Ecstatic...

and yet so humbled at what the Lord did for us this morning. We are now registered as adoptive parents for the country of Ukraine...I cannot belive it, we are about to enter the final step to bring our son home! Today was the last day to be submitted, boy am I every thankful!

To God be the Glory!

I just feel like crying I am so thankful.... 3:30am, we were submitted this morning with flying colors. Thank you Lord for doing this for us! This is big news for us...we now stand in a long line for a travel date...a line that we could be in for a while.

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" 1 Peter 1:7

The count down...

It is 8am in Rapid, 9am in Texas,10am in Georgia and 5pm in Ukraine....in about 16 hours we will know if the new authority will accept our dossier. Please Please pray, I am so very much ready to move forward.

This one thing I know...

I do not know which child the Lord will have to be ours, at this point only He knows that...I do know I have a child I feel as if I am dying to get to, just cannot wait to see who :)

I am in love

with my Lord, my husband, 4 children here and one little boy across the ocean....boy, I CANNOT wait to get my hands on that boy, to scoop him up and run out that door forever... if the Lord allows it!

Today Mike and I had some immunizations done in preperation for our trip and we picked up yet more new bills from the bank, thank you Lord for you are the one who has supplied this!

I forgot :)

to post the Thanksgiving pics...here they are. We had a nice relaxing day to ponder on the Lord and His goodness.

One more chance this year...

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distress for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10 

in 5 days, on the 30th, our facilitator will try once again to submit us...this will be our very last try for this year. It is nothing personal against us that we are having a hard time being submitted...it has to do with all the new laws regarding the new authority..we have done all that we could do in our physical hands. I can say there was not one day that went by in the past almost 8 months that I was not doing all I could to bring my son home ASAP....I am thankful when it is all said and done, I can rest knowing that. Pray the Lord might honor and be pleased to have us submitted and if not, then pray we will be resting in Him as we wait a bit longer.

"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" Galatians 6:9

Thanksgiving in our hearts...

We have so much to be thankful for. When we started this adoption journey, I thought that finances would be the biggest challenge, I was wrong. Our deepest journey has been the emotional/spiritual one. Our Heavenly Father has so kindly supplied all adoption related expenses we have needed thus far and today He supplied even more funds to bring us closer to being fully funded to the $30,000 needed. Praising the Lord. "Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it." 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Tomorrow

I will once again make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Pierre tomorrow (Monday)...the kids will stay home with our babysitter. So...wouldn't it be nice if I did not have to do this again :) Drive to Pierre, get Apostilles at the Sec. of States office and then down the street to FedEx everything to the Ukraine again :) Pray specifically that the roads are clear and I get to Pierre and back safely. Pray that FedEx works quickly and that our documents arrive to our translator with plenty of time to spare for him to translate before the Nov. 30th submission.

From another adoptive family with 10 children who just adopted little Katie...

She is warming up to us more every day, snuggling up to us, accepting more and more touch, even kisses, with pleasure. Clearly, God has kept Katie in the palm of His hand, preparing her to give and receive love, just as we and many others have been praying for her.
Via Skype, we got to witness the first reaction of our firstborn to seeing Katie in our arms on Monday. He said, with emotion in his voice, “We really have her. She’s really ours.”
And that sums up how we feel about this tiny rare treasure.
We are utterly enamored.
We can hardly believe we really have the enormous privilege of caring for this remarkable child.
You have heard it said that life is cheap.
Don’t you believe it for one second.
All the months of hard work, the piles and loads of documents, the painful lessons learned, the extra financial expenses, the painful loss of privacy, the loss of many hours of rest and sleep, the pain of being misjudged, the excruciating waiting times, the unnumbered intense spiritual battles with the accuser of the brethren, the heart-stopping drama that God decided to heap on thickly…
…the difficulties we know are still ahead of us…
…the cost.
Adoption should be hard. We are glad it is hard. And no matter how hard, how painful, how steep the cost…
It doesn’t come close to the value of the life of this one precious human being.

Basket Weaving with our homeschool friends...

We had a great time today weaving baskets with our friends. Thank you to Laura for teaching us.

We have a name :)

for our little boy to be, Lord willing...ofcourse if we come home with a different child we will have to find a different name. You will have to wait until the adoption is final before we announce his name...we will say this, we will keep the name he is called in Russian and will continue to call him that...we are only adding a middle name.

In the mean time...

pray for this family....a family with 10 children who just adopted this little girl..9 years and 10 lbs, I think those were the stats.   http://theblessingofverity.com/

Nov. 30

As I have said..that is our last chance for submission this year. I have put so so so much time and energy the past month into these documents and each time we try to submit the Ukraine has come up with a new law which has caused us to have to re do documents. Please pray that we will be able to be submitted on the 30th. They are 9 hours ahead so maybe on Tuesday the 29th before you go to bed, remember to pray for us as that is about the time our facilitator will be making his way to the State Department of Adoption to try again.

We have one more try this year...

We tried to be submitted this morning but were not. We were told we have to now do over several more documents to add the new authority name on top. We have one more chance to be submitted this year, November 30th. If we are not submitted then, we will have to wait until after the first of the year when they start taking dossiers again. By that time, alot of our paperwork will start expiring so we will have to do even more documents over. I am a bit sad and frustrated but am trying to not be that way as I know the timing to us being submitted will happen with the Lord's will and now there is a pretty slim chance that we will travel before his birthday, which is good news. Mike and I think this....God gave the life of his son as a randsome for our lives...surely we can HAPPILY do extra paperwork for the life of our son.

Tomorrow...

is a new day. By a miracle our documents arrived to our facilitator a few days earlier than they "should" have. He was able to translate, stitch them to the originals and make them pretty yet again. So, Lord willing....we will try yet again to be submitted in the morning (wed). Pray the take it this time since we made the corrections they requested. We desire to not travel until after little "D"'s birthday (it is an age thing that would be a problem if they gave us a date to be there before his birthday) so pray if we are submitted we travel soon, but not too soon.

Fire Station Field Trip

Our Documents

Our facilitator called to check on our packet as he can find out more than we can by checking the tracking on the public FEDEX site...our documents made it to Ukraine this morning and were sent off to his region. They should be in his hands in the morning and he should have them ready to submit on Wed. of this week. We are praying for the Lord's perfect timing with traveling.

Well..

Our dossier still sits in Paris, France...maybe it will make a move on to the Ukraine soon :) We made a decision to change some information in some of our paperwork...long story...pray that when we get an appointment date in country that it will not be until after little "D" has turned 6...I cannot release his birthday, but it is coming soon. Please pray specifically for this.

Ice Skating

For Anna's birthday she wanted to go Ice Skating, so she had a friend over for cake and then we did just that :) The pictures are from the first couple minutes of being there. By the time it was time to leave, Anna and her friend were not using the walkers at all to skate and Naomi and Luke were having a blast with the walkers :) We skated for 2 hours and they had such a great time that they did not want to leave :)

OK

We mailed some documents off yesterday evening and I was encouraged to see it just departed Paris, France...so it is on its way. Please pray that it gets there safely and very quick...if it gets there our translator can try to submit us next Wed. as they said they would accept it then...however from reading other families blogs who are adopting from the same country they understand it that if you were not submitted yesterday then all the documents will have to be done over with the new authority name.. please pray the SDA sticks to their word and that they will allow our facilitator to submit us on Wed. if in fact they even get there in time. Please pray. I cannot imagine doing all the paperwork over, however many families will have to do that, so we would not be alone. The Lord has been so kind to us. We know of another family trying to adopt a boy from the *kraine and he has a kidney disease...they tried to submit yesterday but were denied for whatever reason...so they are in the process of working to update paperwork...to make matters more sad for them, their house was broken into a month ago and their passports were stolen,so they have already redone their documents once to include the new passport numbers on them.

How you can pray now...

Here is an  quick update on how you can better pray.

1. Pray it might be in the Lord's will for us to be submitted next week under this authority. That means our documents have to arrive quicker than the estimated date they gave us.

2. Pray for protection of little "D" and that all these details would work out for us to make him ours if that be God's will and that if He is not to be ours that we would quickly "find" our child once in country.

3. Pray for our dear children here, I really am just ready to go sunggle with them right now, I need their love at the moment.

4. Pray for rest and peace for me and wisdom for Mike.

5. Last but not least...that the Lord would get all the Honor and Glory for all He has done and continues to do on our journey.

Today

Thank you to everyone for your kind prayers for us today. Boy, it was a hard hard day for me, very emotional. We were "suppose" to be submitted today. Our facilitator called the SDA yesterday to make sure they would still accept our dossier today since this transition they will quit taking dossiers anyday and noone really knows when...and they said yes. So this morning they tried to submit us and they would not take our dossier....long story! Very very long story short I do not want to bore or confuse you as I myself am a bit confused....we had to get some documents changed up based on a decision we had to make quickly this morning and then got them Apostilled and FedExed out to Ukraine....they may or may not be there in time to be submitted. I am EXHAUSTED physically and emotionally. Yes, we are still seeking "D" if you are wandering...however with our country...there are no promises, but yes, we still are in this for him until the Lord Himself closes the door...this has been a hard journey and today for the first time ever in the journey I wanted to tear my documents up and not complete this adoption...Mike quickly reminded me in my helpless state that was not the Lord's will and that we must continue on for "D" or which ever child the Lord has for us there.

God's will will not always be a road of roses but in His will we will find Him there every step of the way.......which leads me on to this...

Remember how it took our documents almost 2 weeks to get to the Ukraine when it was suppose to take 3 days....Well after day 8 I got this horrible feeling that someone had our documents...I physically cried and cried and cried out to the Lord that day to have mercy on our situation, to protect our documents and to intervene...well today we were told some news that shocked me to say the lest. Our facilitator sent us pictures of what our documents looked like when they arrived to him. I tried to post on here the pics of our documents that he had sent us but it will not let me. In all his years of doing this work he had never had documents arrive in such a condition. I made me feel as someone had gutted my insides and yet at the very same time I am in absolute awe and humbled at the Lord and how HE protected us and our documents He truely had mercy...you see....someone did have our documents and that is why it took them so long to get to the Ukraine...they had pretty much torn shreds from our folder trying to rip the documents from the plastic sleves I had very carefully placed them in. According to our facilitator they were looking for money possibly or maybe even identity theft...so now we have to file possibly identity theft with our officials to protect us as so much personal information...pretty much all the personal information on us you could think of was in that folder. It seems as though someone was getting into them and then for what ever reason got distracted quickly and did not get to finish his job of shredding our precious documents...we are so suprised that he did not just trash the documents...I cry just looking at our folder. Our facilitator was able to get everything looking pretty...I am  most of all today...thankful to the Lord and the peace I can lay down to tonight knowing that He has all this in His hands and I can sleep and let Him work out the details to this path He has called us to. Praise be to God, I love Him so and as hard as this has been, it has only been for my own good as it has pulled me closer to Him, I am so greatful!

Please pray!!!

We were not submitted this morning and I do not have time to explain...long story short we need to make some big decisions that we were not expecting to make concerning the adoption...some things have arose that we were not expecting, nor was our team in the Ukraine...but God is not surprised!  Mike is coming home from work for us to pray..a decision needs to be made in the next few hours and we need clarity and wisdom quickly! Pray specifically for us in the next couple hours and specifically for Mike as we seek the Lord over His will. Thank you!

Happy Birthday Dear Anna

 She was so very happy about her new camera.

 She was also very happy to make her cupcakes all by herself, I did nothing but watch :)

And they turned out great, we took them to church to share. Friday night she is having a friend over and we are going ice skating. Happy Birthday Anna, I love you!

7 months down the road and...

we will, Lord willing be submitted tomorrow to the State Department of Adoption in the Ukraine to be prospective adoptive parents. Our facilitator just got off the phone with the SDA and they confirmed they would accept our dossier tomorrow. Our translator translated all our official documents into Russian and then hand stitched the translations to our originals. He then took them to be finalized and is making the final arrangements for them to be real pretty for Submission day tomorrow.

Submission day is the biggest day in the process so far, we will now only wait for them to start giving travel dates out again..... Typically at this point we would be leaving in about 4 weeks, but with the transition going on it could be weeks or months. We are just so thankful that the Lord is bringing this to pass. Thank you for your prayers.

Our son's blanket...

is done :)

I cry just about every time  I read this verse..

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Ab'-ba, Father."  Romans 8:15

Wonderful for me to hear this!

My friend Christy shared this with me today and it blessed me. Through our sometimes doubt, fear, discouragement and even anxiety at times...He has proven Himself so faithful to us, we are humbled.

‎"Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."—Isaiah 49:16.

O doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word "Behold," is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the preceding sentence. Zion said, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me." How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doub...ts and fears of God's favoured people? The Lord's loving word of rebuke should make us blush; He cries, "How can I have forgotten thee, when I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands? How darest thou doubt my constant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?" O unbelief, how strange a marvel thou art! We know not which most to wonder at, the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of His people. He keeps His promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him. He never failethfulness of this! I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put thee altogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee when He has graven thee upon His own palms?

This morning's (11-7) devotion from Morning and Evening

Praise the Lord again!

I cannot believe it, it seems as a miracle...our facilitator just sent me an e mail, he just got a call 5 min ago that our dossier has arrived and he is leaving to go pick it up. It is 9:30am on Monday there. So, Lord willing...pray everything looks good with our documents and that after he completes the translations we can be submitted on Thursday. We can only be submitted on Thursdays as that is the day they take dossiers for our age range...pray it not be too late. Thank you Lord! He has done this.

http://vimeo.com/31232831

 

Wonderful video, please watch if you can.

Our dossier...

has still not been delivered...now I am getting really discouraged and sad. They did "find" it and put it back on track but looks like it is now trying to catch up. The chances of us getting submitted are very very slim it seems. I did see a new picture of little "D" today, he was asleep. Please pray not for our own selfish reasons but for the sake of his life, that our paperwork arrives in time to be submitted. It is so sad to me when I see his pictures to know that so much distance and possibly time seperates us. I took his little blanket that I made, to be embroidered, we are putting ....

^"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."  Romans 8:15  

Getting ready...

it is so nice to be done with paperwork for the time being, once in country, there will be even more paperwork than we had to do here :) We are now slowly collecting things we need to take to the Ukraine and we got a new bunkbed set for the BOYS (notice I love saying boys)! Here are a couple pics of Mike and the kids putting it together tonight.

Glory to God!

Our dossier was found, not sure where it was located or why it got off track, but it was scanned today going through customs in Ukraine. Pray Pray it makes it into the hands of our facilitator safely and soon so that we can try to be submitted on the 10th. There are no promises that they will accept our dossier but we are hoping that come the 10th they will still be accepting them, we are getting close. Thank you so much to everyone that was praying!!!

Can you believe this?

Our dossier should have made it to the Ukrain* by now, however the last scanning they have it was leaving Chicago for overseas. They are starting an investigation today to try to locate it. Pray Pray Pray they find it and it gets back on track fast. This could be a very big deal concerning our adoption. We have to trust the Lord knows the exact location of our dossier and that His timing in it getting to the Ukrain* is perfect. I have to rest in that, let's pray! Thank you!