let the Siberian winter keep us from our children. =)

In the meantime we are doing all we can paperwork wise to be ready for news that our children have been matched to us. While we wait, we are finishing up projects around the house. MaryEllen is taking a class in Russian this fall at the Community College.

We will probably have about a week to accept the referral of the children. Then two weeks notice to travel. During those two weeks we need to arrange air travel, visas, medical exams, children's names etc. We are just trying to have as much done in anticipation of this flurry of activity. We try to hold back our excitement and await God's perfect timing to add to our family. Praying for patience.

Dossier translation complete

We received word this week that our dossier has been translated and sent to Krasnoyarsk!!! Yea!! We need a couple of additional documents but they can be sent later. The team in Krasnoyarsk will now start looking for our children. It's possible we could make a trip this year yet as an approximate wait is 2 - 6 months. At this point it looks like we will get the kids early to mid 2009.
Thank you all for your continued prayers. Now we wait.

Russia/Georgia conflict

Some of you have shared concerns for our adoption plans due to the crisis between Russia and Georgia. Here is an update from our Agency. We are not concerned as our faith is strong.

Dear Families in the Russia Program:
"We are all saddened by the news of violence between Russia and Georgia that has been reported since last week. Our thoughts go out to the innocent families and children affected by this unfortunate unrest.
The US State Department has not issued any further travel warning beyond the June 2008 statement that “travel to the Caucasus region of Russia is dangerous”. None of the regions in which our Agency operates adoption programs are in this area. In addition, we have consulted with our Russian staff and they do not anticipate any immediate impact on international adoption in Russia. Other than the potential for increased security measures with air travel, we do not expect any changes or disruptions to your adoption process.
As you can imagine, the long-term impact on US-Russia relations and the possible implications for international adoption is too difficult to predict at this point. As always, we will continue to keep you updated on any developments that we expect could impact your adoption process.
Please contact your specialist for questions regarding your specific case.
Best regards,
The Russia Team"

Blessings along the way

I took a break from reading Adoption/Parenting books to read a book given to me by my sister-in-law Linda. I just finished reading this awesome book called "The Shack" by William P Young. You may have heard some controversy about this story regarding God being portrayed as a woman. Get past that, there is so much more to this book. I count any thing that brings me closer in my relationship with God a blessing and this has blessed me in so many ways. . . I know our children will reap the blessings through me. =o) I will let you find your own blessings in it.

Last night we were blessed to spend an evening with some dear friends who were being visited by their son and toddler grandchildren, Nathan and Natalie. It did my heart good to spend time with them just watching kids be kids, they are so precious. My heart is so looking forward to children of our own. . .

We were recently on vacation in the Carolinas. We spent time with Peter's sister Kathryn and her family - we are so blessed to have their love. Being included in their family outings to the lake house and to Charleston gave us more insight into being a family. They have three lovely daughters who will make wonderful cousins for the children they are excited to meet.

We also spent time in Nags Head, NC with my brothers Joe and Dave, and Dave's family, and my cousin Al and his family. Everyone is so excited for us and looking forward to meeting the special children waiting for us so far away in Russia. We are looking forward to showing them the ocean and how to make sand castles! I'm sure their Uncle Joe will enjoy teaching them how to fish.

In the meantime, God has blessed us with incredible patience. Peter and I are thoroughly enjoying each other as we wait. We have been reminded time and again ;-) that we are in for a BIG change. We are so very happy to have each other to spend our lives with and pray our families and friends all experience the joys of a blessed marriage.

MaryEllen

We are learning how to blog, and realized what some of you already know. If you want to leave a message for us or our kids you can click on "comments" under each post and blog away. Happy blogging.
Pete and MaryEllen (ME)

CIS Approval

Well, it took a while - but 7 months later we have received approval for our I-600A "advance processing of orphan petition" from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. We have been deemed suitable adoptive parents!!! This approval is only good for 18 months so we hope we receive the children God has chosen for us by then, or we'll have to resubmit.

To complete an international adoption and bring a child to the US, prospective adoptive parents must fulfill the requirements set by the USCIS, the foreign country in which the child resides, and sometimes the state of residence.

So at this time we have been approved by the state of IL and the US, we are now waiting on Russia. We are told our dossier is in Moscow being translated and additional forms may be requested from us, we will just have to wait and see.

Dossier Part 1

We have completed our dossier part 1, and sent it in to our agency. They should receive it today and forward it on to Russia to be translated and submitted to the Dept of Education. This process takes around 2-4 weeks depending on vacations and other potential resending of paperwork. Our counselor says that a referral could come in 2-6 months! Wow! this is coming fast.

Although we have done a lot of preparation for our children, we still feel anxious about becoming parents. I suspect all new parents feel that way. There seems to be so much that can burden us and take our eyes off the Lord, who has led us up to this point. Perhaps this is similar to the Israelites as they wandered in the dessert continually forgetting how God had just covered their needs.

We continue to pray for strength and wisdom as we proceed with our adoption. Please pray with us!

All for His glory,
Pete and ME

Happy 4th of July

Well, we thought we were going to Springfield, IL to get our documents stamped with the "apostille", but we are delayed due to an error in how Peter's name is listed on the documents. Usually the problems are with MaryEllen's name, but in this case they used Peter David, instead of Peter D. . Picky, picky. We hope to have the documents ready next week and we can go to Springfield and get the apostille stamp. Then the documents need to be translated to Russian by our agency. Our agency liaison said we would have set a record for getting our dossier done that quick, but we are still moving along fast. We will keep you posted on our progress. Notice the picture of the kid's room. We have been busy nesting again.

June 28, 2008

We have been in contact with our "agency", and have received instructions for our dossier. Much of what is necessary needs to come from our social worker and getting her supervisor to sign some papers. We have to take pictures of our home, kid's room, park, library, etc. and have that submitted. Some documents need a special stamp from the state called an "apostille". We may go to Springfield on Tuesday to have that done if we get the forms from our social worker. We would like to get it all done this week.

Today we put the kid's beds together so we can take a picture of them. We were given bunk beds by Pete's brother and wife, so we plan to separate them and put them side by side in the same room for now. The kids are used to sleeping together in the same room so hopefully that will make them more comfortable. We will include a picture of the room at some point.

Steps of Faith

This is the first of many blog updates of our adoption process.