Our First Ukrainian Adoption

I can't believe it's been 3 1/2 years since we brought our 3 Ukrainians home. Of course it began long before that. Once the Lord placed adoption on our hearts it took us almost 2 years to get to Ukraine. Months of paperwork, finally getting accepted in Sept 2005, then being told there were no more appointments with the Ukrainian government until early 2006, then Ukraine shut down the adoption program to reorganize it! This took months and by spring our dossier had to be entirely redone because it all had expired. Then, finally in late summer, the program reopened. We were informed on Oct 31st that we had our long awaited appointment in Ukraine on Nov. 29, 2006! We traveled over as a family with our kids: Wayne Jr. 17, Melissa, 16, Curtis 14, and Sierra 10. It was a lot of planning, but well worth it, especially since the trip was very long. We were approved to adopt up to 3 kids and we really wanted siblings. Picking kids from pictures, or more like mug shots, and short biographies is a bit overwhelming. But we knew God already had picked them out, and we just wanted to KNOW in our hearts when we saw them. And we did! They were the very first pictures that we were shown. Andrii-9 year old boy, Anna-7 year old girl, and Sergiy-3 year old boy (we changed his name to Jordan at our kids' request). We fell in love with them right away at our first visit. Andrii & Anna were in an orphanage in Vasilkyv (an hour our so out of Kiev) and Jordan was in Boyorpka just outside the city. That's when the battle began. Our facilitator was a little concerned about Vasilkyv, no one likes to adopt from that area. We found out why. Apparently, the local government officials do not like foreigners adopting. We ended up playing a 2 week game of cat & mouse with this government official whose signature we needed. He didn't plan on giving it to us. The closer we got to Christmas, the more our bio kids wanted to go home. So we put 3 of them on a plane alone, that was one of the hardest days of my life. Our daughter, Melissa, who has a heart for Ukraine opted to stay with us; she was such a big help. We finally got the signature thanks to our spunky facilitator, Irina, and had court on December 20th. Wayne stayed with me for Christmas and then flew home to the kids, work, and the new addition going up on our house! I waited out the 10 days. God was faithful and poured out much grace on me. I would never have survived through the holidays without all my kids if it weren't for our dear missionary friends, Joey & Laura who are missionaries with YWAM right in Kiev. Laura is our pastor's daughter. And my dear friend, Jocelyn, who flew over to help Missy and I with the 3 new kids and the trip home. So, on the day I finally picked up little Jordan from his orphanage, I asked our facilitators the fateful question, "How would we know if there are ever anymore siblings?" The look on their faces said it all: there IS another sibling! And he is at the same orphanage as Jordan! A baby boy named Slava. I asked to see him. As I was leaving the building we were brought by a doorway and a woman came out holding him. He was maybe a year old, with big brown crossed eyes just like Jordan's. All I could do was shake his hand and say "Paka" (bye bye). Jordan & I waved goodbye and we left. It was very surreal. I called Wayne when I got back to our apartment and informed him that we didn't get the complete set! We agreed to keep it to ourselves for the time being since we didn't want to overwhelm our other kids and family back home, after all we were bringing home 3 kids already. Andrii Abraham, Anna Esther, and Jordan Charles bonded miraculously well with our whole family. In less than a year we were discussing bringing Slava home. Of course with any Ukrainian adoption it is easier said than done. Our facilitator did a lot of inquiring and encouraging to get the government to legally classify Slava an orphan (not every kid in an orphanage is legally an orphan and adoptable). This was finally accomplished last September and then we were informed that for the first year of orphanhood only Ukrainians can adopt. We would not be permitted to adopt Slava until then, which is this September. Grrrrr. We sent letters, Andrii & Anna sent letters, we sent pictures, but to no avail. In April we could finally begin our paperwork. I just completed everything for our dossier and on Friday 7/16 FedEx'd off 40 notarized, certified, and apostilled documents for our facilitators to translate. Already they've contacted me that I've got to re-do at least one document. I guess I'll be climbing the paperwork mountain again. Once everything is in order and translated, they will submit it to the SDA (State Dept for Adoption) for approval. Once approved we will get our appointment date. However, our dossier cannot be submitted until Slava is officially available to us which is mid-September. I'm starting to sweat with the thought that the longer it takes, the chance increases that we'll be in Ukraine for the holidays again. I was there 6 weeks total the first time - right through Christmas and New Years! I really don't want to put our family through that again. Of course, we will do whatever is required in order do bring our baby boy home, but I'm praying for mercy anyway.

So, I told you the previous post was the short version!

Please keep Slava and our family and this whole process in your prayers. I promise to keep you updated as we go.