More Practice at Waiting

I have waited my ENTIRE life to adopt.  I have pretty much always known I was going to adopt children.  I have waited YEARS for Derek to be ready to join me on this adventure.  Then once the Lord had prepared his heart, we waited to get a referral for a foster-adopt placement from US foster care.  I have waited on several foster-adopt placements, fallen in love with children, again and again, been their mommy for months and months, and then had them taken away from me when it was decided they would return to biological family members.  Over and over again.  And each time, I waited and waited for my Father to sooth and heal my broken heart from those losses.  


I have waited on the Lord's perfect timing.  Then He showed us Gideon.  He has been waiting for five years.  His ENTIRE LIFE!  I knew we couldn't leave Gideon waiting.  So we started the process.  I have waited MONTHS to get to Eastern Europe, ever since we committed to Gideon in June.  We had hoped to travel by October, but then there was a long, two-month shut-down, rather unexpected.  And so we waited some more.  Then finally, we were invited to this country!  We waited for that travel date to finally arrive.  We got on a plane.  And sat and waited patiently in those crowded little airplane seats, eating pretzels and sipping Sprite, while we waited to cross the Atlantic.  We flew.  We waited in airports.  Got on more planes.  Waited some more.  Now we are here!  We got to our appointment where we would see our boys' files, sat down on a leather couch in a hallway outside the office, and we waited.  Somehow, that fifteen minute wait felt like one of the longest waits of them all!  Could this be real?  Could this really, truly be happening?  We are so close!


And so of course, there has to be the unexpected.  We did get the boys' referrals, so nothing earth-shattering has gone wrong.  This is just a minor speed-bump, truly.  But being asked to wait until Tuesday to meet them . . . REALLY?  Haven't we waited long enough?!?  Haven't the boys waited long enough?  But I guess not.  The Lord's refining fires are a mystery to me, but I try to trust Him and let Him lead.  Last night two other families left this city to go meet their children.  They are probably meeting them right about now, in fact!  A couple of other families are here in this town, meeting their children.  I am SO HAPPY for all of them, and living vicariously through them, because today their dreams are coming true! 


And meanwhile, we wait.  Wait in a very cute little apartment in an amazingly beautiful thousand year old city in Eastern Europe.  Trying to be happy to be here, trying to soak in the rich culture, trying to appreciate the beauty that is all around us, even though all we really want to do is get on a train, go to the institution, and scoop up those children who have been waiting for a hug from their mommy and daddy for way too long.   And soon, so very very soon, we too will finally be done waiting.  Our boys will finally be done waiting.  Their mommy and daddy will come for them!  It is so soon.  But until Tuesday, we are waiting.


So I know what you all really want is pictures of that first meeting, but since I do not have those yet, I will leave you will pictures from our walk around town instead:

my first day here, I saw a babushka stop and cross herself
as she passed by this church

new building being built near our apartment

a Soviet car, from the old days when this is the only kind
of car anybody was allowed to drive (and even then, there
were not enough of these to go around!)

brave man crossing a crazy busy street,
and in the background notice the billboard for fastening
your seatbelt?  Seatbelts have really not caught on
around here yet!

pink building (I am including this for my daughter's
benefit!  Hey, it's pink!  What's not to love, right?)

these cars are parked about three deep on the sidewalk, all in
different directions

I am including the picture of the crane for my son
Josiah's benefit.  He would love to just stand on the
sidewalk and watch these guys work all day long!

And here, on the same building, they are building
it up, brick by brick.  Awww, Joey, I miss you, buddy!
You would love this!

fancy schmancy kids' clothing store

There are birds everywhere!  Sometimes we have to step around
them to avoid stepping on them!  

very important office building I never want to forget:
inside this building we received the paperwork
for our adoption!

statue right outside that same building

Three Airplanes, Two Days, One Big Adventure Has Begun!

After two long days of travel, we have arrived safe and sound in the capital city of our son’s country!  We are so excited to be here!  Everything has gone wonderfully so far.  The planes were crowded, the layovers were long, my feet are swollen, and we are having a marvelous adventure!  

the airport

We got off the plane, walked through the dark, windy, cold evening (yes, it was one of those airports where you walk down the steps and outside!)  piled onto a crazy-crowded shuttle bus, poured into the airport, got that first stamp in our passports (I’ve waited my whole life to get a stamp in my passport!) and were met by Niko, our wonderful driver.  He took us grocery shopping:

took us to our apartment, got us settled in, and we promptly fell asleep for the next nine hours!  I can’t even tell you if the bed was comfortable or not!  We just had to sleep! 

our living room

first dinner in our lovely little kitchen

bedroom

bathroom

washing machine in the bathroom

So we woke up around 5:30 this morning, cooked up some eggs, pancakes, and ham, and enjoyed our first morning in our son’s country with a leisurely breakfast.    Niko picked us up at 8 am for our appointment.  We drank very strong coffee from a little coffee truck while we waited.  

Then we went up some stairs, into an office, sat down on a couch, and there on the little table in front of the couch were files!  With photos stapled to the fronts of them!  

Oh, the photos.   I didn’t expect to see such cute little baby pictures, and we were especially thrilled because they allowed us to keep two.  I just can’t get over how sweet this little face is.  

Gideon's baby picture!!!

 Be still my heart.  I am hoping to share another photo with you soon, as well.  You'll just have to wait patiently for that one!  


We were asked a couple of quick questions:  “Tell us about your family?” and “Why have you decided to adopt children with special needs?”  Then they read to us out of the files.  We didn’t really learn very much about the boys that we didn’t already know, but there was some information that was important.  So now the next step is to wait until tomorrow, when we can go pick up the boys’ referrals.  Then normally parents hop right onto a train and go directly to their children’s region to meet the child, but in our case, things will go a bit differently.  The director has asked us not to come until after the New Year.  So we will be waiting here for a few days and heading down on the train on the 2^nd.  Then we *should* be able to meet the boys on Tuesday morning. 

In the meantime, we just wait.  We are in an awesome apartment right in downtown K**v.  We went to a Ukr**nian buffet for lunch, and then we took a nice meandering walk (translation:  we got a little lost!)  We are going to head out again this afternoon and use the WiFi at McDonald’s (if you’re reading this, you will know I have found success with getting internet!)  We are supposed to have internet in our apartment, but that doesn’t seem to be working.  Neither is the water, but at least we got nice hot showers in this morning before that stopped working!  J  We are also hoping to find a place to buy a map of the city so we can spend the next few days exploring! 

We have been able to meet up with a couple of other lovely Reece’s Rainbow families while we have been here.  That is pretty awesome, to be able to share this journey with other families!  We shared lunch together and we even have cell numbers so we can stay in touch during our stay.  I am hoping to meet up with some other families during our stay here, also. 

In other news, I miss my kids like crazy and I can’t wait to hug the stuffing out of them again!  They are in good hands with my parents, so I know I have nothing to worry about.  It just doesn’t help me with the missing them.  I sure love those little sweeties!   And I sure love these little sweeties over here!  And that is why we are here, on the other side of the world, that feels like a whole different world.   To gather my sweet children together.  

Counting Hours

When I first saw Gideon's photo, months and months ago, I knew I wanted nothing more than to leap across the ocean and hug that little boy.  And now, the countdown is no longer months.  Not weeks.  Not even days.  I am now counting down the HOURS before I get on an airplane!  I can hardly believe it!  Merry Christmas!  I am going to go love on my other little sugarplums for a few more hours now . . .

You Know You Are Adopting When . . .

You know you are thick in the midst of an international adoption when the heaters in your house suddenly stop working on the coldest day in December.  And at the same time, Grandma and Grandpa have a leak in their main water line and have to stay at your house until it can be repaired.  And at the same time, the washing machine goes out.  And you are leaving the country in six days.  Yep, we are really feeling the fun around here lately!  And truly, that just seems to be the way things go with international adoption.  If something can go wrong, it will!  If it's just little speedbumps like these, then we are fine!  And of course, in the midst of all of that, I've had a few other little tasks to complete:  sew quilts for the kids for their Christmas gifts (ssshhhh!  don't tell them!), learn Russian, pack for the trip, get things set up for the kids while we are away, and pull Christmas together somehow.  


But through all of this, we are truly feeling very blessed these last few days.  Surrounded by mounds of dirty laundry and stacks of suitcases and long to-do lists, yes, but also surrounded by sweet cuddly children, serenaded by Grandpa practicing Christmas songs on his guitar, nourished by Grandma's soups and french toast and homemade bread, the heaters are working again, and remarkably, everything seems to be coming together!  By golly, I think we are really going to pull this off!  

Because our suitcases are (mostly) packed

Our fridge is plastered with charts and instructions for Grandma and Grandpa to keep things running smoothly on the homefront

Gideon's bedroom is just about ready

The washing machine part will arrive tomorrow

Washing machines are not supposed to be
in pieces all over the laundry room floor!

if you look behind Derek, you can see the very edge
of a very scary pile of two weeks worth of dirty laundry!
"Only $50 extra for rush delivery on that part?
Sold!  Just get it here!"  

Christmas cookies have been made

Our Christmas tree has been cut down

and decorated

I only have one quilt top left to sew together, 

and two left to quilt 

Derek is still feeling calm and sane enough 

to play board games with the kids 

(Mousetrap is the current favorite around here)

And he's managed to keep Santa's workshop on schedule

And I know how to say "How much does this cost," "Where is the bathroom," "I am your mommy forever," "You are so smart," "Be careful," "Are you hungry?" and "I will love you forever."

I love this program!  

So all in all, we are feeling very blessed these days!

And SO SO ready to have all of our chickadees gathered together into our nest, so we don't ever have to be separated from each other again!  Or at least not for a very very very long time!

Roller Coaster

International adoption is

a real roller coaster ride!  

All I can say right now is that God is doing some amazing work on our hearts, teaching us patience and faith and all sorts of other things that we apparently are 

not yet perfect at!

Please pray for our process to go smoothly in the next few weeks.  Pray for the boys.  I feel like they really need a lot of prayer right now, so if you feel led to pray, pray for the boys.  We are praying that God will guide us step-by-step and that He will be in total control of every moment of this adoption process.  He loves these kids so much more than I ever could (and I love them a crazy lot!) so I totally trust Him with this.  I don't always understand, but I trust Him.  

We bought our tickets today!

We are really going!

In eighteen days we are going to be hurtling though the air across the ocean in order to give some great big hugs that have been a long time coming.  This sweet little pumpkin has been waiting long enough for a mommy and daddy of his own, don't you think?

Travel Plans!

We have travel plans!  We are going to be leaving December 26th to be in our son's country for a December 28th appointment!  We are going to meet our little boy!  It is really going to happen . . . and SOON!

So much to do . . . so many plans to make . . . 

shopping, 

packing, 

paperwork, 

prepare and freeze meals, 

finish photo books, 

collect donations for the institution, 

learn Russian,

finish sewing the kids' Christmas gifts,

finalize plans for the kids while we are away,

get Isaac's home school organized and written out 

for "the sub" (my mom),

stock up on duck food, rabbit food, goat food, hay, etc,

scrub and organize this house from stem to stern,

squeeze as many hugs and cuddles as I can 

into the next two weeks

(I am going to miss these kids 

SO MUCH . . . it hurts already!)

But soon . . . very VERY soon . . . we will all be together!

And that is what this is all about.

Our family will all be together soon!

Praise the Lord!

A Lady Who Loved The Lord

I was reading today about "Grandma Holt."  Bertha Holt, and her husband Harry, were farmers in the 1950s, raising their six biological children in Oregon.  Then in December 1954, Harry and Bertha watched a documentary film showing children in Korean orphanages after the Korean War.  The images stirred both of their hearts.  First the couple sent money to help the orphans.  And even though they felt they had done all they could, they could not forget about those waiting children.  The money would provide them some food and clothing.  But what the children needed even more was a family.  They needed somebody to love them.  


This is the part I found especially fascinating.  You see, "international adoption" barely existed at that point in history.  There was not a page full of adoption agencies in the phone book to call up to get the process started, because it had almost never been done!  And yet Harry and Bertha both, separately, felt that the Lord was giving them a clear message:  "Go!  Adopt!  Love my children."  As Bertha tells it, Harry announced, "I think we ought to adopt some of these children."  And she told him she felt the same way.  Then Harry asked her, "How many do you think we could take care of?"  Bertha considered the question and told him, "I suppose we could care for six of the Korean war orphans."  And it was Harry's response that is my favorite of all:  "Oh my, we have plenty of room for eight, or ten, or even more."  Love this guy!


So they decided on eight children, and wasted no time in writing to Washington DC to start the adoption process.  They were informed, however, that they would be allowed to adopt only two children from Korea.  They stood firm in their belief that they were being called to adopt eight.  Impossible, they were told.  The only way that could possibly happen would be to convince both houses of Congress to change the current adoption laws.  The Holts did not take that as a closed door.  They took it as a to-do list!  They petitioned Congress.  They wrote lots of letters.  They rallied for support.  They prayed.  Then, before Congress had even made a decision, Harry packed his bags and headed to Korea to search for their eight children.  Talk about faith, right?  He felt that God would lead him to four little boys and four little girls that were to be his children, and he did not want to be away from them a moment longer than necessary!  


Bertha stayed home to run the farm, care for their six children, and wait for God to work a miracle in Congress.  And in just two short months, special legislation was introduced in the Senate and "The Holt Bill" was unanimously passed allowing the Holts permission to bring eight Korean orphans into the US.  When photographers and reporters requested an interview, Bertha told them, "Oh, we're not nice looking.  And I'm only a farmer's wife.  But the children will be home from haying around five."  


Meanwhile, Harry had searched the orphanages for the children he felt the Lord had in mind for them.  He confided to his wife in a letter, "I don't allow myself to get too wrapped up in the cute, fat ones.  They're the babies others will want.  I want the kids that look frightened and lost.  I just wish I could take all of them."  He selected eight children and took them to his hotel room to care for them while waiting on Congress.

He began to get to know his new little blessings and spent his days caring for them, but little Judy, weighing less than ten pounds, was too weak and sick, and she went to be with the Lord before ever making it to America.  


Finally Harry arrived home with the children, and Time magazine covered the story.  The magazine article described Bertha rocking a pair of babies to sleep the first night home as "a picture of contentment."  

The Holts received a lot of criticism from the public for this adoption.  In the 1950s, adoption was supposed to be a secret!  At that time, agencies took great care to match a child to a family based on hair color, eye color, skin color, etc, so that nobody would ever know the child had not been born to those parents.  The fact that the Holts brought home children from Korea, and EIGHT of them, and the fact that they were so open about the adoption, caused many Americans to do one of two things:  criticize, or re-examine their own ideas regarding adoption.  After all, the Holts all loved each other EVEN THOUGH they didn't all look alike!  The Holts found time to nurture a houseful of little ones all at the same time.  Harry and Bertha, a simple farmer and his simple wife, had changed history.  

Harry and Bertha soon received hundreds of letters from parents across the country asking how they, too, could adopt Korean war orphans.  Those letters inspired the beginning of Holt International Children's Services, which is now the largest international adoption agency in the world.  And even after Harry died, Grandma Holt felt led to carry on the ministry of Holt International.  She said, "This work was always God's work.  If He wants it to continue,  it will."  Because of her unshakable faith and her deep love for children, just think how many children are now a part of a loving forever family!  When asked how she would like to be remembered, Bertha replied, "That lady who loved the Lord."  And what better way to remember her?  

(quotes from My Family, A Symphony by Aaron Eske, and www.holtinternational.org)

I Can Do All Things

The next time you feel like God can't use you, 

just remember........

Abraham was too old.

Joseph was abused.

Moses wasn't a fluent speaker.

Gideon was afraid.

Rahab was a prostitute.

Jeremiah and Timothy were too young.

David had an affair and was a murderer.

Elijah was suicidal.

Jonah ran from God.

Naomi was a widow.

Job went bankrupt.

John the Baptist ate bugs.

Peter denied Christ.

The Deciples fell asleep while praying

Mary Magdalene was demon posessed.

The Samaritan Woman was divorced..... more than once.

Paul was "too religious" to see the truth.

Lazarus was DEAD!!!!!!

......... no more excuses now.  God is waiting to use you to your full potential!!

(I'm not sure who wrote this first, but it is so true!)

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!

Philippians 4:13