O HAPPY DAY!

April 29th

What a whirlwind few days we’ve had! Our first good news came on Monday night. We were told that no one came forward to contest our adoption! Yeah! We are really allowed to move forward quickly now. Even though we technically adopted sucessfully mid-month, this process is never really complete until the plane is taking off from the runway and your new kids are with you belted in the seat. We are trying to be happy, but not unrealistic either.



Yesterday was a full day of finding & completing documents, getting passport photos taken and travelling around to many offices trying to get answers to questions regarding the children’s histories, and how to deal with property issues. We also were asked by our new daughter to consider taking her to visit her biological mother to say goodbye before she left for the U.S. We are giving this request deep thought and prayer.


This morning started at 9:00am - and without any breaks – ended at 6:00pm. We criss-crossed three cities doing paperwork and getting final, Final, FINAL signatures from all the officials and school personnel that were necessary. I can happily say that the children are mostly, almost, completely our children. How’s that for a definitive decree. We thought that we would finish up everything in the region today, but we have one unexpected snag to clear up tomorrow and then we can finally submit their passport applications. As it turns out, our new daughter (and us too) has to “jump through extra hoops” because of her age.


We were also able to finally take our son out of his orphanage today for good! He was so excited. He was in constant motion until he finally crashed asleep in our hotel room @9:30pm. His sister was getting so annoyed with him. Just like all siblings! We were able to be more natural with each other today too. This was the first time our daughter could see us interact with her brother outside the orphanage, and she was happy to see how much we cared for him. She started to really understand why we wanted to adopt him and I hope she yearned for more of that love & affection for herself. We want so much to have that kind of a relationship with her soon. We are willing to take the time to build this with her.


Tomorrow we are also hoping to leave this region and travel with our new kids. This is a 4-Day Holiday weekend in Ukraine and we would like to enjoy our time together. Otherwise, we will just have to wait here for a week for their passports. We are hoping to take a train to the capitol and enjoy the sights there. We’ll write more and let you know where we end up.
We also wanted to ask you to say a prayer for the other adopting RDFC family that’s here. They had an unfavorable court date with their judge today. We know that this adoption is not over for them, but this major setback is hard to take. They have been living here for several months with little to show for it.

Pray for energy and good health for Weeks in Ukraine and Weeks in Brea. This is a challenging time and attacks are under way to keep these kids from the love and freedom that is coming to them. May His will be done and may the name Jesus be glorified in all that is thought and said and done. Amen.