Thank You Lord

A few weeks ago, I was asked to share a testimony at church about our adoption and how God worked in our lives. Since there are parents waiting to adopt reading this, I wanted to share a little with you all.

We started on our adoption journey in 2006 after feeling it was something the Lord was leading us to do. In September 2006, we signed with our agency after months of research and phone calls. We initially started thinking of adopting a boy around three years of age, then as time passed, we felt the Lord wanted us to adopt a sibling group. Now it was time to start working on the paperwork. In particular, the homestudy. Keep in mind, we are a single income family with three kids already. Our household income is less than $100,000. We did not know how we were going to pay for this adoption, but we knew this was God's will and that He would provide.

God was there, holding our hand for the journey. However, we had more company. The devil himself was there to stir things up. When we announced to the family in the summer of 2006 that we were going to adopt, my mother was diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks later. Not just any cancer, but a rare form of cancer that was inoperable, could not be treated with radiation and, did not respond to chemo therapy. She was not expected to live through Christmas.

In October 2006, I was in Sanibel Island, Florida at a meeting and on the last day, my group learned that we were receiving a $2,000 bonus in our next paycheck. Now, I work for an insurance company. Believe me, this was a very unusual move for them. In my 20 years with the company, they had never done this. I called Dawn and told her the good news. God had provided the money for our homestudy.

We knew most people preferred girls over boys and that sometimes, siblings were broken up. In March 2007, we learned of a sibling group of three in Eastern Russia that needed a home. We KNEW these were our children, now we just had to convince the US government and the Russians. Mom had made it through Christmas and asked me every few weeks, when we would be able to get the children home. At that time, we thought if things moved quickly, we could be home Christmas with the kids.

In Alabama, the state DHR has to approve your request to adopt. So, once our homestudy was completed, and our state police clearance was in, our social worker sent the documents to DHR. They can take a week or even up to five weeks to process your documents (our state clearance had already eaten up six weeks). One Friday, while working in Pensacola, FL, I received a call from our social worker - our homestudy had been approved in just five business days. Again God was taking care of things. Now, our homestudy could move to US Immigration (CIS). Atlanta CIS was taking six weeks to process applications. About five weeks in, we received our approval - but there was a problem. When we originally filed with CIS, we were only thinking we would adopt two kids. Even though our homestudy cleared us for three, they went by our application. For the next month, we sent several e-mails and hard mailed documents twice to CIS. We finally got our documents changed to approve us for three children. Once again, God was there..

Mom was doing worse and was now to the point of being bed ridden. She had beat all expectations, but it was becoming clear her end was near. It was October now and she asked me again (as she had done many times before) when the children were coming home. I told her I didn't know, things were moving slower than anyone had expected. The state police clearance and the CIS issue added about two months to our process. I was worried we would be in Russia and she would leave us. However, God was there.

On November 4, two days following her birthday, Mom died. She fought a good fight, and it was time for her to go home. A little over two weeks later, on November 21, we received a call from the agency asking us if we could travel the next week to meet our kids. there was never any question, we said YES! I rushed that day and ordered tickets for us to leave on November 29.

On November 23, while returning home with my oldest daughter after feeding the horses, my wife called, her 1993 Explorer seemed to be smoking. She called, and I told her to pull over and I would come get them. After returning home with them, not 20 minutes after her first call, the phone rings its the police. Dawn's car was on fire. We drive to the scene and the truck is nothing but a hunk of charred metal. We were so thankful she and my daughter had pulled over and parked the car and had not driven it any further. God was there and took care of them.

We traveled to Russia on November 29 and arrived in Vladivostok on December 1. Did I mention we had to make an emergency landing in New York - complete with emergency trucks lining the the end of the runway? God was there and took care of us.

Speed to the end of the story, on April 19, 2008 I received a call from our social worker - we had a court date for May 19! We were elated! Late the following Monday, we received our final "bill" from the agency. I won't get into specifics, I'll just say through no one's fault but my own, the bill was $6,000 more than I had expected. I was in shock because the error was really on me. I had no idea of what I was going to do at that hour. I shared the information with Dawn and told her that I could pay the bill, but had no idea of how we were going to pay for the travel expenses. We said nothing to our friends and prayed. I'm talking hard, down on your knees praying in tears. The following Sunday night, our pastor asked my family to step out while they discussed somethings about us. Keep in mind, we had told no one of our problem. We were called in later and the pastor walked up to me and told me we were the recipients of $6,000 in donations that had come from several people. Once again, God was there and took care of us. Things would be tight, but we were going to make it.

Final note - we arrived in Russia and learned that the motel rate was $40 per night more than planned. Okay, $40 extra for 21 nights. That was going to eat up our travel cushion. Two days later, we received an e-mail from a group we had applied for a grant. They were notifying us we received $1,000 in grant money. We were elated! God was there, taking care of us.

There is more, so much more. But I did this for myself as much as anyone else. To remind me and everyone that God is always there and will care for us if we just seek Him.

Happy Thanksgiving -

Tony

Russian Christmas Gift

As part of National Adoption month, I presented a brief overview Sunday night and requested money for Christmas gifts for children in a foster home run by a friend we met in Vladivostok. Jeff is a fellow believer that we met in Vladivostok while meeting our children for the first time this past December.

Anyway, part of Jeff's work is to oversee a foster home that currently houses 9 children and foster parents. These children are given love and attention that is just not possible to receive in an orphanage. Not that some orphanages don't try, but they just don't have the ability with the caretaker to child ratio.

My church family shocked me by donating over $1,400! Honestly, this was three times more than I expected. We are a small church and that night there were only about 120 people including kids present. I wish I could have shared the joy of telling Jeff with each and every person that contributed.

Soon after sending Jeff an e-mail, I received a phone call from him. He knew I was taking up a love offering, but I think he was as shocked as I was at the response. These funds will allow the foster parents to spend the money they had set aside for Christmas gifts on necessities like food and clothing.

I write all this to encourage those in the adoption community to not forget the children we could not bring home. Find away to help them. It is very hard to open one's heart to adoption if they are not inclined to do so. However, there are other ways to help. There are many reputable organizations out there working with orphans all over the world. Donating straight to an orphanage is risky, but many of these organizations will make sure your money is put to good use.

If you are interested in the group I took a love offering up for, please click on the link below:
http://hopeforlifehome.net

Birthday Wishes

Wednesday was Nastya's 5th birthday. She was so excited as she was able to start celebrating early. My sister came by from out of town and gave her presents to start what turned out to be a 3-day celebration. Of course she loved it and soaked it all in. After our "month of birthday's" the three youngest have learned that birthdays are special and now they get very excited. While we were having cake and icecream on Wednesday, I asked Polina if they fixed birthday cakes at the detsky dom. We had heard that at some orphanages, they fix one cake each month for the kids that have a birthday in that particular month. Polina told us they did not get any birthday cake. It is sad to know that birthdays come and go for all the children over there and there is no one to hug them and tell them "happy birthday" and to let them know they are special. Such a small thing it seems, but to see their faces light up shows that it means something special to them. Just this morning we received an e-mail from Aunt Tatiana wishing her a happy birthday and apologizing for not being able to send a note sooner. She does not have a computer, but she knows someone who does that lives nearby.

After the birthday celebration,the kids all went to Awana at church. They came home wound up and full of energy so it took a while to settle them down for bed. About 10:30PM, I made the rounds to check on everyone and to tell Jeremy and Christina goodnight. Nastya was asleep, but a few minutes later,Dawn heard her crying. She often cries while she sleeps which is oddly common for kids with their background. When Dawn checked on her, she was awake and crying, so she brought her to our bed. Nastya told us she was sad and when we asked why, she told us she missed her groupa. She said she wanted us all get in the car, go to the airport, get on an airplane and go visit her groupa. We explained that it was very, very expensive to go visit her groupa and that we could not do that just now. She cried, and then Dawn started to cry with her. Then my precious little girl said somethings that made me tear up. She told us that at her destky dom, they did not have new shoes, they only had old shoes - and she wanted them to have new shoes. She said she wanted to send them her money so they could buy new shoes. We hugged her and explained that we had collected money from our church to buy them some new shoes (about $800). That seemed to calm her down a little.

If only the rest of my Christian brothers and sisters had a heart the size of my little girl's . . .

Siblings

Construction, First Report and Siblings

I have not posted much in the past month only because we have been a bit busy. Dawn’s dad was very generous and is paying for some needed work on our home. Our home is 40 years old and was built with one and half bathrooms. When the work is complete, we will have three full bathrooms. For about the past 4 weeks, we have been trying to make do with just one toilet and that has been hard for a family of eight. Sometimes the line to get into the bathroom is a little long. Hopefully, work will be finished in about two more weeks. That work started about the same time we learned our HVAC system was dying. Seems like only yesterday we had the system installed! On Tuesday, our serviceman installed a new system and set me back about $8,000 at a time when we really did not have it, but the Lord provides. We financed it with the plan to pay it off in January.

This past Monday was our first Post-Placement visit by our social worker. The Russians require reports to be completed during the first three years to update them on the health and welfare of the children. So, here we are with two huge holes on the backside of the house. We have taped up plastic in the openings, but it is still dusty and a bit chilly early in the morning. Because of the contractor vehicles, ours are parked in the street and yard. Needless to say, finding a parking spot was a bit hard for her. The visit went well – I think! The young lady that completed our home study is out on leave because of her own adoption and another young lady from the agency completed this report. She was very sweet and understanding and didn’t seem to be caught off guard with all the construction noise and the kids running around. We have to send it off to the Russians by the end of November. These follow-up reports are a requirement of the Russian government and some may question why do it when we already have the kids. Well, number one, I am obligated by the courts and I will not go back on my promise. Secondly, the Russians need to see that the kids are adjusting well and are happy. In the past eight years, about seven kids have been killed or died of neglect or abuse after being adopted. This is a tiny fraction of the thousands that have been adopted, but the media magnifies them. Young children are often told that the Americans will kill them upon getting to America. These horror stories are repeated by children in the orphanages and by adults. Yes, adults. We plan on mailing the kids orphanage a bunch of photos for them to share with the children.

Over the past month, it has been such a blessing to see the children bond more and more. You might think, gee, their siblings, they should be close. Well, my youngest three were not always together. For about one year, Nastya lived in a separate detsky dom. Then, after she joined them, she lived in a separate groupa. In fact all three were in separate groupas because of their ages. Groupas are the name given the group that the children lived in. Typically, each groupa has 8-9 kids. They slept together, ate together, had school together, etc. That was their “family”. Nastya misses her detsky dom sister whose name is Katia. Polina does not recall a little girl with that name, but Nastya is very adamant about that being her name. At Sunday School, the teacher went around the room asking the little children if there was anyone the kids wanted to pray for. Nastya asked that they pray for her aunt Tatiana, cousin Vladick, and Katia ( I was there to interpret). I thought it was very sweet of her to think of them.

As for the bonding of the youngest three with the older kids, it has gone very well and we are very proud of them. The adjustment was probably the hardest for Sarah. One day she was the youngest child in the family, had her own room and then overnight she had three younger siblings and shared a room. I am very proud of the young lady she is changing into. She and Polina are very close and she knows more Russian than dawn and I ever knew. She and Polina will jabber away in Russian acting like it is just as natural as speaking English.

Well, that’s about it. Several weeks ago we sent photos of everyone to our extended family in Russia – Aunt Tatiana. It took about six weeks for the photos to arrive and Polina had even sent a new letter before we got an e-mail from Tatiana telling us how excited she was to receive the package. We will work hard to maintain contact with her because she and her son are family.