We Are Back Home...And Missing Our Little Girl!

We arrived home in the evening on Christmas Eve, after 24 hours of travel from Eastern Europe.  We were quite tired from the trip and from the week overall...but arrived home to a beautiful white Christmas with our girls!

The trip went very well.  No travel delays, although the airline failed to deliver our luggage on the way over.  They did deliver it to our hotel at 11pm the 2nd day in the foreign country, but we had to wear our travel clothes for our first official meeting and our first visit to the orphanage.  Arghh!!  But, it didn't seem to matter in the end. 

During our first meeting, we found out more background information on little "Claire"...including that her real first name is Anastasia.  So, with that in mind, we decided to name her Anna Loraine.  Anna being short for Anastasia, and Loraine being Christy's grandmother's name.

We had two visits per day scheduled with Anna during the week, which was awesome!  Because of snow and traffic, the drive from the hotel to the baby home could take as much as two hours each way, so we ended up not going back to the hotel the last couple of days and instead toured the area a bit.  We are so fortunate to be traveling to a beautiful area! 

Our visits were incredible.  It was so wonderful to get to spend as much time with Anna as we did.  She is such a lovable and engaging little girl!  And tiny!!  She is the size of a 12-15 month old, but she does walk quite well, and she loves to play with toys!  We did take a LOT of pictures, including these:

Now we wait for a court date.  It will be at least March before that...but we pray it comes quickly and we can go back over to bring Anna home to her family. 

God Bless,
David and Christy

We Have Travel Dates!!!!

We got the call yesterday...and have dates to travel to the foreign country! 

We will soon be meeting our little girl!  This has been such a long journey, but we've stayed true to our mission and soon will be holding little Claire.  Praise Jesus! 

Can you think of a better Christmas gift?

Some More Good News

Well we are moving in the right direction.  Received a call from our agency yesterday.  Now typically when a call comes in from them, I brace myself for bad news.  That's just been the way it goes.  But last week we heard that our dossier had been submitted in the foreign country.  That was CERTAINLY good news.  And then yesterday, the phone rang again.  Uh oh.  And she started out by telling me that the government head of adoptions in our region has been out sick recently.  I thought "oh great, nothing has happened with our paperwork because the person is sick".  But, much to my surprise, there was good news attached.

It seems that our agency's staff overseas reached the government head by phone to inquire about our dossier, and was told that everything was in order and she had instructed her staff to begin putting together dates! 

Yes, you read that right....DATES!  As in, travel dates!  As in, once we receive those, we will know when we are traveling to see our little girl! 

Awesome news, right? 

What a blessed day. 

We'll keep you posted!

Thanksgiving!!!

Our prayers have been partially answered today...in that our dossier has been formally submitted to the officials in the foreign country!!  This is a HUGE step in our journey to bring home our little girl, and one that has been a LONG time coming. 

When we began our journey to adopt little Mindy, it was nearly 10 months ago.  Of course, we hit several roadblocks along the way, including losing Mindy and being told it would not be possible to adopt baby Simon at this time.  But then Claire made herself known to us, and the rest is history.  God's plans certainly present themselves to you if you keep your eyes, ears, and HEART open to them! 

We now await word on our first travel dates.  That will be an amazing step...to actually travel to the foreign country and hold our little girl.  We will keep you posted as that unfolds.  Thank you for your prayers and for continuing to follow us in this beautiful journey. 

God Bless,
David and Christy

Getting Closer to Submission

We talked further with our agency today.  They are reviewing yet another requested update in our homestudy...but this should be the LAST update.  And if all goes well, we should be getting it apostilled tomorrow or Thursday, and sending it to our agency for shipping to the foreign country.  By this time next week, we actually may be prepared to have our dossier submitted!  And after that, we can officially wait for travel dates.  Stay tuned!

Grant Us Wisdom And Peace...

It has been a tough few weeks in our adoption journey.  As many of you know, we were told last week that our adoption of little Simon would not be possible until next spring.  The foreign country would not allow the submission of paperwork until after his 1 year birthday.  After consulting with Andrea at Reece's Rainbow, we all agreed that it was not a good plan to wait until then to continue in our efforts.  Our paperwork would be getting too close to the expiration dates on much of it, and starting over is not a good option.  So we reluctantly decided to move on to another child. 

We talked with Andrea about the children that are in orphanages that our agency has relationships with.  After losing Mindy, we felt compelled to move in a different direction.  That's part of the reason we switched from a girl to a boy.  It didn't feel right "replacing" her so soon with another girl.  But several weeks have passed, and one little girl kept presenting herself to us.  She is nearing 3 years old, is in the same baby home as Mindy, and is facing the institution next year.  And Andrea told us that no one has ever inquired about her.  Well we were going to change that!  So late last week, we commited to little Claire.  And our hope now is that we can begin making progress again.  That we can move quickly to submit our paperwork, make our travels, and work toward bringing home Our Fifth Girl! 

We pray that God will grant us the wisdom to complete this journey, and bring Peace to us and to little Claire. 

God Bless....

Big Meeting in The Foreign Country This Week

One of the issues when committing to David from Mindy is that our adoption agency does not have a relationship with the orphanage he is in.  They are licensed in the region of course, which is why we stayed in that region when committing to another child, but they haven't worked with that home before.  So, this week there is a big meeting between our agency and the government adoption head there to develop an agreement allowing them to represent us in David's adoption.  We have our fingers crossed that the meeting goes well, and that it moves quickly afterward.  We really want to travel before too much more time goes by...especially as we lost a couple months when Mindy's parents came back into the picture. 

Your prayers this week would be really appreciated!! 

God Bless,
David and Christy

Meet Simon!!

This is Simon! 

He is 7 months old and in Eastern Europe, like our little Mindy.  After losing Mindy last week (but happily to her bio family!), our hearts weighed very heavily.  We stepped back, prayed, and looked for guidance on what direction to take. 

Our prayers lead us to Simon!  Isn't he adorable?

Since our paperwork is pretty much in place and ready for submission, we hope to be making our first trip sometime in October...if all goes well.  We feel a bit apprehensive after what we' ve been through the past few months in our process, but we pray that this all works out and we can bring our little boy home soon!

Now, I suppose we need to change the blog from pink to blue?

Sad News...It's Over

Our journey to bring home our darling Mindy is over. We received news late yesterday that her biological parents have, after 4 1/2 years, filed paperwork to prevent her adoption. They apparently intend to bring her back into their family.

We are heartbroken, and confused, and angry. And other emotions too. But we have faith that this is God's plan and that He will continue to take care of her. When she turned 4 in January and was going to be institutionalized, she came into our lives and we knew we needed to save her from that fate. Even though this isn't ending the way we wanted, we did accomplish that most important goal! God works in such mysterious ways! We just have to have faith that she is going to a good home and will be loved. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure; but that's where the faith comes in!

Now, we need to figure out what God's plans for us are. I think another child is in our hearts, but we'll see. We love this one so much, and it's so hard to lose her after 7 months.

God Bless,
David and Christy

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting....

We haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean anything has changed. It's just that nothing has happened in a few weeks! We have all of our dossier paperwork submitted, and are just in the waiting mode for next steps, most importantly TRAVEL DATES! We are still hoping to make our first trip to the foreign country before mid-September. But it's out of our hands at this point, and that's a frustrating place to be.

Hoping to report good news SOON!

Love you all...
David and Christy

Our Garage Sale Was A Huge Success!!!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone involved in our garage sale! It was a wonderful experience...but a LOT of work. But, it was all worth it because we raised money to help us bring home our sweet baby from Easter Europe.

Thank you to those that donated items...there were so many generous people who gave so freely of their items. We couldn't have had a sale without you!

Thank you also to those of you who attended our sale. We encountered so many angels this weekend! So many people gave their time and money to support our efforts, and we appreciate you more than you know.

And for those who were unable to attend, we thank you for your thoughts and prayers! Please keep praying as we continue on our journey to adopt our little girl.

Hopefully it won't be too long until we can update you all on our travel dates!

God Bless,
David and Christy

Garage Sale For Mindy Is Almost Here!

Some very generous folks have FILLED our garage with wonderful items for our sale....so much so that we have decided to extend our sale to BOTH Friday and Saturday next week.

WHAT: A Garage Sale to raise funds to help us bring Mindy home

WHEN: Friday and Saturday, July 16-17, 2010; 8am until we can't take it anymore

WHERE: 176 Riverwood Drive, Franklin, TN (in the Cottonwood subdivision)


View Larger Map

We will have furniture, toys, baby items, household goods, some children's clothing, tools....and MUCH MUCH More!!

Come Saturday and we will have Louis' Bocce Club pizza for sale by the slice at lunchtime! All proceeds from the garage and pizza sale will help us bring Mindy home. Thank you so much to everyone involved!!

Garage Sale For Mindy Rescheduled

UPDATE: Our fundraiser Garage Sale which was postponed in May due to the flood is now back on! We will hold it on Saturday July 17th.

WHAT: A Garage Sale to raise funds to help us bring Mindy home

WHEN: Saturday, July 17, 2010; 8am until we can't take it anymore

WHERE: 176 Riverwood Drive, Franklin, TN (in the Cottonwood subdivision)

Two ways you can help:

1. Come to our sale! We will have lots of items for sale, including baby items, some furniture, tools, outdoor items, household goods. Plus, the kids want to help and will likely have snacks and drinks for sale.

2. Donate items to our sale! Unfortunately, we lost several boxes of items we had stored in our garage for the sale when we were flooded, so we can really use additional items for our sale. If you are looking at clearing anything out of your garage or attic, this would be a great way to do so. Unfortunately we are not set up to sell clothing, but almost anything else would be SO appreciated. We know many of you already donated items for our sale...THANK YOU!! If you have any items to donate, please email us at dstatz1@gmail.com. We will make arrangements to get those items from you.

Thank you everyone!

Our Homestudy is Done.....Again!

We have made some GREAT progress this week! We haven't posted here in several weeks, as things have just seemed to be at a standstill. But, in the past week we have successfully transitioned our homestudy to a new agency...Jewish Family Service in Nashville. We met with our new Social Worker last Friday, and she visited our home to meet with the girls on Wednesday. She completed ALL the paperwork and submitted it to our agency, which approved it today. IT'S DONE!!!

So, next step is for us to finalize the dossier paperwork and get it all apostilled...probably over the next week or so. Then we can submit the dossier to the foreign country and wait for our first travel dates!

Garage Sale For Mindy

UPDATE: Garage Sale postponed due to flood. We will post the date when it is rescheduled.

The time of our garage sale is fast approaching! We scheduled our sale for May 8th in order to coincide with the previously scheduled neighborhood wide sale in Cottonwood subdivision. Well, it appears now that Cottonwood has moved the date of the neighborhood sale. BUT, our sale is still on for Saturday, May 8th!!!

WHAT: A Garage Sale to raise funds to help us bring Mindy home
WHEN: Saturday, May 8, 2010; 8am-2pm
WHERE: 176 Riverwood Drive, Franklin, TN (in the Cottonwood subdivision)

Two ways you can help:

1. Come to our sale! We will have lots of items for sale, including baby items, some furniture, tools, outdoor items, household goods. Plus, we are looking into selling Krispy Kreme certificates.

2. Donate items to our sale! We can really use additional items to sell, so if you are looking at clearing anything out of your garage or attic, this would be a great way to do so. Unfortunately we are not set up to sell clothing, but almost anything else would be SO appreciated. If you have any items to donate, please email us at dstatz1@gmail.com. We will make arrangements to get those items from you.

Thank you everyone!

Dossier Underway

Despite all the confusion and craziness surrounding foreign adoption these days, we are still proceeding on our end to bring Mindy home. And with the homestudy substantially complete, we have now focused our attention on the dossier. We have a fair amount of the dossier paperwork already completed or in process, but it's still a huge undertaking! Our hope is that, by the time the dossier is prepared and ready for submission, any issues with intercountry adoption will have been worked out and we won't be held up.

We are still planning our Garage Sale for May 8th...and will be posting more details shortly on how others can help if they are inclined, including donating items for sale. It will be a great way for those of you here in the Franklin, TN area to get rid of that stuff in your garage or attic you no longer have a use for, and it will really help a great cause! More to come....

Thank you for all of your continued prayers!

David and Christy

Please Help Us Bring Home Our Fifth Girl…

We have been working since earlier this year to adopt 4 year old Mindy, an orphan with Down’s Syndrome living in eastern Europe. Those of you following this blog know that the past couple of months have been filled with paperwork, home study appointments, running around to local government offices, and more paperwork. We have been so wrapped up in the overwhelming process of adopting, that we felt it was important at this point to step back and re-examine the personal side of this journey.

There are an estimated 600,000 orphans under state care in eastern Europe, 70% of which are physically and/or mentally disabled. Thousands of these children have Down’s Syndrome, and it is estimated that 85-90% of babies born in eastern Europe with Down’s Syndrome are abandoned by the parents into state care. The orphanage system offers minimalistic care in an often austere, overcrowded environment. What’s worse, most special needs orphans, if not adopted by their 4th birthday, are sent away to mental institutions to live their remaining days. Many survive a year or less in these horrific conditions.

As bleak as that sounds, I am not writing this post merely to convey a depressing message. In fact, this is a message of hope! Because as hopeless as those conditions are for the children trapped in them, there are families here in America fighting to give these kids a chance at life. With the help of Reece’s Rainbow Down’s Syndrome Adoption Ministry, families across the country have been connecting with these children and bringing them home, literally saving their lives. In many cases, these families enter into this journey as a pure leap of faith, just knowing that God will provide the will and the means to reach the finish line. But, as the costs of adoption from eastern Europe can exceed $30,000, most families find themselves scrambling to raise money through fundraising and grants.

Our Mindy turned 4 in January and, like most orphans with Down’s Syndrome in eastern Europe, was facing imminent institutionalization. At this point, she is protected as we work through the long and difficult adoption process. We pray that, by Thanksgiving, Mindy will be home with us, joining our family as Our Fifth Girl.

We humbly ask for your help in this journey. There are several ways you can help, depending upon your means and abilities.

1. Financial – please consider a financial donation (fully tax deductible!) to our Family Sponsorship Page at Reece's Rainbow. Any amount would be appreciated more than you know!

2. Buy a Hat – we are selling beautiful, handmade “Muffin Hats” for girls ages 3 months to 3 years. Christy has been making these hats for 15 years and used to sell them commercially. Now, she is making them once again, and all proceeds will be used to help bring our fifth girl home to us.Please consider buying a "Muffin Hat for Mindy". We are selling them for $20. To purchase or get more information, please visit our Muffin Company page on Facebook, or view the order button on the right side of this blog.

3. Visit Our Garage Sale – for our friends and family in the Franklin, TN area, we will be having a garage sale in the Cottonwood subdivision on May 8, 2010. This coincides with the neighborhood wide sale, so make a day of it and stop by. If you have unused items sitting around your house that you would be willing to donate to our sale, please let us know by emailing us at dstatz1@gmail.com. The location of the sale is 176 Riverwood Drive, Franklin, TN 37069. All proceeds from our sale go to our adoption fund.

4. Last, but Not Least – Pray! We can use all the prayers you can muster, and in particular, please pray for the continued safety of Mindy until we can bring her home. Prayer doesn’t cost anything, but the return is immeasurable.

Thank you so much for joining us in our journey to bring home Our Fifth Girl! And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pass this message along to anyone you feel would be interested!

God Bless,
David and Christy Statz


“Once our eyes are opened, we can’t pretend we don’t know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act” Proverbs 24:12

We Had A Great Day!

The past couple of weeks have been frustrating, some of which we have blogged about on here. But today was AWESOME!!!

To begin with, we finally received current photos of our girl! Isn't she beautiful??? We can't wait to hug her and bring her home.

Plus, we received David's passport today...hopefully Christy's is on it's way.

We also are taking the final steps toward finalization of our homestudy, including getting appointments for next week for our psychological profiles.

The State of TN came through today with our completed criminal background checks...we are still waiting on New York's.

So, as you can see, we made a lot of progress today. But that picture tops it all!

Our Muffin Hat Sale Fundraiser Has Begun!

Great news! We have begun to receive orders for Christy's handmade "muffin hats"...little girls hats that we are selling to raise funds for Mindy's adoption. Thank you to all that have ordered, as well as those that have given money to the cause. We appreciate it more than you know!

If you are interested in the hats, please visit our Muffin Company page on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Muffin-Company/330263417733?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts

Or, you can order right from the blog by following the "Add to Cart" link on the right hand side of this page. There are two sizes available: Infant (3 mo-1 year) and Toddler (1 year - 3 years).

Thank you so much for helping!

Is No News Good News??

We spoke with the agency again yesterday, and they said they haven't received any information yet on Mindy. She is in an orphanage in eastern Europe they do not commonly work with, so their contact did not get to see her like we were hoping. We had been praying for the past couple weeks that additional information on Mindy was forthcoming...but that doesn't seem to be the case now. I expressed to the agency how not getting information causes the mind to conclude that something is wrong. They promised us though, that there is nothing wrong...there is just nothing to report. So, at this point we can just continue doing the things that we have control over, and trusting that God is taking care of our little girl until we can get there.

Speaking of things that are in OUR control...we have made progress on the paperwork front! We received a draft of our homestudy, and our social worker also sent it to the adoption agency for them to review. I'm sure there will be some tweaks and maybe some additional information will be necessary, but we are fairly close to completing the homestudy. Yay on that!

Also, we know that the I-600A application is in process, as evidenced by two things; first, we received the green postcard back indicating that our certified mail package was successfully delivered, and second, the Department of Homeland Security cashed our check! So that is underway. We are waiting for our passports to arrive, and we have received the dossier packet from the agency to begin that process. Fortunately, they had already provided some of that previously so we are underway with compiling that information already.

We know that things are moving forward, so we are thankful in that regard. We could just use some additional prayers that Mindy is taken care of, and that our road to her is somewhat smooth and free of speedbumps!

God Bless!

Please Help Us....Buy a Hat For Your Little One

To raise funds for our efforts at bringing Mindy home, we are selling these handmade Muffin Hats. Christy has been making these hats for 15 years and used to sell them commercially. Now, she is making them once again, and all proceeds will be used to help bring our fifth girl home to us.

Please consider buying a "Muffin Hat for Mindy". We are selling them for $20. Thank you for considering helping us out. To purchase or get more information, please visit our Muffin Company page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Muffin-Company/330263417733?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts

Homestudy Almost Complete!

We had our final meeting with the social worker tonight at our home. She met with the 4 girls, and had an individual meeting with Christy (after meeting separately with David last night). If all goes well we will have the homestudy written up and in our hands soon. We feel like that is a MAJOR accomplishment!

We also visited the post office today to get our passport applications submitted. And, we are ready to submit the I-600A to immigration to get that process started.

Now that we are getting close to putting the homestudy behind us, we have the big, bad dossier to tackle. That will take some time to complete. One step at a time...

Another Good Day!

This was a good week in our journey, and today was no exception. We accomplished several things today.

First, we had our physicals to get our medical forms completed. No issues there.

We also finally got the proper documentation in with VitalChek to get certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license from New York. We had to get new Tennessee drivers licenses because we had moved a couple of years ago, and the addresses did not match our current address. That's done.

We got the mortgage letter and the employment verification letter for David's job. All properly notarized of course!

And, now that our agency contracts are in place, we have our Family Sponsorship Page set up with Reece's Rainbow! Our autobiographical write up is included....at:

http://www.reecesrainbow.org/sponsorstatz.html

Thank you for continuing to join us in our journey!

God Bless,
David and Christy

Agency Contracts Are Signed

Just a quick update tonight. We received our contracts from the adoption agency yesterday, and signed them, got them notarized and returned them to the agency. So, it's getting more official by the day!

Thursday evening is David's individual interview with the home study social worker. Then, we look forward to our first home visit next Tuesday. Step by step....

Progress Sunday

Today was a good day. After church and a nice lunch at Jason's Deli, we came home and dedicated our afternoon to finishing up the packet of paperwork for the homestudy social worker. We had autobiographies, marriage questionnaires, adoption questionnaires, financial statements, and several other documents to put together. We each sat with our respective computers and typed until we could type no more. We copied until we could copy no more. And by the end of the afternoon, we had gotten through everything that was in our control.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our agency contracts....hopefully tomorrow. That will be a big milestone, after which we hope to be able to get more information on Mindy. We'll keep you posted!

Ok, We Are Officially Overwhelmed

I know it's got to be a typical emotion during the adoption process....but we are officially overwhelmed. First of all, the paperwork is unbelievable. No surprise to any of you that have adopted, but wow. But we'll get through it.

Secondly, the reality of the finances is causing some lost sleep. It's an unfortunate aspect to this, but one that is unavoidable. We entered into this with faith that the money necessary to bring Mindy home will be there when we need it. We still feel very strongly that that is the case; that God will provide the means. I have to keep telling myself that, because when you add up all the projected costs the numbers are staggering. But we have some sources already identified, and have some plans to sell some things to raise additional money. Plus, we are very blessed that generous people had already commited funds to Mindy's adoption before we were even introduced to her story.

And third, the idea of making two trips to eastern Europe, is both exciting and frightening! It will be an adventure, for sure, but we don't typically travel much further than Florida! We are approaching it as the adventure of a lifetime, and at the end of it all, Mindy will be coming home with us. And that makes it ALL worthwhile.

Love,
David and Christy

Homestudy Is Underway!

We had our first homestudy meeting with the social worker tonight, at the Catholic Charities office in Nashville. The initial meeting was primarily to get to know each other, and to go over the process and the paperwork checklist. We were given lots of forms to fill out prior to our next meeting, which will be an individual interview between David and the social worker late next week.

So far, we think the process is going well. We really like Amanda, our social worker. She has prior experience working for an adoption agency specializing in eastern European adoptions, so she will be a great source of information and encouragement. After David's interview next Thursday, we have our first home visit scheduled the following week, including Christy's individual interview.

We made some good progress today! We know we have just finished a 1/4 mile warmup of a full marathon...but you've got to start somewhere. And all things considered, we are 1/4 mile closer to Mindy.

Our Journey Has Begun

No, not our journey to eastern Europe....we are a LONG way from that. But, we have begun the long process of bringing Mindy home. It seems like a journey that began in some respects a couple of years ago, when we first started seriously considering adoption. God was speaking to us, even if our ears and hearts weren't quite open yet. And then, a bit later, we began to open to the idea of adopting a special needs child. God was still speaking, and we were starting to hear. And then, several months ago, we were introduced to the work of Reece's Rainbow Down Syndrome Adoption Ministry. This was getting hard to ignore! And one day, quite randomly, an email arrived in our inbox about Mindy, and her plight in eastern Europe, including a looming institutionalization. At once, it all came together, and we were ready to answer the call. And so, the journey began in earnest.

Here in Tennessee, we are seeing the signs of spring all around us. Daffodils are beginning to pop out of the soil in front of our home. Birds are active. Trees will soon be budding. Yet just when we have begun to have hope that winter is over, a blizzard has struck. But this blizzard is not one of wind, snow and cold....but rather a blizzard of paperwork!

Anyone that has adopted has experienced this blizzard. But, considering the sunshine that awaits at the end of this storm, we don't mind one bit.

We are underway with the paperwork process with 3 different entities assisting us in this journey. Of course, the wonderful Andrea at Reece's Rainbow helped us to begin our journey. And now we are also underway with our adoption agency in Missouri, as well as the homestudy agency here in Nashville, with whom we have our first meeting tonight!

Our hope is that, after contracts are executed with the adoption agency in another week or so, we will begin to receive more information on Mindy, including additional photos. We will share what we can, when we can, so that everyone interested can share in this journey with us. It is truly a journey of faith, and we will be honored if you will come along with us.

Love,
David and Christy