gratitude for what is, before we get to the big finale

Ethan had a wonderful teacher one year who had the children each choose an word for the year, then carefully choose a rock that "spoke to them," and write that word on the rock. We did it as a family too, it was a great way to take a measure of what our hearts need and what we hope for with anticipation for the year.

Gratitude is the word for the year for me this year. Hope is fitting too as there is so much we are anticipating with great hope. Despite the longing for Lena to be here now, and the stress of different events that have occurred, we love her all the more as we have had to endure time away from her, suffer painful events with her, and experience sacrifice, in the process.  I am grateful for what will be, whatever it may look like, because I am so grateful for what I have received already.

If I haven't made it clear so far, I believe that God has laid out this path for us and "invited" us onto it. At any point we could've said we don't want to go farther, we don't want all that adopting a 16 year old entails, but saying no to the one who gives every good gift, when the invitation is so clear, would be foolish.

So we traveled to Ukraine about two weeks ago. Totally stepping outside of all that felt comfortable and safe, and went. We left our children in the best of  hands and traveled for 30+ hours to get to Kiev.

A quick note on Kiev and being in Ukraine right now- we never felt unsafe. We walked through Maidan where the protests occured, where people were killed just weeks ago, with hundreds of other people also milling around, shopping, eating.  There are still people occupying the area but there is no violence or unrest.

Here are some pictures of that area now. Notice the barricades made of tires, the bottles in preparation for molotov cocktails, the sidewalk bricks torn up because they were used as weapons, the building that was burned...

 The tents in the background are where some protestors are continuing to occupy until (presumably) the new, non-corrupt government is in place. (Is that an oxymoron? Anyway..) But to give you a picture of what the occupation looks like right now, think grilling out, ping pong tables, take out, beer, etc.

 The shops in the background of the above pic are open, as are restaurants, etc. Life is going on around the big mess in the street. Traffic is also going around it, it's a big mess because this main road is closed.

 Above you can see what the sidewalks were like, so beautiful, and now torn up.  One Saturday a bunch of people gathered to start putting the bricks back.

 The black all over the street is because of the tires they burned.

 Bottles in preparation for molotov cocktails. (above)

 There are flowers everywhere memorializing the people who were killed.

Crimea, where Russia has now taken over, is very much separate from the main part of the country. Life is mostly going on as usual, for the average person, so even when we travelled to Lena's town, about 350 miles from Kiev,  life was going on as usual. Kiev itself is like most major European cities, lots of tall buildings, apartments, restaurants, ridiculous traffic, people bustling about, all of the high end stores you find everywhere, malls, etc.

I am so grateful that we always felt safe, that we made new friends to explore Kiev with, that the protests were over and that we had the opportunity to grieve with a country previously so foreign to us.

 The beauty in Kiev is also striking. The old cathedrals are very ornate and colorful, inside and out. Lots of gold on the inside.

The opera house. 

(Note the full sized cars. Unlike most of western Europe where the cars are usually smaller).

The major river that runs through the country, all the way to the Black Sea. It was really beautiful and there are beaches along most of it. 

This is the original gate to the city. It was huge. And beautiful.

The fire department.  So pretty, right?

The entrance to the mall. It was SO clean and really big.

The Mall. WAAY more Western than I anticipated!

Attached to the mall was a store that would be comparable to a Wal-Mart but it was really clean. They sold some clothes, electronics, food, baked goods, produce, meats, dried tea leaves, etc. There were definitely some different products than we would see in our stores, but it's a different country, so expected. It was really fun to check out how they do things differently in the store and to see all the different kinds of products!

Carrots. Not pre washed. 

Quail eggs

Scoop out your own flour and sugar.  

Just a shot of the store. 

The view of traffic and the road from our balcony. Most people live in condos in Kiev and the larger cities.  The outside of  a lot of the buildings do not look very inviting.  But the inside is often very different. Here are pics of the apt. we stayed in:

Like I said, we never felt unsafe, so we met up with two other American couples who were also in country adopting and went to dinner, explored the mall, and walked around alot. We even ventured into the metro! It was SO CLEAN! I heard later that the metro  in Kiev is the deepest underground in the world, build for safety in case of nuclear attack (or something like that).  The escalators were REALLY steep and really fast so it was a little tricky getting on and off. Especially if you are as graceful as I am.




Freddie felt a bit sick, some of the escalators were also really long!
















As we traveled outside of Kiev the result of Soviet occupation in the country's history was evident. (We took an overnight train to the city near Lena's village). There is a lot of poverty (this is an understatement), there is no money to maintain roads, buildings are in various states of disrepair, there are places where there is just trash everywhere.

There are also many pockets of beauty, the landscape is gorgeous. Rolling hills, farmlands, trees, all  amazing when they are green and in bloom, I am sure.  And there are also families who are really making it, they have solid jobs, work really hard, and have beautiful houses.  Unfortunately from what we saw (of course limited), that was not the norm.

There were often fires in the fields or along the road on the (VERY BUMPY, SWERVY) drive back to Kiev.  We were told that people/farmers will burn the land every few years to renew it and it'll just go out eventually. One of the fires was the biggest I'd ever seen. Talk about a cultural difference. But the soil is so rich it is almost black.

 

So we did get to see Lena and visit with her at the boarding house. It was so awesome and so heartbreaking all at the same time. We met some of her friends who are going to be leaving the boarding house in May, just walking out the gate to make it on their own with a lump sum of money from the government.  About 2 of 25 kids "make it". That is, approx. 2 will get a job and live a more normal life, the rest are usually involved with crime, end up in jail, prostitution, die or commit suicide.

I can't even tell you what it was like to wait for her and then have her walk into the room. We all couldn't believe we were finally here. 

The fence at the  back of the boarding house. 

Entrance to the boarding house.  It was SO clean and well kept, it was obvious that the director uses money she receives to better the building and provide extracurricular activites for the children. 

We were invited to sit and eat lunch in the cafeteria. We had borsch (traditional beet soup), kasha, some coleslaw and a piece of chicken. It was really generous of the director. 

The smaller bunks for the little ones. 

The tv and sitting area for the older children.

Lena's bed with the stuffed bear Ethan gave her. 

Lena's wall of pictures of our family. : >

The girls' showers. 

The girls' sinks/mirrors in the bathroom.

Back of the boarding house.

Playground for the younger children. 

So that was trip 1.  Everyone here did great while we are gone.  I am so thankful for everyone who is praying for us.  We are headed back very soon to go to court and have the adoption approved. We then have to wait 10 days until she can come home with us, so we'll come home and then Freddie will go back to get her.

I wish I could show you pictures of the children we saw. They are precious. (I don't think I"m allowed to). We heard some of their heartbreaking stories, how they ended up at the boarding house, how they are like every other kid and really want a family to belong to and be loved by. The sweetest little boy with freckles and spiky hair came and sat next to us and just waved at Freddie. Crushed us.  If you are moved at all there are SO many ways you can help.  One of the best ways is to host a child for a month over the summer. Even if you don't want to adopt, you will get to know them and can advocate for their adoption. Maybe someone you know would want to adopt them. You never know. We never thought we would be doing this and here we are!

Feel free to email me with questions if you want to know more about our story or about orphans in Ukraine. We're all about advocating for these kids!


Second trip to Ukraine is quickly approaching. All prayers welcome, especially for the judge to quickly and easily approve the adoption, and for our time with Lena to be sweet and abundant! Will catch you up on that when we return!

xo
Andrea

She's on facebook!

In early September Freddie got a voicemail from Lena.   We were stunned that somehow us giving money to a non-English speaking chaperone from the Ukraine in July at the airport when we brought Lena back actually resulted in Lena getting a phone and our number, and calling us. Stunned.  We were able to talk with her a bit, basically the small talk she had learned while she was here.

 Us, "How are you?"
Lena, "Good! I so happy to hear you! How are you?"
 "Good! School good?"
 "Yes, school good!"
"Good!"


That was fun the first couple of times but then it became frustrating for her because she really wants to communicate. So Freddie figured out how to get her on American Facebook (there's an Eastern European version too). And this is the coolest thing EVER.

For all of the downsides of Facebook that it's possible to experience, it has been a huge gift for me. When my dad died I was so sad thinking about losing connection to his side of the family who are spread out all over the country.  Because of FB I think I'm probably more in touch with those aunts and cousins than ever before. (Yes Laura, Jan, Nora, Judy, Michel, Anne, Aunt Lois and everyone else... I'm looking at you)!  And now, we get to be in touch with the girl who is more and more feeling like a daughter stuck abroad. She is posting pictures of where she lives, her classroom, her friends...technology is amazing. She still doesn't speak English well so she types in Russian, we open Google Translate and translate what she said, type in English and translate to Russian then cut and paste it back.  It is the BEST!

I really want to show you all some of the pix she posted but I think she wouldn't like that. They are so great. I originally posted them here but took them off after a second thought.  Believe me when I tell you, she's a cutie.

As far as when we will see her again and when she will be here:
 We will be able to host her again for a month in December (a trip separate from the adoption process).  She will come here in Dec. and have to go back in Jan. because she is not legally available to be adopted yet due to the laws in her country. We are hoping to find out this week when she is available to come here permanently and then we will start planning our trip abroad. (Prayers that she is available in January and that we can just travel back with her)!

IN THE MEANTIME..

The next big thing that feels so uncomfortable to talk about is fundraising. This whole process is so expensive. As far as the money is concerned, it's no surprise to me why there are still so many orphans when there are families who want children.  We were told to estimate $40,000.  Yikes. Writing a check for +$1000.00 - $3000.00 for 5 hours of someone's time is mind boggling.

SO,  one of the ways we are going to do fundraising is by hosting a link to Amazon.com on this blog -and advertising it on Facebook.  All you have to do is keep shopping on Amazon the way you have been (or start, it's a great thing to have stuff shipped to your house! Everyone loves a package, right?), but click THIS LINK to get to the Amazon website and we will automatically get a percentage of what you spend! SO EASY!!

Please send the link to your friends, book mark it, whatever you can to remember to go through THIS LINK and we will automatically, each month, have a total percentage of sales made through the link deposited directly to the account we have set up for Lena. Easy peasy.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, to pray for us, to buy stuff on Amazon and to just be in this with us somehow. This whole thing is a wild ride and we are thrilled to be a part of it!

xo
Andrea

P.S.  I must give a shout out to God for all of the ways we have been provided for in this- so many of you have reached out to help and support tangibly and emotionally because you too have been moved.  The process has been incredibly smooth and fast, we hope He is preparing us for her to come soon!!

P.P.S. Figuring out how to put links on this blog has taken me about 3 1/2 hours. No Joke. I laugh at how technologically challenged I am! HA!

Still feeling. She's still not here.

Lena has been gone for  two weeks now, we still get emotional when we think about it. A lot of you have had questions about why she's gone, when she'll be here for good, etc. so I thought I'd just take a minute and address some details.

The hosting program works directly with orphanages and each orphanage agrees to a certain amount of time for the children to be hosted, the children must go back to their country at the end of that time period, regardless of the family's interest in adoption.   The hosting agency wants the children to come back in December for a few weeks and will be approaching the orphanage to see if they would like to participate in that.  Our hope, of course, is that she will be able to come back in December for that time, we are praying that the orphanage will agree to this for their children!

Here's a kicker: In this particular country, children are placed on a registry for one year when they first arrive at the orphanage and during that year the child is ineligible for adoption while the orphanage confirms that parental rights have been terminated and there's no other family who want the child.  In our case, Lena was not put on the registry, despite having been at the orphanage for many years, until sometime early this year-we hope she was anyway-so she is ineligible for adoption until that time is up, whenever exactly that is. Details do not come easily in this process.  (CRY!)

SO in the meantime we have:
1- completed our home study (including autobiographies, medical tests, reference letters, notes from my 3rd grade teacher- just kidding, no notes)

and are now

2-in process of filing some paperwork to secure our ability to adopt HER (as there are a few complications around that given her age)

THEN

3- when the adoption agency says NOW we have to start another round of paperwork to put together to send to her country as an application to adopt-not too soon or it could expire, not too late or we'll miss our chance.  "Completing paperwork" looks nothing short of bringing a notary to the doctor with me so that when he says I don't have all of the diseases I'm being tested for we can say he's telling the truth.  (Thank you Krissy K. for saying you will try to make it work to come with me and be my personal notary!!)

SO this is how I feel right now:

Ok and also like this:

with a little bit of banging my head against the wall. 

BECAUSE

Currently the orphanages are closed for the summer so the children from different orphanages are combined and sent to camps together, which are nothing like fun American camps but more like a concrete building where they are under little supervision, there is little structure to the day, and little for them to do. Lena was VERY unhappy about having to go there and left many of the gifts she had been given at our house because she was afraid they'd be stolen at camp.


AND BECAUSE

We have no contact with her until she returns to her orphanage sometime in September. (Getting any kind of concrete information from anyone is impossible, we have no idea when she's returning from camp).  We can then send her packages and try to call on a phone one of the chaperones will buy with some money we gave her.  It was advised that we try to get her a phone as sometimes orphanages close and then we would lose contact with her.  (WHAT?!?!?? ) It kinda makes me feel sick to my stomach thinking too much about all of the things I have no control over, including where she is and who is watching over her.  Talk about driving me to my knees in prayer. Seriously.


BUT

The Sunday before Lena left was truly a gift. A good friend of mine connected me to a woman who speaks Russian and she came over with her husband for two and a half hours and translated for us. It was AWESOME. Lena asked us all kinds of questions including why and how we chose her, if we really wanted a younger child and just ended up with her, if we will come to get her and when. She said she was worried about American school and making friends because where she has grown up there is no help if you miss taking notes in school, that the girls she has lived with have hurt her with gossip and betrayal.  The threads of our attachment to her were being sewn. It was such a vulnerable conversation and such a gift for us to be able to tell her that we chose HER intentionally, that we didn't want anyone else, that she was no mistake.  We got to tell her that we thought she was funny, sweet, beautiful, just perfect for us no matter how she does in school here or what becomes easy or difficult along the way, and that ultimately we trusted it was God's perfect plan somehow that she would be with us.  That time with her was nothing short of an amazing, beautiful gift.

She was so animated getting to babble on in Russian, like she was just uncorked, it was so fun to watch. Here are some pics:

Oh how I love this girl.  

Thanks for continuing to follow up with us, it really means a lot to know that you all haven't forgotten that we're still feeling this even though she's not here right now.  Sweet Alexa asked if we could call her tonight and was so disappointed that we have a while to wait. Ethan made her a pink God's eye the other day out of the blue.  Still feeling it indeed.  

xoxo

Andrea