What To Expect

In this picture, the kids are protecting us from the "White Blanket of Death" from earlier in the winter. I am practicing putting in photos in case the opportunity arises while we are in Ukraine.

We had our "travel" meeting on Thursday night. It was mostly travel tips and lessons learned from previous trips. Lots of good information about traveling but not much information about the adoption process. Our expectations are that the details of what is going on will not be explained to us, we will be along for the ride once we arrive in Kyiv.

Speaking of arriving in Kyiv, we have bought our plane tickets, sort of. I talked to the man that is supposed to buy them for us and he was supposed to e-mail us the itinerary but he has not done that yet. I will probably call to check on it today.

I have found myself explaining to a couple of people what we expect the process to be once we arrive in Kyiv, so I thought that I might include that here. Once we arrive in Kyiv on the 11th, we will be greeted by our facilitator at the airport. This person will be our voice on the ground in Ukraine and will stay with us the entire time that we are there. Our appointment is on the 12th. We will go to the SDA (Ukraine Adoption Authority) and from there we will select a child (children) from photos and bio's. In the old system, prospective adoptive parents used to look through books and books of available children, but we have heard that with the new system, they try to pre-select 4 or 5 matches for you based upon your request. We have requested a relatively healthy child/children between the ages of 6 years and 18 months.

After we select the child that we want to go and visit, we must go to the region where that child's orphanage is. This could be relatively close to Kyiv or it could be a 12 hour train ride away. Once we get to the orphanage, get local approval to visit the child, and actually visit the child, we will have to decide if we would like to proceed with the adoption of the child or not. If not, we would have to travel back to Kyiv for another appointment. If so, we would have to wait for a court hearing in the region of the orphanage. We hope that we will be able to get that court date relatively quickly but that is just a hope. After the court date, there is a mandatory 10 day waiting period for the adoption to be finalized. After the court date, one of us could possibly come back home but we are in this thing together so we expect for both of us to stay together. At the conclusion of the 10 day wait period, we get custody of the child, and must get new birth certificates, etc. in the home region before traveling back to Kyiv and the US Embassy to complete a medical physical as well as complete the immigration paperwork process. Once that is complete (or once the end is in sight for it to be complete,) we will make our arrangements to come back home. There are Ukrainian holidays on May 1, 2 and 9 where the local government offices as well as the US Embassy will be closed. We are praying that those holidays will give the folks that we deal with a sense of urgency to get us completed instead of an excuse for us to have to stay longer than is required. Then the best part, we get to come home to a bigger family.

We are hoping to be back home some time the week after the Derby. Katie has a Angel's Wings recital on May 12 that we will be very disappointed about missing.

Caleb is awake now and he is giving me suggestions on how to wrap this post up so that we can get on with our day. His suggestions include "We are happy to be adopting" and "Goodbye".

How can I argue with wither of those? Little does he know, we have several tasks that we have to complete today in support of this process so it will not be an all fun and games Saturday. So with that, we are happy to be adopting and goodbye for now.

Hopeful Hearts

The folks that are helping us to adopt run an unbelievable ministry for the orphanages in Ukraine. Their website address is www.hopefulheartsfoundation.org . From their page, I would recommend going to the "Learn" tab and scrolling down to Our Videos and watching one of those if you are interested. I am sure that there are lots of very good and worthwhile adoption agencies out there for parents that are looking for their children, but for Stacey and me, this was the one. (They are not an agency but more of an advisory group that really do most everything an agency would do except charge a fee. They do it as a ministry.) I went to a meeting for another adoption agency while we were still investigating and it definitely was not for us. God just somehow led us to Hopeful Hearts. From the moment that we started that meeting with a prayer, we knew that was where we were supposed to be. I could never do justice to the testimony of the lady that leads this ministry but the long and the short of it is, God led her and her family over to Ukraine on a mission trip. Her husband, a professed home body, was the one that eventually got her to go. She ended up at an orphanage with her daughter holding twin girls. The daughter looked at the mother and said something like, "Mom, we should adopt these girls." The mom replied with something like, "We don't need to adopt these girls" and the daughter's response to that comment was this: "Mom, why is your heart so hard?" Like I said, I could not do her testimony justice but as she described how well off she was, even by US standards, and that there was no reason for them not to reach out to help these girls it was really touching. So she began a journey that took her a long time and mountains of obstacles and paperwork. During this process, one of the little girls caught pneumonia and died in the orphanage. From that point on, she and numerous others have worked tirelessly to help these children. From helping nearly 180 children be adopted to raising funds and mission trips, they have helped a lot of children. There are more that need help. Some are in Ukraine and some are probably in your town.
On a different note, we have our "travel meeting" on Thursday of this week. That is when we expect to learn some of the details of our trip and get put in touch with the folks that are going to help us make our travel arrangements. I am anticipating getting a list of things that need to be done before we leave. Stacey has done a great job of getting the child arrangements lined up for while we are gone. We are so fortunate that both our families and tons of friends have volunteered to help us out. That doesn't really surprise us because we have lots of great friends but it does overwhelm us in a way. God is good. We have actually had more offers of help than we could take. What a blessing.

The Things That Children Say

You can always count on a child for honesty. Not that children are honest all of the time mind you. They are human too. But when a child is being sincere, they will be totally sincere. Since we have found out about our date, the realization that we will be gone for about a month I think has begun to sit in with the kids. I can tell it in their bedtime prayers. For almost the last two years, we have knelt down beside their beds and prayed for the children in Ukraine and especially for those that don't have mommy's and daddy's. We also prayed for the children that He has already chosen for us. We still pray for those things. But the last few nights have been different. For instance, Katie last night prayed "That Mommy and Daddy would be safe while they are gone." To hear those words coming straight from your little one is indescribable. While we were at a gathering over the weekend, we were discussing our trip with some friends and they asked us how long we would be gone. Caleb chimed in with, "Probably four weeks but we are praying for three." Stacey has been taking care of going around and letting folks know at places where we volunteer that we will be gone (i.e. church nursery, school, etc.). When she told Caleb's school teacher that we were going to be gone, she said that she already knew. She said that Caleb had told her that morning. She said that he had held back tears (he is a big guy at school) as he said that he was going to miss us while we were gone but then he picked back up and said that he was looking forward to getting a new member of the family.
Stacey and I were talking about things and we know that God's timing is perfect. We weren't ready for this a year ago. I don't think the kids were ready a year ago. They have matured so much in the last year. I used to think that they were only excited about the possibility of getting bunk beds, but I think it is more than that to them now. I think that they truly are looking forward to getting a sibling. However, we still get some silliness. Caleb, of course, prayed a couple of weeks ago for "A sister that knows how to play football." While God's answer to every prayer may not be exactly what we asked for, we know that God does answer prayers. Even those of a five year old that only wants her parents to be safe while they are gone. That is one of the reasons why Stacey and I will be able to make this journey with less fear than we would expect. Because we know that we have a 6 year old boy and a 5 year old girl at home that are sincerely praying their hearts out to a God that they know that they can trust to answer their prayers to keep us safe while we are gone.

Do You Mind If We Dance With Our Date??

You have to read the title like you are that guy from Animal House to appreciate the humor. To say that we are giddy would be an understatement. As a matter of fact, we are a lot of different emotions right now. We got our appointment date (and registration number) for our trip to Ukraine. Our date is .......April 12th!!!! We will be leaving on April 10th. That is not a typo. APRIL 12th!!!!! That is 6 weeks from tomorrow in case you are wondering. It is the Tuesday after Easter. Stacey's semester will not be over yet so there will be some extra work for her to sort out how others will need to cover her while we are gone. God has a wonderful way of working out the timing so we trust that He will work that out too. There will be lots of stuff going on between now and then I would antcipate. The lady that is helping us told us to expect to be gone 4 weeks but we are going to plan on being gone 5. If we get back in 4 weeks, that will be great. Before today, it had just been that we were working on the adoption. It's real now. We have been talking about it and praying with the kids too, but now there will need to be a real sense of urgency in our conversations. I am sure that you can only imagine the concerns as a parent when leaving your children for that long.
The bottom line is that God is good. And no matter what happens, we put our trust in Him and know that he will provide what we need. But for today, please excuse us while we dance with our date.

What Does That Mean???

Don't know if I mentioned it yet or not but Stacey and I aren't much for waiting around. We generally don't like to start something that we can't finish. This especially applies to big items like making big purchaes or house improvement projects. So imagine how much we are learning with this adoption process. All of the waiting and waiting, it gives us plenty of time to question what we are doing and why we are doing it. We still feel like we are doing the right thing. But the waiting has definitely been the worst part so far.

So with the latest round of paperwork updates earlier this month, we should be finished with the paperwork for a while. So what do we do but wait? I did send an e-mail to one of the ladies that is helping us with our adoption to see if she had any news for us. While being very helpful, her responses are usually very terse and susccinct. I asked her to confirm whether or not our paperwork had been submitted to the SDA and I also told her that any information that we could get would be appreciated. She responded that indeed our paperwork had been submitted, that our recent updates were just attached to our already submitted paperwork, and that we should hear something "before too awfully long." Now, I don't think that anyone can tell me exactly how long "before too awfully long" is. And as much as I wish I did, I don't know how long it is either. It is not the answer that I wanted but I do know what it means. It means, "be still and know that I am God." (Psalms 46:10) I am especially guilty of being too eager to have something happen that I tend to get out in front of God instead of letting Him lead me. So what do we do? We are still (as still as we can be), we pray (continually), we plan (as much as we can) and we know that He is God.

One other thing to share. We went to the awards banquet for basketball at Graceland today and the chaplain for the U of L football team spoke to the group. He was a relatively young man that said that he had played football for Campbellsville University. He told this story of how he had taught his oldest daughter (about 3 or 4 years old) to respond to the question "Where does Jesus live?" by saying "Jesus lives in my heart." And it was sort of like a little game that they would play together. One day, they did this in front of a niece or some other relative that was slightly older (perhaps around 6 years old) and she asked (as only little children can ask) "Since Jesus is so big, and her heart is so small, if Jesus lived in there, wouldn't He stick out?"

We Count the Costs Now, But We Won't Count the Costs Later

Before our other children were born, I could quote you the amount of the expenses that were to be coming out of our pockets for each "delivery". After they each were born, there was no amount of money that would have been too much to make me question whether or not it was worth it. Our children are priceless. Stacey and I have been very fortunate in that we have not struggled with childlessness or fertility issues like other couples have. We have not experienced the dissappointment of not being able to get pregnant or the discouragement of failed treatments. We have been very blessed to have had things turn out for us the way that they have. We know it is not something that we have earned but a gift that He has given to us.

With that being said, anyone that knows me very well knows that I have a bean counter's mentality. Another way to say it would be that "I'm a cheap skate". So when we started to discuss adoption, one of the conversations naturally went to the costs. Truth be told, it is probably cheaper in total costs to adopt a child internationally than it is to deliver a healthy child in the US. It just seems so much more expensive because all of the costs come directly out of our pocket for adoptions instead of the magic and mysterious world of health insurance for healthy deliveries (don't get me started there). Any way you slice it, we would have paid all that we have for either one of the children that we already have, so we didn't count the costs after they were born.

As I prepared for this post and got down to the bottomline and saw the amount of money that we have spent in the last 2 years pursuing this effort, I was overwhelmed. I am literaly blown away by how God has blessed us through this. The yard sale and raffle was an obvious way he blessed us, not to mention all of the friends and family that so freely gave and supported us in that effort, as well as other efforts. As with lots of other things in our lives, there is no way that we could have done this on our own. Our budget didn't just have "extra" money in it.

Presented below is a listing of all of the expenses that we have incurred so far. It is not a complete list (I didn't pull out all of our receipts) but I think I captured all of the big stuff.
Homestudy (Including travel) $1,700
Homestudy Update $ 300
Passports $ 200
I-600A application $ 545
I-600A re-application $ 545
INS fingerprints (first time) $ 140
INS fingerprints (second time) $ 140
Ukraine Translation $ 550
Ukraine Translation $ 200
Various Dr.'s Appointments/Tests $ 60
Travel Clinic $ 400
Additional Shots $ 150
State Police Finger Prints (multiple times) $ 100
Kentucky Apostille $ 100
FedEx/Mailings $ 130
Trips to Indy:4 (assume $0.40 per mile) $ 320
Trips to Frankfort : 2 $ 80
Trips to Southeast Christian: 5 $ 120
Copies of Birt Certificates/Deeds/Marriage License $ 50
Adoption Toolkit/Training Materials $ 150

TOTAL TO DATE: $5,980

From talking to some folks that we know that have recently gone to Ukraine and adopted a child, we are expecting to spend approximately another $11,000 while gone, not including our airplane tickets, which we are expecting to run approximately another $3,500. This would bring our total costs to over $20K. That is a lot of money to us. It is probably a lot of money to a lot of folks. But in the end, we don't plan to count the costs. Whatever we have to spend, I know that that His children are worth it. We have faith in our God that he will provide the things that we need, just like He already has time and time again.

I Forgot Something...and Way to Go DHS!!!

First of all, I think I forgot one of the things that really moved me during our paperwork effort that appears to be nearing it's stateside end. Several (I mean probably more than several) years ago, when Stacey and I were still going to Southeast, a very good man entered into our life. We met lots of good people there and are still really good friends with some of them, but God was at work way out in front of us. The Good Doctor as I called him, and his lovely wife, joined our ABF Class. He is a great guy and was quick to over his expertise to any and all friends that needed his help. They moved away from Louisville but eventually moved back about the time that we were deciding to go to a church a little closer to our home. But when we needed a lot of signatures and other input from a Doctor, there was no question in my mind that this guy would help us as much as he could. To say that he was accommodating would be a vast understatement. He provided his signature and a copy of his license at every request. He allowed me to bring documents to his house on more than a couple of occasions for his signature, even though he works long hours and now has a full family of his own. One day, as I was describing to him some of the events that had happened to us along the way, he said to me, "You know why I am such a proponent of strong Christians doing adoptions don't you?" Now, I knew this guy fairly well. We had spent lots of Saturday nights together at our ABF class and also outside of class as leaders of that class. We had spent time together in some social situations that revolved around the class but I did not have an answer to his question. I knew that he had helped other mutual friends of ours in their quests to adopt internationally. He paused and he looked at me and he said, "You knew that I was adopted didn't you??" I didn't. Come to find out, his wife, a wonderful Christian woman and mom, was adopted too. I feel that this is just more evidence that God was working in our lives in this effort a long time before we even knew about it.

Now that I have that off my chest, our paperwork from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) came in today. A few signatures and apostilles later, and we will be in a position to send the last (hopefully) of the stateside paperwork to Ukraine by the end of this week. Time will tell.

I will put a listing of the expenses that we have experienced this far on my next post if I can bring myself to add them up.