Monthly Archives: February 2010

Fun facts and last bits

25 Thursday Feb 2010

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Some little facts about our trip:

  • Moscow is 9 hours ahead from where we are now.
  • Vladivostok is 7 hours ahead from Moscow.
  • Russia is really big.
  • Our trip will be just at 10,000 miles one way.
  • When we arrive in Vladivostok, we will only be about 6,500 miles from home.

We have the kids taken care of-they’ll be with Grandma part of the time (at our house so we don’t miss much school)  and with cousins part of the time so you know its gonna be great.  We have what we think is every last detail taken care of. I would imagine we will overlook something, but as long as we have really important stuff, we’ll be doing great.

Prayer requests for now are for weather to be good.  (That’s a pretty big portion of the earth that we will be covering!)  That the kids will be okay for the week we are apart.  That our first meeting with the boys will go well.  We know nothing about the boys except from what we know from a couple of photographs and a brief medical report.  We are, to one another, complete strangers.  Yet they will come into our family, into our home.  I will give them my name.  With the first meeting we are apprehensive, excited, joyful, and a dozen other emotions wrapped up.  Finally, pray that we would sleep.  With preparing for this trip, splitting up the family, getting everything right, well, our brains are just going crazy trying to make sure we remember everything, and we have a really long trip ahead of us.

So for my friends who may be reading this, I just want to say, sorry!  I haven’t forgotten you!  Once we get back we’ll get in touch again!!!  I’ll be updating on facebook, twitter, and here; but how much of the time I have access I don’t know.  We’re ready to be off!  Slava Bogo!

Our First Trip is in Order

12 Friday Feb 2010

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Just a quick update.  We got our itinerary information in the mail today, and more importantly, our visas.  Approval of our visas was the last piece of the puzzle that needed to fall into place.  Not that there would be any reason to deny us, but the trip just wouldn’t happen without them!  We feel so much better now that it is done. 

We will be gone 8 days.  To me, traveling to Vladivostok from Missouri via Moscow takes a very long time.  But let’s face it, there was a time one couldn’t have gotten across his own country in 8 days, let alone to the other side of the planet and back , and we will have time to accomplish meaningful tasks.  But an interesting point.  By the time we get to Vladivostok, we will have traveled roughly ten thousand miles.  The point I find most interesting is that once we arrive it would be closer to home if we just kept going east.  So with the two round trips we are going to make we will have traveled 40,000 miles.  That is enough to circumvent the globe more than one and a half times.  Talk about going to the ends of the earth for these boys!   

Prayer requests right now are that finances would continue to be provided.  God has always provided just enough to get us to the next step.  We don’t yet have enough to cover everything until the end, but we are getting close.  There does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel!  Also, pray for safety in travel, for our children who are staying here that they would get through the week while we are gone, and Grandma to get through the week we are gone.   Also for the boys we will be meeting.  I have no idea how it will go- language barrier, their own history… things we just “don’t know.” 

Thank you so much to everyone for your kind words and prayers.  Feel free to make comments!

We leave two weeks from today!

Adoption Update

07 Sunday Feb 2010

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When I started this blog, I thought I would update it periodically.  Like weekly.  Or every couple of weeks, but no.  It’s been over a month?  And so much has been going on!  It’s been a little more than 8 months since we made our official decision to adopt, and we’ve come a long way since then.  We still have a long way to go, but we are realizing we are further along in the process than we really had thought.

Our home was finalized at the beginning of December, and from there we were able to submit our application to CIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services), and then sent our application to register with Russia at the end of December.

We registered in the Vladivostok region of Russia.  We had sort of envisioned something closer to Europe.  Vladivostok is on the Sea of Japan!

In mid January we got the email we were waiting for.  (Isn’t e-mail great?)  We received word that there were two boys who met our criteria.  We got to see names, pictures, and a basic medical report.  After much prayer, and discussion with our pediatrician, and more prayer, we chose to pursue those two boys.

We have made our reservations for Russia.  Our trip is less than three weeks away.  On one hand it is incredibly exciting.  It will be the first time since 2003 I will have traveled on a plane with my wife.  As much as I enjoyed my church trips to California, Europe, and Mexico… I would rather travel with her than anyone any day. (Sorry, Mr. Mike!)  I have been learning a little bit of Russian through Rosetta Stone, so if anyone asks me a multiple choice question about apples or “keys in a shoe”, I’m golden.  I’m hoping to get to phrases like, “Don’t touch that”, or “Stop doing that”, or “The street is a bad place to  hang out.”
But as for our trip, while on one hand it is exciting, on the other it is nerve-wracking.  So many questions that we can’t answer yet.  Traveling on an 8+ hour flight from Moscow to Vladivostok without knowing the language.  Waiting for Visa approval.  Paying a lot of money and finding out where it will come from.  Wondering what the boys will really be like.

Adoption is a very emotional process, but I tend to fight emotions, and usually do my bests not to show them.  (Much to the dismay of those giving me Christmas presents!)  I just don’t want to be emotionally attached to these two boys yet, because I can’t put aside the fact that there is a small possibility that we can’t adopt them.  What if there is a medical problem that means we can’t do it?  (I don’t know exactly what that would be, but we have two children already, so there are some things that wouldn’t be best for our family).  So many what ifs.  What if they really aren’t ours?  But I remember that God is good.  God is in control.  God has moved us to do this.  I know it will be okay, and everything will work according to His good purpose.  Even if one or both of these boys is destined for another family.  I know that.  But I still want to distance myself.  I don’t want to get excited yet, because I don’t want to get disappointed.  And I am doing my best.  We have names picked out.  I have shared the photos with my family.  I am really truly excited.

In the meantime, we are trying to prepare our family.  We have several people on the lookout for furniture (if you know anyone that as a toddler bed or a chest of drawers they want to get rid of, send me a message!)  We are considering how we should set up bedrooms.  A master bedroom plus three more bedrooms is easy when there’s four of you, but when there is six, then changes may need to happen.

Erin, our 8 year old was born with a perpetual fear of anything that is not Erin.  Getting her to do anything new is a feat, because her imagination just goes overtime.  She always sleeps with her lights on.  So convincing her that it would be best in our 4 bedroom house that it would be best for her to move to the downstairs bedroom.  Right now it’s the playroom, and painted green and purple with a dark blue ceiling (and glow in the dark starts to boot).  It would mean “being downstairs” when in reality that room is no further than where she is now.  But the realization that down there she would have her own bathroom has finally begun to sink in.  I think she may make the switch.

Sam, who turned 5 this week, has some different views.  He no longer wants to name one “Leo”, and now realizes that when the mailman brings a package, it does not contain the children.  Although last week he insisted that “the children are going to be made” and will “come in cubes.”   So there is some confusion, but he really likes the idea of being a big brother.  There is no confusion about that.