Results from Russia Meeting Today

Below is a link to the US State Department's website that we have been checking for valid updates.
http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/russia.html

As you will see, there is another meeting coming up on May 12th to continue to work things out. I have read other positive blog posts which state the delegates referring to our countries as being on the same team, and they ultimately want the doors to remain open. We will continue to pray, and allow our hope to reamin secure in the right source.

Please pray for us as we need wisdom: Our dossier will be ready to go to Russia before this meeting takes place (most likely). We need to decide if we should take this huge financial step of sending our dossier to Moscow without knowing the doors are remaining open.

Thank you in advance for your prayers- we will keep you posted!

Hope Check

Due to the volcanic ash that has been hanging over most of eastern Europe, the US delegates weren't able to get to Moscow over the weekend for today's scheduled meeting. The meeting has been pushed back to sometime next week.

We decided to just go ahead and get our dossier paperwork apostilled on the 26th- meeting held, additional paperwork added or not.  We really prayed hard about it, and decided that no matter what happens, we feel God has called us to Russia. We are going to keep praying that no suspensions are in the future. Our agency has informed us that people are still traveling now, (if they can make it in) for court dates, and for their first trips. So, that is good news.

I have to admit that this past week or two has really made me feel like we had another failed attempt at starting a family. Not that I totally thought things were done with, but I had that "let down" feeling..one I feel I know so well. I have to consciously choose each day to take up my cross, and put my hope in the One who carried it for us. I can not hope in the upcoming meeting, I can not hope in future visions of our family enjoying fun times together in Russia, and at home, I can only hope in the one who promised to give us future and a HOPE....afterall, that is the blog title, right?   Easy to say, hard to do. So I am back to giving our teddy bear lots of hugs, and back to bugging our Heavenly Father to allow us to bring home the child He has planned for us....SOON!   My hope is again on the up and up.

Upcoming Meeting

Our agency informed us that the US officials are traveling this weekend to Moscow for a Tuesday, April 20th meeting. This meeting will be held with many government officials in Russia to determine the future proceedings of adoptions from Russia to the U.S. They may decide to hault adoptions (although we are praying this is NOT the outcome), or change some rules and regulations pre and post adoption.

A little side note as to where we are in our process: 
 We just had all our paperwork that originated in NJ notorized. Greg was going to drive up to Trenton Monday to get everything apostilled (and then pick it up Tuesday morning...a 24 hr. expedited turn-around). We are going to hold off on this step for now. After the meeting on the 20th, there is a chance we will need to sign an additional document...and if that is the case, we would have to make another trip up to Trenton after we complete that document (totally hypothetical as of now...but a possibility). Or, they could temporarily close the doors, so we wouldn't want to have paid $300 for apostilling only to have to re-do later.   SO, we are planning, Lord willing, to have Greg drive up the following Monday/Tuesday (26th &27th) to do this step.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We really do feel them. We are not worrying, and we both have peace that Russia still is the country God is calling us to bring a child home from. We will keep our blog updated with news as we hear from our agency.

What a Day!

Today was a day of news...changing news! ...news of which I didn't hear at all first hand. I left the house at 7:30- a quiet house- one that did not turn the TV or radio on. However, thanks to friends, our agency, and the internet, I have been in the loop the whole time.

At the start of the day, a news station had reported that all Russian adoptions had been frozen (no details can be added, b/c I didn't watch this or hear this...and from what I was told...those were the only words I heard).

Then, thank God, our agency sent out this update:

NCFA Confirms Russian Adoptions Rumor is FALSE: Adoptions ARE still being processed by the Russian Ministry of Education


NCFA has confirmed with officials from the U.S. Department of State that the rumor of a suspension of intercountry adoptions from Russia to the U.S. is currently false. Intercountry adoptions are still being processed by the Russian Ministry of Education until further notice.


We will announce further details as they become available.

We don't really know what each day will bring. We are going to continue moving along with our paperwork. Everything was notorized today, and if we continue to hear good news, Greg will be driving them to be apostilled on Monday in Trenton on his day off.

Please continue to pray!

....having just got home (at 9:30 from all day and night parent conferences) I am off to bed so that I can wake up at 5:20 to run! What a day!

Sad News and a Prayer Request

For those of you who may not have seen, read, or heard: an adoptive mother from Tennessee decided that she could no longer care for her adopted son (7 yrs. old) stating that he was psychotic, and threatened to harm their family. She decided to purchase a one-way ticket for the boy and send him back to Russia...alone! As you may surmise, Russia's MOE (Ministry of Education...who is in charge of all Russian adoptions) is not very happy with the US because of this, and may decide to close its doors to US families wanting to adopt from Russia). The news articles I have read and seen do say they have temporarily closed their doors, however, our agency did not post anything yet regarding this...which we are taking as a good sign so far. I am pasting a link below to the World News Video that gives some more detail.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36322282/ns/world_news-europe/?gt1=43001

This sad news calls for prayer:
-pray for the boy who was returned...he must be so confused, and further hurt well beyond what any child should.
-pray for the adoptive mother and family- this couldn't have been an easy thing to do...disturbing as it was...and as hard as it may be to pray for them.
-pray for the head of the Ministry of Education to have wisdom and clarity (not anger) in his decision to potentially suspend US adoptions. I pray he sees that there are so many truly loving families wanting to give an orphan a loving home.
-pray for the families that are in this process already. Yes, this includes us...but I am praying more for the families I have been "following" via blogs who are in between trips- parents who have just held, hugged, and seen their children and are awaiting the 2nd trip to bring them home with the thought that things may be totally undone. I can't begin to imagine what they are feeling now.
-pray for the orphans of Russia (and the orphans all over the world) who are without a home, a mother, a father, and many times without even the basic necessities of life.

My heart is heavy today- for each of these people we are praying for. While it is tempting to worry or be upset over circumstances we can not control, it is a perfect time to lean on God - who knows His plans for our lives.

Thank you for your continued prayers!

Created from the Heart

We wanted to bring something to the orphanage on our first trip- something we could leave with our child, something that would have our scent on it, something that he or she could hold and hug until we return, something he or she can bring home with.

So, today we took a trip to Build-A-Bear. We picked out a cute non-gender specific bear that we stuffed with love, and two hearts. For those of you who don't know the routine of making a Build-A-Bear, after stuffing the bear, you take a heart and you kiss it, making a wish for who the bear is for. Well, for me, this was the moment I got all teary eyed...well, that moment, along with the moment later in the car when we shared our wishes with each other. We wished for a our child to be happy, healthy, and to come home soon!

We then got to pick out an outfit for our bear. We decided to get a Phillies T-shirt for now- afterall, the shirt tells a little about where we are from, and where our baby/child will be spending a lot of fun times in the future!

When we got to the birth certificate part, we decided to hold off for now. We will be able to bring the bear back and have a birth certificate created either when we have our child home, or when we get a referral. The kind lady who made our experience so special even told us there is a Build-A-Bear store in Russia! I have since tried to look it up on line...but the page to that store is written in Russian...so I don't know which city or region it is in.

It feels so good to know that whenever I want to hug or hold our child, I can just pick up the teddy bear for now, and hopefully, after we give the bear to our child, he or she will be able to hug it whenever he or she wants to hug us. :) (insert teary eyes here...again!)

Here is  Тэдди Бир  (Russian for Teddy Bear...I think!)

What Lies Ahead

There are a few things that lie ahead before we send off our Dossier to Russia:

1. We need to get our Home Study report back - our social worker has 4 weeks from last Saturday to complete it...so we have some time yet.
2. As soon as we get our HS report, we can put the date from that report onto our Registration form, then get all our NJ originated documents (this is the only thing we are waiting for to complete the NJ end...) notorized, and then apostilled in Trenton.
3. HS Review: After the HS report is completed, we will have to read it over, and approve it. Then, another social worker will do the same (at BCS). After that, the head of international adoption at BCS will read it over to make sure it is approved, and then, lastly, the head of the Russia team at BCS will need to approve it.
4. Once our HS report has been approved by everyone in #3, then BCS will send that report along with all the papers they are responsible for providing (I listed all of those in my previous post on Dossier Requirements) out to be apostilled in Harrisburg, PA through a courier service.
5. We will then compile our apostilled NJ and PA documents, and send them together to Grand Rapids, MI where our BCS headquarters is located. They will approve our Dossier, and send it off to Russia to be translated. Once it is translated, and registered in Moscow, then we can be matched with our child (if he or she is "waiting") or be put on the list to be matched when a child arrives that fits our requests.

Praying for our Home Study report to be completed quickly, and then for that entire HS report review process to go quickly. Still praying for the end of April! :)

Thank you for all your prayers!
Love,
Greg & Liz