Moving the Mountain-Part 1

Matthew 17:19
For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."


Since the time we received the telegram saying we had a supreme court date in Moscow, we have been begging God to move a mountain. The mountain was for us to be able to bring Kirill home without having to go back to the regional court for another hearing after the supreme court hearing. You see, we were not given any hope of being able to do that. Our adoption agency has been amazing, but they have never had a family denied an adoption in Russia. So we have all been learning about the Russian appeal process together! :) It was their understanding, as well as our facilitators here in Moscow who also work for our adoption agency, that there was absolutely no possibility of the Supreme Court being able to grant us custody of Kirill at our hearing. We were told they could "cancel" the original ruling and grant us a new hearing with a different regional judge, but that they could NOT change the ruling right then and there and grant us custody of Kirill.


So we left home on May 21st thinking this would be a quick trip--we would have our supreme court hearing and then go home--regardless of the outcome. 


The Tuesday night before we left, the members of the campus ministry at our church got together to pray for us. They asked what they could pray for. Greg told them "a miracle--and that would be that we could bring Kirill home on this trip." We've said for a long time now that the only thing we really want is for God to be glorified no matter what happened with our adoption. But that night, Greg did ask them to pray specifically for a miracle and for us to be able to adopt Kirill right then and there.


Saturday morning, we got on a plane and started our journey to Moscow. Our facilitator, Dima, and our translator for our adoption documents, Inna, picked us up at the airport. We started talking on the way to the hotel, as we usually do on these drives, about adoption business. Dima was going over our itinerary and we were discussing court. When we were near the end of our conversation, I asked, "So just to clarify what Lauren (our adoption agency social worker) told us, the supreme court judge will give us one of two answers: Yes...and we will be granted another hearing at a later date with a different judge than the one that rejected our adoption in Kirill's region, or No...and we will go home and the adoption will be over and we cannot adopt Kirill?" Dima answered that he had some different information from the lawyer and that we might be able to get Kirill right away. I'll be honest, I really didn't believe this would be a possibility. Sometimes the language barrier is very confusing. Information gets misunderstood and translated differently than what is meant in the original language. I can't tell you how many times things have been "lost in translation" in this process. So I really didn't think too much about it. It was a glimmer of hope, but we had been let down so many times that I just wouldn't let myself get too excited about it.


We went to our hotel and took a nap because we were so tired from the flight. When we woke up, we walked around Red Square and ate at an outdoor cafe. As we talked over dinner, I kept asking Greg if he really thought Dima knew what he was talking about. He kept telling me, "We'll just have to wait and talk to the lawyer tomorrow night." I was started to feel my hopes rising and I didn't want to be too disappointed. So I kept dismissing the thought when I would start feeling hopeful that Dima had the correct information. 



Sunday, I spent the day getting documents ready for our meeting with our lawyer, and ultimately, court. I wanted to make sure everything was organized and easily accessible if I needed to reference anything during court. Greg and I would both be making speeches to the judge and I wanted to cover every possible point that I could think of as to why Kirill needed to be in our home rather than in an orphanage. I finished writing my speech that afternoon and had research articles to back most of my arguments, all translated into Russian, thanks to some friends who pitched in and helped me translate them using Google Translate (there were 27 of them), in case the judge needed to see them too. 


It seemed like an eternity from the time we were picked up at the airport until Monday night when we met with our lawyer. We didn't meet until 6 p.m. {keep in mind our hearing was THE NEXT DAY...does that make anyone else nervous??? Because it almost gave me a panic attack}. We were told it would be a long meeting by our agency before we left the U.S...probably at least three hours. We met in the hotel lobby...I had tons of papers and questions. Our lawyer was very nice, but he seemed really nonchalant about everything. I was overly-chalant (is that a word?) and stressed. When we were talking, he would often answer with "I don't know" or "we will have to see" and oftentimes he would say, "it's a 50/50 chance." Talk about leaving a meeting with more questions than answers...thats EXACTLY how we felt. But the one question he DID answer was the most important...he confirmed what Dima had told us in the car ride from the airport. The judge would rule in one of three ways: 1. No and we would not be able to adopt Kirill, 2. Yes and we would be granted a new hearing in the region with a different judge, or 3. Yes and the original ruling would be overturned right then and we would be granted custody of Kirill. And what's more...we would not have to wait the typical 10-day waiting period if they overturned the ruling and granted us custody. Our lawyer informed us that we could go get him immediately upon the issuance of the court decree, which would happen within five days of the supreme court hearing. 


THERE WAS HOPE. GOD WAS MOVING OUR MOUNTAIN AND THEN SOME.


I started to get my hopes up then. I just couldn't help it. I KNEW that we had so many people praying for us and I KNEW that God didn't want Kirill to be an orphan. I prayed and prayed that night. I had to get some sleep but it wouldn't come very easily. I finally got on my knees and begged God to grant me rest and peace. And he did.

With our lawyer, Alexander, after the hearing

With Natasha, our sweet court translator, after the hearing

Speaking of rest...it's late here and I need to go to bed! But, I will tell you the rest of the supreme court story very soon! The Cannells still need money for their adoption. We have raised about 30% of the goal for the Chip-In. Now, I'm going to tell Kirill's story, of course, regardless of the outcome of the Chip In! I wouldn't really keep it a secret. But I really would love to see the goal reached before we bring our boy home. Let's get to 60% and I'll finish up the part about the supreme court hearing, deal? Just click on the chip in to donate...it's super-duper easy.





For those of you praying for us...please pray that our court decree is issued tomorrow. We want so badly to go get Kirill! HE HAS ALREADY BEEN DISCHARGED FROM THE ORPHANAGE AND THEY ARE HOLDING HIM THERE FOR US UNTIL WE ARRIVE. I can't stop smiling when I think about the fact that he's no longer an orphan. If we don't get the court decree tomorrow morning, we won't be able to leave Moscow tomorrow evening. So please pray that it is ready tomorrow morning so we can get on the overnight train to Pskov tomorrow night and pick him up on Wednesday morning! We need to be out of Russia by the 10th because our visas expire then. So we really, really, really need to pick him up and start getting his paperwork processed to come home! Thank you all for praying!!! Seriously, do you understand how powerful those prayers have been? I don't think you can unless you've been in our shoes...it's amazing and I will never be able to thank you all enough.