Forever becomes suddenly

Suddenly we find ourselves as the family who was submitted today. Our huge dossier was successfully passed to the state department of adoption and we await a travel date now. It is a different kind of waiting...the kind where you know the rollercoaster is locked down and you are in the seat. Not quite any speed yet, but you know in about the next few seconds it will take off, and mess up your hair as hands raised, it is not a place to get back off the rollercoaster. we are not afraid, just filled with anticipation. Giddy new parent anticipation. She is so dang cute! Caylyn is doing the happy dance on a cloud for us I feel sure. It is odd to think how they will be sisters, but not in the same time zone. I would tell Evan today but he will immediately ask me if we leave tomorrow. He asks me that nearly every single day. I am going to go wander around this quiet house and think about all of this now. Pray for us as we journey forth. It has been exactly 16 months to the day that we committed to Marina. When my dad asked me today what it means that we were submitted, my mom immediately answered...it means you have one more christmas present to buy this year:) Pray that nothing goes wrong, nothing goes south and no hearts are broken in any way along this journey. We really are fragile people and at this point need a clean and uneventful trip. No messy stuff. I think I spent all my fierceness in the last 16 months. But you never know. We follow a mighty God and he is forever wandering off the path of safety. Oh lets not even go thinking along those lines!! It is a victory day for sure.

The mundane part of waiting

It has been a while since I wanted to write or could find the time but here it is Saturday morning near the end of August. The home study update has left this country by way of the postal service and a back up copy was hand delivered and yet their plane was delayed just enough. Neither got there in time to be submitted last week. As this has stayed with the theme of running into brick walls in my opinion, I took this rather hard. I have become and insolent child. Sulking and whining. Feeling sorry for us. What is behind that is the fact that I am tired of chasing and doing and gathering and trying so hard to have it fall short yet again. It is discouraging and yet I should be so happy that everything is there! We are truly free from chasing stuff for the moment. I say that warily since the last several times I mentioned this it turned out to be not quite true and anything can, (AND DOES) happen along the path of life.
We continue to pray for safety and well keeping of Marina, as well as the other children. But this is a fallen world and I don't know what praying does exactly. I just want to get there. I believe that we are going but the delay is wearing me thin. The fight has been exhausting and we have not even met her yet. I do not know what else will occur with this journey but we are being conditioned not to quit. I do have an updated picture of Marina, but have decided not to post it here because open blogs have become a problem for some of the parents on RR. One family nearly lost their child referral because another parent stepped in and tried to out maneuver them to get there first. I can't explain it but there is alot going on in this world that we simply cannot see and should not trust. Frankly, it is a war. Maybe that is exactly where prayer can make a difference. Please if you find the time, pray that God's will be done, and we accomplish what He has set out for our journey. Submission of papers should happen next week or perhaps September 2nd. I will believe it when it happens.

Quick update

This will be short because I am running way behind today but I wanted to update to let those of you praying know that we had our home study update visit at 8 am on Sunday morning this past week. Immigration (USCIS) here in the united states no longer accepts addendums nor are they located in each state anymore, they have been centralized (socialized???) and the result is a full blown home study update with new police background clearances, referrals, home visit, etc. We are waiting for it to be written up and approved again but not sure by whom it needs to be approved by, then there is another family traveling to Ukraine this weekend who will take it if I can get it to them on time. I do not know what all is involved with an home study update other than another 400.00 (before shipping haha) but will pray that it is done soon so I can take it to Columbia to get it apostilled and sent to Tennessee on time to make the plane. I can't imagine anything else needing to be redone but I could not imagine this either so I just gather what I am told and complete MY tasks in as timely a fashion as I can...I let God worry about everyone else. Thanks for checking on us. Cath

Waiting for what? Commuication malfunction leads to waterboarding

Reminds me of the wardrobe malfunction flash a few years ago. Like waterboarding can be seen as an intense hydrotherapy exercise. So the point of this post? To say that we are still waiting to be submitted because the communication from Ukraine to one person was that my homestudy needed amended to remain in the game of keeping the papers within the 6 month window of non-expiration. Unfortunately the person who was supposed to tell ME that got word that everything was fine. Another 5 weeks wasted. Another 200.00 to get the stupid piece of paper, and drive to the state capital 95 miles each way, and ship it overnight express to an office 5497 miles from here...overnight express is another oxymoron...it takes three days usually. So if I get it there on THURSDAY that is the day for submissions and it sits around for another week because they only take adoption submissions for special needs kids on Thursdays. I should have realized that this is the impossible dream. To have something go right in this process. I can hardly wait til we get there and all this goes wrong in a language I cannot possibly comprehend.
And if even one person tells me not to worry because God is in control I will virtually punch you in the virtual eye. This is flat out spiritual warfare and we have a target on our back. It makes me worry that much harder because I know that things are not as they seem on this planet. Even though I know who wins the war, I am still in the battle and it is getting ugly all around me. And I think I know what hydrotherapy feels like, because I truly think I am going to drown in this paperwork. This at times has been exciting and filled with wonder, but most of it has turned to drudgery and defeat. The joy is hiding somewhere but it is not in this process. I pray that Marina stays safe and out of the arrows. And may God twist this attack and use it to change this defeated mom's efforts into a hail mary pass with a score.

And one more thing. Whoever you are posting in the oriental language, I do not know you and I cannot read what you write. Since one little message link has lead to a porn sight you are being moderated and none of your posts will show up here anymore. If you are kind and good, I welcome your prayers, but I suspect this is nothing that has to do with this journey.

Last week I went to the bank and the question "Why not adopt from the United States?" came around. For one, that is not what God lead us to because Marina is not in the United States. The children who get the diagnosis in the United States that they have a genetic abnormality hit the abortion rate of 92%, then about 6% are kept and the other 2% get placed for adoption....where the wait is 2 or more years because there is a demand that outweighs the supply so to speak. In eastern europe the kids with special needs are deemed less than a human being and are not always treated very well and are headed straight down a path to a good ole 1950's type insane asylum. This has a very bleak effect on the longevity of their life span. This breaks my heart to see something that is so misunderstood be treated so poorly. So this is what the ears of my heart are tuned to hear- the cry of orphans far away that absolutely no one is considering unless you count the 200 people I know trying to navigate this journey towards an estimated 10,000 children who have been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. You do the math.
I move on to getting a quote at a mechanics for something and I get the question "is there anything wrong with the kid you are adopting?" No, she has down syndrome but there isn't anything wrong with her health. "Well, why don't you just wait til they can get you a kid with nothing wrong?" Because I want this one and there is nothing wrong with her. "Well, I guess them kids need somebody to love 'em too." Crimony.

It amazes me how many people have an opinion of what needs to be done in this world and they themselves are doing NOTHING. Now I have to say that the circle of you that I know are generally on board with this in ways that are incredibly supportive. Either you knew Caylyn or your heart has ears too because God cleared them on your own life journey. And I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your support. Because this battle is hard enough with people lifting your earth journey in prayer. I think prayer at the very least keeps hope alive. That is how my own heart took up beating again when it was on its way to being petrified stone. "Call to me and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know". Boy that's life wide open. Great and Mighty. And believe me, there is ALOT I do not know. But I know I am here to live my life wide open for a purpose until I get to where I am headed at the end of this road. I would be lying if I said I did not wish 4-wheeling with Jesus were not so complicated and the paperwork was not so full of hydrotherapy.

Submission date coming up fast!

We were notified that our papers are being translated and will be submitted to the Adoption department in Eastern Europe on thursday the 22nd. This means we should have a travel date once they approve us...again, we are being "approved" by people even further away and having no real picture of what we are like except on paper. This is pretty amazing to me for some reason. But whatever works you know. We have been at this for 14 months now and at this point I am grateful for the few weeks that we have not been asked for any papers by anyone. I know we will travel soon and we are nervous to be honest. We are running full steam into the unknown. Come to think of it, isn't that what we do every day? Raising funds has slowed down but I know that I am to trust God on this. He has come through always for us.
For any of you that have donated directly to us, it is sitting in an account designated to traveling to get Marina. Recently in the health care bill their has been a change to the adoption credit sneaked in around page 906...it states that the funds not supplied by grants but used for adoption expenses will be returned in the form of a tax refund rather than a tax credit. It also has had the maximum amount raised to just over $13,000.00 We feel at this point that we can do better in the long run by focusing more on adding to our adoption account because we will be able to utilize the refund to assist more orphans when it is refunded. Simply put, we obtain donation "gifts" and use them for adoption, then when the tax refund comes, we can pay it forward by donating to Reeces Rainbow with that money next year. Its like we get to use it twice. For larger donations that we have received we are keeping the records necessary to make sure the donation is made in your name next year by money order and you will get the tax credit next year. I have taken lots of space here to make the point that if you are thinking of donating, and you can wait for the credit for next year, you can actually help by getting double usage out of your donation by donating directly to us. You can help us this year and we donate that amount next year out of the refund. That tax credit of over 13,000 is set to expire at the end of 2011 in case anyone is thinking of adopting and needs a reason to do it this year rather than later on....later on it rolls back to way less than half that amount. Makes ya wonder who benefited from throwing that in the health bill for such a short run, doesn't it?

I hope I explained that well enough. If not, sign the post and I will post the actual link to the new information on this adoption refund change. Thanks for your prayers along the way. I know we could not have done any of this on our own...because when two or more are gathered in His name....and man, you all must have really done some gathering of prayers is all I can say. Climbing Mt. Everest has nothing on adoption. But we are finally at the point where the papers are turning into a little girl who will be coming home. I thank Julie Nalle adopting Aaron, for her sweet disposition of carrying our dossier to our facilitator across the water and hand delivering it to her. Micah Six Eight is her story. They live outside of Charlottesville VA and I think it is important to understand that we became friends months ago on the Reece's rainbow chat sight because we both have great friends in Hopkins Belize. When you realize Hopkins has about a thousand people in it, and America has loads of people in it, and only a handful of people actually adopt a special needs orphan internationally, the fact that we were destined to meet up again in the time line we did is without a doubt an orchestration of God's hand. I was trying to figure out who would be leaving for Ukraine next out of our group and at that moment a comment came across the computer on this blog to be moderated. (I had to do that moderate comments thing due to the amount of viral activity and porn sights that were linked to the chinese signatures-weirdos-happening in a lot of RR blog sights). Anyway the comment was from Julie and she was leaving in 4 days. Our dossier went out from Columbia SC since we apostilled it that same day and that evening 3 minutes before the post office closed I watched a very loving postal worker chuck the paperwork beasty into a large mail bin. Godspeed beast. Across the south, into the mountains, into a bag, and onto a plane...across the water, thousands of hours of effort and then translating that effort, to bring Marina home. Now the journey begins...

The girl in the photos...

is NOT Marina! I am sad to say that the updated photos I had posted have been confirmed that it is someone else because that someone else is 120 kilometers from where Marina is residing. So we are back to the babyish photo as our last image of her. The problem is that the new image burns a desire for more information about that child...she is not listed on RR so I do not know anything about her other than where she is and that she does not walk. So other than being totally precious, and wiggling her way into my prayers because I thought she is who we would be bringing home...we know nothing of her. No name no anything. Not even if she is available. Please pray for that little girl to be "discovered" so someone can scoop her right up and bask in the sunshine of that smile!!
Evan and I are taking the day to travel to Columbia and have the papers apostilled while we enjoy the Edventure Museum. Then I can send them to Ukraine tomorrow. Wheee, that makes my tummy flip just considering letting this dossier out of my hands! I want to carry it over there myself just in case....of what I don't know. But just in case. OF course that is a little pricey of a delivery so I will have to immediately scrap that idea....
Posting updates as we move forward...and I bet it gets faster from here on out!! Yeeee Haaa!

July 1, 2010

Should be remembered here as the day a great battle was won...immigration gave us a favorable finding in our application to adopt an orphan. Marina is coming home! I wanted to post last night but work has been so incredibly busy and I got home so late and tired, not to mention just exhausted from finally getting the news. Tully had it in the car all day not realizing that was the paper I have worn a path to the mailbox looking for...but nonetheless here it is. I woke up this morning and all I could say was Thank you. It seems like the first time in so very very long that I did not go to sleep with a beggars prayer on my heart and wake up the same way...I have been begging God for something about this adoption and then something about Caylyn before that for the last several years (4!!) Today all I can say is thank you. Thank you that there is a heaven at all. Thank you there is God. Thank you that God is love and not something bad. Thank you that He made us a way to be there with Him some day and talk with Him now. Thank You probably needs to be bigger...
Today we send the papers to be apostilled after scanning them all in for everyone to see stateside and approve. This is a final check and we can fix anything that needs possibly fixing, though I cannot imagine what that might entail by now...and yet surely something:)
Once everything is apostilled (notarizing the notary at state level), then the dossier ships to our facilitator in Ukraine where it is translated and interpol clearance is run and the application submitted to their State Department of Adoption. They give us a travel date and it is on at that point to travel...
Wow, I can't believe we got that thing after so long...amazing.