Riding the Roller Coaster

It has certainly been an interesting journey the last few weeks.  After we were told that our home-study wasn’t being approved and then finding another social worker that agreed to do a new one, the first social worker called and told us that she had a change of heart.  She agreed to complete our home-study with the change of two boys ages 7-11.  Needless to say we were very surprised to hear this new information!  We were thrilled to be back on track.  The next step was to then have the home-study authorized by an agency.  This proved to be another coaster ride because at first we thought this was going to be the easy part but as we are learning, there is no easy part.  The approving agency was hesitant to approve because they thought that we would have our son or sons in our home for three months before the adoption would be final and therefore the agency would be “on the hook” in case we then decided not to follow through with the adoption.  This was cleared up, which then paved the way. Our adoption will be final when we leave Ukraine, no turning back. 

So as of now we are approved to be adoptive parents!  We are working with Ukraine to find an appropriate time to and way to let Vitalik know that we are adopting him.  We have not made a decision yet as to whether or not we are also planning on adopting a second child but at least the possibility is open to us now. 
We are still going to have to re-acquire some of our documentation, mainly our marriage license and physicals, but overall this is a small step.  We are thankful for each and every step forward!

Our Funding Update:  So far we have raised a total of $17,823 and we have already spent $8568.02 on fees and documents.  In the next few weeks we will have to spend almost $6,000 on more fees and documents.  We want to continue to be transparent with the expenses. We have a fund-raiser for a swing dancing class on Feb 17th here in Italy and an on-line auction site on FaceBook, the page is Bring Vitali Home.  Check out this FaceBook page for opportunities to auction and to purchase items being auctioned.  

Thank you for your support and prayers.  Your prayers are greatly appreciated and are being answered.

The Good, Great, and Yucky News

Some updates from the past week.  As my last post said, our home-study provider refused to finish the job they started and denied writing it at all.  For Americans living abroad, there are many challenges to adopting because of not being on our home soil.  One of the difficulties we have living in Europe is that there are only three social workers qualified to write home-studies for Americans living here.  We were denied by the one, and turned down by a second, there was only one left.  We didn’t get their response right away and I feared it was because they too didn’t want to help us.  I was discouraged and confused.  Why would God bring us this far only to have this happen?  Then a dear friend called who has adopted two children from Ukraine, called to encourage me.  It was definitely Holy Spirit lead.  During our conversation I began to realize that it isn’t Brandon and I saving Vitalik from the orphanage, it is God.  He is God’s child first, we can never love him the way that God does.  We haven’t laid down our lives for him but God has.  This is God’s Story and we play our part as he leads our paths.  Just like when Grace and Hanna were little and I had to give them back to God, I needed to do the same with Vitalik.  When my girls were young I used to panic about them getting hurt, kidnapped, getting a terminal illness, and more.  I would obsess about protecting them to the point where I would have nightmares about horrible things happening to my girls.  At that time I got counsel from a friend who told me, “These daughters of yours are a gift from God, they are His kids first and He knows best how to love and protect them.”  She was right and so was my friend that called me last weekend.  Vitalik is God’s son first and even if this adoption doesn’t happen it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t still have a plan for his life and for our journey.  I had another friend tell me that because of our obedience to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to answer the call to adopt,  that she has started to look more seriously at adoption being an option in her family.  So I know that whatever happens, God WILL get all the Glory, Honor, and Praise because adoption is part of his restoration story. 

So the GREAT news is that the 3^rd provider said that he would LOVE to write our home-study for us!  He seems much more knowledgeable and willing to assist us with paperwork than the first.  God knows what he is doing.  He told us specific people to contact with their e-mails and phone numbers.  This is SO helpful!  The yucky news is that now that we are so behind on our time-line we need to re-get all the documents that we needed for our home-study again.  The reason is that Ukraine will not accept any documents older than 6 months and most of our documents were dated mid-October which only takes us to mid-April.  So instead of trying to get the adoption finalized before mid-April and possibly missing it by a couple of weeks we are going to play it safe and get all the documents again.  The good part of this is that now we know the paths to take to acquire what we need.  So please pray that we get them again in a good time without the hassle, especially our marriage certificate from Seoul, Korea. 

Thank you for your encouragement, support, and prayers.  I know that we are being prayed for and this truly helps move mountains!

               

Frustrating Set-Back

We regret to inform everyone that our social worker has denied our home-study.

We began looking for social workers that are able to provide home studies for families living abroad back in early October.  We found one and told her that we were interested in adopting a ten year old boy from Ukraine.  She said that she was willing and able to do so.  When we picked her up from the airport she immediately started telling us that we are being fool-hardy and that we should reconsider our desire to adopt.  She made it very clear that she was not in favor of older child adoption and international adoption.  She continued to counsel us that we should choose instead to adopt a child from the United States that was under 4 years old.  We didn’t want to do that and felt that our decision to adopt and older child from Ukraine was firm. She continued to be pessimistic throughout the process and said that despite her reservations she would write our home study.  The home study she did was fine and she found no reasons within our family or our marriage that would raise a red flag saying that our family was not stable or had serious issues that would not be beneficial for an adopted, post-institutionalized child.  We asked her originally to approve our adoption for up to two boys ages 7-10.  She appeared fine with this decision and wrote our home-study accordingly.  We found out that the child that we are seeking to adopt has a best friend who we are considering adopting as well.  We are not completely sure of this decision right now but we asked her to change the age range from 7-10 to 7-11 years.  The second child just turned 11 in October 2011.   She then sent us an e-mail denying to write our home study at all.  She said that her decision is based on the fact that we have not listened to her counsel and that we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into.  I agree to the fact that there is no way to completely know the impact of our decision but we are taking on-line classes, reading books, and speaking with others who have adopted older institutionalized children.  We are preparing ourselves the best ways that we know how. 

We feel that her decision to deny our home study is based solely on her personal opinion and not based on all the facts.  She agreed that our family was “lovely” but it was apparent that she couldn’t fathom why our family would consider to take such a risk in bringing in a post-institutionalized child into our home.  Our hearts desire is to give orphans a home.  We know that there are risks and we are trying to utilize all the resources available to us to minimize such risks. 

We are appealing her decision and would also like to see that if she is against older international child adoption that she should make that fact known prior to taking clients.  We have been working with her since Oct 2011 and have spent $2,800 on her services alone.  Now all of that time and money is gone and we will have to start over completely, which pushes us months behind our goal to have our adopted child in our home .

With all that said, this is not the first time in our lives where we’ve had to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.  We are continuing to press forward and are seeking for another home-study provider that is sympathetic to our decision.  The one advantage is that we have all the paperwork we need for the hone study and all the original documents.  We are not angry with her but we are frustrated with her final decision.  We will continue this race and will not grow weary because the Lord is on our side and has ours and Vitaliy’s best interest in his hands.  God’s timing and will is perfect and we will continue to spend time on our knees and listening intently to the Holy Spirit.  

Please join with us in prayer and as we fight the good fight, following God’s call to give homes to the homeless and love those we are hard to love. 
Thank you