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!
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....
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
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
 |
| We are the
proud parents of 4 biological daughters, whom we homeschool in a
Christian environment. We pray that God will bring our 5th
Girl home to us from Russia. With Love, David and Christy Statz |
