2 Years in the US with US

OK, so the last post was not exactly 2 years HOME per se but it was 2 years since he became a member of our family and that, to me, is home. It is not the wood and brick that where we lay our heads. We came back to the US two years ago on Derby Day and we haven't looked back since.

The next time that I post to this blog I hope to have a link to some videos of ours on YouTube as well as some pictures that we took of our recent visit with Gayla. Gayla was the lady that met us at the airport in Kyiv and she helped us through our appointment as well as getting our visas to go home. We stayed at her apartment while we were in Kyiv. We didn't get to visit long because there were a number of folks that wanted to see her but listening to her voice brought back so many memories for me. We also got to see the other couple that was in Ukraine the same time we were. They now have adopted 3 children from Ukraine and went back to get another girl but unfortunately if fell through. There were numerous kids from Ukraine there. Some you could pick out. Others were more difficult to tell. I think Coy looks great and is very smart and we are lucky to have him. He is a bundle of joy (mostly) and has been a very welcomed and wonderful addition to our family.

Anyone that reads this blog, please be in prayer for friends of mine/ours that are in the waiting process for adoptions. I know it can be painfully slow sometimes and that these folks need to be encouraged from time to time that God's timing is perfect. That is one of the main statements that I remember from the ladies that helped us in the US. I guess that they had been through the waiting so many times that they had seen first hand over and over how God had worked everything out perfectly. And He will again. In His timing.

2 Years Home

We celebrated Coy's adoption day today. It was two years ago today that we stood up in an Ukranian Court of Law and gave our reasons for wanting to adopt Coy. There were so many then. There are so many more now. We didn't really do a lot. We went to Bass Pro Shop so that he could look at the fish in the aquarium. He likes that. We then went to The Fun House for supper. It is a Chuck E. Cheese knock off. We had gone to CEC a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Coy keeping his diaper dry at night for five nights in a row. We haven't had five nights in a row since but I digress. He is making progress. Anyway, back to Coy's Adoption Day. One of the best things we did today was to go back and watch the video tapes from our time in Ukraine and the few weeks right after we got home. All of our children have grown so much but it really helped me to appreciate how much Coy has grown. It is still the same boy but oh how he has grown. There were sections on the video tape that I had forgotten that we had taped. There was some good footage of him just walking around the orphanage, both inside and out. We will convert it to DVD and I will see if I can post it here somehow. But some of those images took me straight back there. In some ways, it seems like yesterday and in other ways, it is like it never happened. The footage from the orphanage made quite an impact on me. I can't remember if I had even watched it before or not. I probably had but I don't remember watching it. I filmed Coy playing outside with some of the other children in the orphanage and it broke my heart to watch it today. There was a little blind boy, probably about 4 years old or so and he was just standing in the yard, which was bare as it could be and he was talking or singing or something but he was just standing there, entertaining himself, unaware of everything around him. How sad. Our lesson in Sunday School today was on whether or not God causes disasters or tragedy to happen. And whether he does or not, we can certainly say that, at a minimum, he allows it to happen. And lots of people question God as to why He might let a 9/11 happen or a World War to occur but I question why He lets innocent children be born in to this world all alone. That is a tragedy that happens everyday. The best answer that I have is that He knows so much more about the big picture than I do that I can only trust Him. He has it all under control. I don't understand it and I probably won't until I can get to heaven to ask Him myself. But it does make me wonder. And I think this is where I should come in. Do I let the knowledge of that tragedy move me to do something about it somehow or do I just sit here and wonder?? It doesn't help my guilty conscience that I am sitting here in my essential palatial mansion comparatively speaking with all of the excesses that they will never enjoy. It also doesn't help that I look around and struggle with envy with all of those that have even more than I do. We had fun with Coy's Adoption Day, but for me, I want it to be more than about fun. I want it to be about something bigger than that. Something much bigger.