Education

The adoption process drags merrily along. I went today for my second round of fingerprints. The first set were not acceptable because my fingertips are too dry. I wanted to yell, "Hey, come on guys! I'm a good person. To prove it, I have dry fingertips because I'm a teacher and wash my hands every chance I get throughout the day and handle paper all day long, everyday. Doesn't that count for anything on the self-sacrifice scale? Dry fingertips are an occupational hazard for a good teacher!" I don't think it would have done any good to share that insight with the federal authorites or the fingerprinting personnel. So, when the request came for another set of fingerprints I just slathered on vaseline for several days and went back. I still have dry fingerprints! I'll send this set in and keep using the vaseline. I may need another set. It's crazy.

In addition to getting an education about proper fingerprinting procedures, Mark and I have been learning so many new things. We are learning words like "apostil" (a special notary designation only given through the Secretary of State's office), initials "USCIS" (stands for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), and "dossier" (the finalized packet of all of our paperwork that will be sent to Ukraine for translation and scrutiny).

We're trying to learn some Russian. Mark is very diligent about it. He takes an hour lesson every day from the CD's we purchased to learn conversational Russian. He can now say, "Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?" He can also say, "What would you like to buy?" Or, "I would like to have lunch in the hotel with you today." He hasn't learned to ask where the restroom is located yet, but today's lesson was about how to order beer and vodka! Mark thinks he'd better skip this lesson and go straight to the one about the bathrooms. I haven't been as good about fitting in my Russian lesson everyday, but I try to put the CD's on in the car on my drive home from work. Road rage in Russian is quite interesting! It adds a whole new dimension to an otherwise humdrum day!

Another part of our education is the social science aspect of all of this. We have met or learned of many others who have done or attempted to do what we are doing right now. We just learned of a family here in Albuquerque who adopted three sisters from Ukraine 10 years ago. The mother then wrote a book about their experiences. A friend of ours who goes to church with that family loaned us the book, and I've started reading it. How helpful it is! It really helps to know we're not alone, and to be encouraged to keep pursevering for the sake of the kids. They are worth it.

The books paints a dim view of the lives of some Ukrainian children. The three sisters in the book were not much more than toddlers when they were removed from the dirty and unsafe home of their drunken and immoral mother and placed in an orphanage. We're not sure what our own two girls have experienced, but we want to be prepared to help them through making sense of whatever their lives have been in the past. We recently received an email from someone associated with Eastern European Missions who gave us some pretty sobering statistics. He said that when the children are released from the orphanages at age 16, 20% of them commit suicide within the first year. Of those that remain, 80% of the boys wind up in the Russian mafia and 50% of the girls become prostitutes. If only we could rescue more of them. But we long to save our Jana and Ella from a future like that. We,like God, long to give our girls "a future and a hope." We long to "prosper them and not to harm them." (Taken liberally from Jeremiah 11).

The biggest lesson we are learning right now in this educational experience is patience, patience, patience. We are truly "waiting on the Lord." It is so hard. We want the girls here with us today. I walk through the stores and long to buy things for them. We think about the holidays and wonder what their experiences have been in the past and want them here to share our traditions with them and to build memories with them. We are growing in love with them more and more through our prayers for them and our thoughts of them. In our minds they are firmly and forever, "our girls."

We are prepared for whatever comes with the girls becoming part of our lives. Another term we've learned about lately is "reactive attachment disorder" (negative learned behaviors many older orphans engage in as survival skills). We didn't observe any of these behaviors in our girls, although we certainly did in many of the other orphans at the camp we were at. But we are aware that things may surface once the girls become part of our home and family. We are realizing more and more the magnitude of adjustment that the girls will have to make in leaving everything they've ever known and coming to an entirely new life. They will be amazed and astounded by much of it, but we are aware that they may go through a grieving process at the same time. They will be thrown into an entirely new and different culture, and will have to learn an entirely new language. Who knows what other educational and emotional adjustments they will have to make? We just hope and pray that the love of God, the love of a good church family and many others, and love of a real family will help them overcome whatever hardships they may face. God will give us all we need.

So, our education continues to broaden our horizons and our hearts. Growth is sometimes a painful process, but we're sure God intends for these "growing pains" to bring about two beautiful new limbs in our family tree.

God is good. Much love to all,
Dawn

Hurry up and wait!

We have been playing the waiting game for about a month now. We had to rush to get fingerprints done, medical checkups, background checks, autobiographical information, and reference letters. We submitted all of that to our social worker, Malisa, (from New Mexico Christian Children's Home in Portales) the first week of September. Since then we have been waiting. But Malisa came to our home and spent the night with us Wednesday night. Yesterday afternoon she conducted our homestudy interview to follow up on the information we had already submitted. The interview took several hours.

Mark and I were somewhat nervous about this interview. Not that there was anything we were afraid of revealing. But the questions are very probing - dealing with issues from our past and situations we've experienced in our life and our marriage. It was as if we had been turned inside out and upside down and shaken. Malisa is very nice and is just doing her job, but whew! We were emotionally spent when the interview was over.

Malisa will now gather the rest of our information and write a full report about our life and family. When that is finished we can begin working on the International part of the adoption. This will all be done through Cornerstone Adoption Agency in Florida. They specialize in International adoptions and have facilited many adoptions from Ukraine, so they are very familiar with all the requirements and regulations of the Ukrainian government.

We are working on a very tight timeframe. We have to have all of our background checks, reports and paperwork completed by December in order to send it to Ukraine to be translated. The translation will take place in January. February is the only month in which the Ukrainian government considers adoption requests. If we want the adoption to take place this year everything has to be in order and ready to be considered by the first of February. Then, from what we understand, Ukraine only allows 1500 children to be adopted, within the country or internationally, each year. When we consider the needle in the haystack aspect of all of this it seems overwhelming. But God is so much in control of this! He brought us to it and He will bring us through it. We continue to walk by faith and not by sight.

If all goes well and we are approved for adoption by Ukraine in February, then we will have to go back to get the girls in the summer. We've been told that we will have to spend at least 30 days in the country. Part of that time we would be in Kiev where the national adoption board is. We would probablly have court appearances, etc. When we are released from Kiev we would travel to Mariupol (by plane to Donesk and then by train to Mariupol, where the orphanage is located). We will probably spend a couple of weeks there, finalizing all the girls' information and appearing in court with them. Only when all that is finished can we bring them home. But even after we have them with us we'll have regular checks on our family and on the girls to see how they are doing. The girls will remain Ukrainian citizens until they are 18, when they will choose which country they want to claim for citizenship.

We are convinced that God has chosen these girls for us. He is forging our relationship with them. Thanks to our dear Valya, we received a packet of letters and drawing from the girls two days ago. Most of it is in Russian, so we will need to find someone to translate, but the drawings are so expressive! We could make out "Mama" and "Papa" on most of the pages. On one paper they had drawn 6 faces and labeled "Papa," "Mama," Nathan, Annie, Zhanna and Ella. Our family! How all these things touched our hearts! We feel so connected to the girls and long to hold them and hug them and give them our love. We pray for patience as we hurry up and wait.

Our great appreciation to all who have been praying for us and the girls. Others have shared encouragement and cards and gifts to remind us to trust in God and that He is at work. We are so grateful to those who have given donations toward the adoption. Almost $8000 has been given so far. Praise God! We've already had to submit about $5000 to Cornerstone to begin the process, but it was supplied at just the right time.

We thank you and we praise our God in heaven for His abundance and joy as we continue to be led by Him! The waiting isn't so bad when friends join in the journey.

Much love to all,
Dawn