Our Eyes Opened

COMPLETE

2011-06-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

After 2 years, hundreds of documents, thousands of tears, and millions of prayers, I can finally say...OUR ADOPTION OF KIRILL IS COMPLETE!

We feel incredibly blessed by God's addition of Kirill to our family.

We understand God's love for us more fully because of this difficult road we travelled to bring Kirill home.

We realize we could not have done it alone.

We are SO THANKFUL for the outpouring of support through words, thoughts, acts of kindness, and most importantly, PRAYER.

If you've followed our journey from the beginning, you know that we have grown increasingly passionate about orphan care during our adoption process.

I can think of no better way to end this blog than to put out a plea for the millions of other children just like Kirill that do not have most basic human right...the love of a family.

As we were saying good-bye to our wonderful Russian staff on Kirill's gotcha day, I will never forget our facilitator's parting words to us. With tears in her eyes she said, "You have a blog. Please put on your blog that there are other children here who need families."

This request was humbling and amazing to us. Our Russian staff had been working so hard on our behalf. They lost sleep and put in long hours to help us fight for our precious son. I know their jobs were so very difficult. Yet they want to keep fighting for these children who are not valued by their society to have famlies. I cannot tell you how much these people mean to us. They are truly the Rosa Parks of their society, fighting for the rights of those that cannot fight for themselves.

And they are winning.

NO, GOD IS WINNING.

I am fully convinced that Satan tries to keep people from adopting orphans because he KNOWS that through adoption, you will come to know God's love for you more fully than you have ever known his love before. I can also tell you that when you choose to adopt, God will teach you things that he cannot teach you any other way than through the adoption process.

So don't miss out.

Adopt.

There are 147 million chances waiting to show you the love that God has for you.

And if you are afraid or if you have excuses, tell them to God and then listen for his reply. Search scripture. Ask him to help you understand his heart. Then remember his promises...

Joshua 1:9

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

Phil 1:6

"For I am certain of this very thing, that he by whom the good work was started in you will make it COMPLETE until the day Christ returns."

NOTE: I am leaving this blog up for anyone who wants to read our story. But from now on, I'll be posting on our family blog. BECAUSE KIRILL IS A PART OF OUR FAMILY! So please follow our family blog by clicking the link below if you want to keep up with Kirill and the rest of the Davises:

MINIVANS AND MOM JEANS

By the way, I switched to a dot com address, so the website address for our family blog is now www.minivansandmomjeans.com. If you use the old address (www.minivansandmomjeans.blogspot.com), it will still take you to the blog, but some of the features may not work as well...like Google friends. :)

Decisions, Decisions

2011-06-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

Now that Kirill's adoption is complete, I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with this blog. I had always intended to just stop posting here and post more on our family blog once Kirill was home. But I never really expected to have so many readers either! My other blog, the one I started 6 years ago (Minivans and Mom Jeans...you should check it out!) has been woefully neglected since we started the adoption process two years ago. But, I love that blog because it's got so much of our family history on it AND it's where I did more creative writing for so long. Our Eyes Opened has a more serious tone. I'm thinking I can combine the two and share both philosophical posts AND the ~~hilarious & exaggerated~~ stories of our family life.

I do not have time to keep up two blogs. (Who am I kidding? I haven't been keeping up two blogs as it is!)

I don't really want to close Minivans.

But most of you all started reading here.

Will you follow me if I stop posting here?

What to do?

I'm going to leave it up to you!

There's a poll if you look to the right--->

Cast your vote! Because I'm not good with decisions. And my brain is full right now. So tell me what to do!

Adjustment & Attachment

2011-06-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Below you will find a letter we had prepared to send out to family & friends back in March when we thought we were bringing Kirill home. After we were denied his adoption in his regional court, we didn't send out the letter. Since we were all a little caught off guard by his homecoming after our supreme court hearing, we are just now sharing this with everyone. It is very apparent now more than ever that the plans we had for Kirill's adjustment be followed. We are all doing fine, but we just cannot have a lot of excitement right now. Quiet and calm are our friends. :) I will share on here our day to day, so I hope you will follow along and understand if I don't respond to every email, phone call, or comment right now. I do read them and appreciate them more than you will ever know. But if I responded to everything, I would not have any time for Clayton and Kirill. Things will settle down eventually and I hope to be able to be more responsive after we are all adjusted to the big changes in our lives! Thank you again so much for your continued prayers and support.

Dear Family and Friends,

As we get ready to embark on one of the most exciting events in our lives, we are thinking a lot about the people around us and how much our lives are going to change. Family and friends are so very important to us and we cannot wait for Kirill to share in the blessing of a relationship with each one of you. We feel that God has worked through you all to give us love, support, and encouragement during our adoption process. You have prayed, cried, and shared in our excitement; truly you have been Christ to us. We appreciate you more than we can ever express in words.

We’re thrilled about bringing Kirill home! We’ve done a lot of reading, research, and asked a lot of other adoptive parents about this process and we feel as prepared as we can be to help Kirill become a member of our family and community.

There are some things about adoptive parenting that are the same as parenting a biological child. There are also quite a few areas that we have learned are different. Through our adoption agency, the UAB International Adoption Clinic, books, other adoptive parents, adoption social workers, psychologists and more, we have learned that Kirill needs a specific type of environment and parenting when he first comes home in order to feel safe & secure and to learn how to live successfully in our family.

While we know that every child is different, we also understand that there are many possible things that will impact Kirill’s beliefs and behavior when he gets home. These include how much nurturing Kirill received, if there was abuse or neglect, the amount and quality of the food he received, illnesses, the quality of care and his unique temperament and personality. The result of these variables can include behavioral issues, emotional disorders and a sense of grief and loss from being separated from the only home and caregivers Kirill has ever known. Adoption is a traumatic and scary event for a child, whether they are newborn or 10 years old. Kirill is being removed from all of his routines and familiar surroundings. If you have children, you can imagine plucking them out of your family and into a totally different home in a different country. Anyone would feel grief and sadness at an event like this. So in order to help Kirill feel safe and learn that we are his parents, we will be creating the type of environment that will help promote security for him during this stressful time.

When Kirill gets home, at the recommendation of the experienced adoption professionals with whom we have been working, we need to implement specific parenting approaches to help encourage a strong, attached, emotionally healthy bond. Kirill needs to learn that we are the parents. He needs to feel nurtured and safe. He will not be used to having parents to love and care for him.

Here are some things we will be doing for Kirill based on research and experience with other adopted children. We will be living a very quiet life with limited trips out and few visitors in for a little while. Social workers and psychologists tell us that when children are first brought into the adoptive home, they often feel overwhelmed, scared, and nervous. By keeping our lives very boring at first, we will be helping Kirill feel safe. This does NOT mean we do not want visitors coming to meet Kirill for the first time. We will just have to limit it a little so that it is not overwhelming. Please feel free to call us and ask to come visit! We just want you to understand that if we have to limit visitors it is not because we want you to stay away. On the contrary, we need your support and encouragement during this time!

I know a number of people are planning to meet us at the airport when we arrive home. That will be wonderful and touching for us to see so many familiar and supportive faces when we arrive. We do not want family and friends to stay away from us. We just can’t pass Kirill around for everyone to hold a lot and we will have to be mindful of overloading him with new things and people. We know you will want to hug, kiss, and help spoil Kirill, but it is recommended that we be the only ones to do that at first to improve his chances of attaching strongly to us. Until we feel that Kirill has attached and clearly knows that we are his parents, we will need to feed, change, and take care of him. We know that it may feel disappointing to some of you because you have shared in our excitement of meeting Kirill. I bet you’re especially disappointed about missing out on the diaper changes. Have no fear; there will be many more once he becomes comfortable at home. J

As strange as it may seem, adopted children who act very outgoing and affectionate with strangers is not a healthy thing. It is called “indiscriminate affection” and can mean that they haven’t really attached to anyone. It would not be a good sign that Kirill is attached to us if during his first months home he will let just anyone take him and hold him without searching for us. For certain, it going to be a weird and wonderful experience for us. We are so excited and we can’t wait to bring Kirill home so you can all see him and get to know him. Things are just a little different when you are adopting a child rather than having a biological child. He will be adapting to a lot of new things…new parents, new brother, new home, new foods, new time zone (totally opposite of everything he is used to). That’s a lot to swallow at one time. Although we cannot predict how long it will take Kirill to adjust to our home, we feel confident that by implementing some specific parenting approaches it will happen more quickly than if we did not implement those approaches.

We appreciate your time and understanding in reading this. We are giving you this letter because you are very important to us, and we know you will be to Kirill as well. We want you to understand how dedicated and committed we are to helping Kirill adjust and adapt as smoothly as possible during this stressful time in his life. We feel confident that everything will smooth out quickly and we will be on a more normal schedule! Thank you again for your continued prayers, love, and encouragement.

In Him,

Greg & Tesney

Kirill's Miracle Story: The Final Installment

2011-06-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

After we got Kirill, Greg and our Russian staff went to pick up his passport and complete some additional paperwork. We thought it would take about an hour or maybe two, but like everything else in this adoption, nothing was easy! :) When Greg got to the bank to do the paperwork, there was a paper missing that was left back in Pechory (an hour drive from Pskov). So Greg and our staff had to drive there and back, meet with the bank, pick up the passport, and be back at the hotel by 5 p.m. so we could catch our overnight train that left at 6:30 p.m. YIKES! Once again, God was faithful and Greg got it all done just in time for us to leave for the train station around 5:15 p.m.

Meanwhile, Kirill and I stayed back at the hotel and had some bonding time. The first thing I wanted to do (after hugging and kissing him excessively) was give him a proper bath. I undressed the little guy and just lost it. He was so painfully thin. I have never seen anything like it in real life. He was also covered in scabies. I called Greg and told him he had to pick up some scabies cream while they were out.

After his bath, I tried to dress him in some of the clothes we had bought. We had purchased 2T's and it was apparent that he was going to need 12 month clothes. I cinched up the waist of a pair of shorts as tight as they would go and made them work. He had to wear them the rest of the trip because all of the other pants and shorts we bought were so big they would fall to the ground when he stood up. Keep in mind he turned 5 years old in May. He wouldn't drink much but he ate all day long. Our Russian facilitator had made us a home-cooked meat pie and Kirill LOVED it! He ate half of it by himself over the course of the day. I was worried about him not drinking though; he was obviously dehydrated and needed fluids. I gave him lots of "juicy" foods...applesauce, yogurt, oranges...to get some fluids into his system.

When Greg got back to the hotel, I slathered scabies cream all over him. Then, we grabbed our bags and headed to the train station. As we left the hotel, we had to say goodbye to our Russian staff. We have grown to love them so much. It was really hard to say goodbye, not knowing when we would see them again. I cannot explain how much they mean to us; they fought so hard to help us bring Kirill home. I would HIGHLY recommend our adoption agency, Creative Adoptions, to anyone thinking of international adoption.

We boarded the train and had sleeping compartment to ourselves. No sketchy knife guys this time! We all ate supper and then we tried to lay Kirill down to sleep. He kept rocking and moaning restlessly. We have since learned that he does this when he's fighting sleep. Finally, around 10:30 p.m., Greg sat on the floor next to his bed and started praying. He said, "God, you know how to speak so that he understands. Please give him peace that he is safe and let him rest." Within seconds, he was asleep.

Eating meat pie on the train

We arrived in Moscow the next morning and our facilitator there took us to our hotel. The U.S. Embassy doctor came to do Kirill's medical exam. He told us K weighed 22 lbs. and that he was concerned about his malnourished state. I showed him that he was eating and had started drinking a little more. He told us that his heart sounded good. He also said the scabies cream we used wasn't very strong and gave us the name of a spray to use instead. The whole exam lasted about two minutes. He signed off on his part of the Embassy paperwork and wished us luck.

Our translator came to the hotel to help us with our Embassy paperwork. She took it ahead of us to the Embassy to make sure we had everything in order for our appointment. We headed to our Embassy appointment at 11:30. They had agreed to expedite our paperwork. We went to the front of every line and were in and out in 45 minutes. It was the fastest, smoothest part of the adoption by far! Ha!

Now here's the funny part. I had not had a true come-apart yet on this trip. I had tearful moments, but nothing like what happened in the U.S. Embassy. We were standing in line to pay for Kirill's visa and the emotions overwhelmed me. I have no idea why it happened at that moment. There wasn't really a trigger. I looked at Greg and said, "I'm about to lose it," and then burst into tears. You might think it was about K becoming a citizen of the U.S. But it had nothing to do with that. I'm really glad he's a U.S. citizen since that is where we live, but we are not citizens of the world so I don't really get emotional about the borders in which people reside. I think we were just quiet and still in that line and I finally had a chance to just let the emotions envelop me.

We left the Embassy and went back to the hotel. We rested for a few minutes and then headed to Red Square to take pics of K in his home country. We also stopped a the pharmacy for scabies spray. While we were there, the pharmacist was so sweet to Kirill. We were so refreshed by her kind gestures. We had been getting stares from people on the streets. Nobody was rude to us; I think people were just curious to see a child with disabilities in public. You just don't see people with disabilities our in public in Russia. But we believe this will change; we met many Russian people who gave us hope that the attitudes there are changing.

Our last night in Russia was very bittersweet. We went to eat dinner with our American friends who graciously hosted us for over a week during our wait to pick up Kirill. It was a perfect way to end our time in Russia.

Greg, Kirill, Rich H., me, Emily H., Nicole D. and Max D. (not pictured...Rob D. and Caiden D.)...our American friends!

Caiden D., Rob D., Greg, Kirill, me, Nicole D. and Max D....our gracious hosts!

The next morning we went to the airport and headed home! We checked into our flight and settled in on the plane for the LONG (12 hour) flight. We met some really sweet people on our flight who were returning from a 5- year missionary stint in Russia. Believe it or not, one of them had a child with DS! We also met a separate group of people returning from a mission trip. We had a lot of time to visit with them because Kirill didn't sleep the entire flight.

First plane ride

In D.C., we were greeted by our adoption agency social worker, one of my DS mommy friends, and two of my college friends. We didn't have much time with them, but I was so happy they all came to meet us at the airport.

The crew in D.C.

On our flight from D.C. to Chicago, Kirill still didn't sleep and we were all getting irritable. It had been 24 hours since we woke up that morning in Moscow. Kirill finally passed out about an hour before we landed in Birmingham. Little stinker!

After two years, we were finally home. We were greeted at the airport by our family as we came out of the concourse first. Then a host of people were waiting in baggage. You've seen the video...and my ugly cry...lol!

So finally, this chapter of our adoption journey was over. I couldn't believe it. I still don't sometimes. I look at Kirill a hundred times a day and wonder if he's really here or if it is a dream. Our God is so good, so faithful!

PSALM 138

1I give you thanks, O LORD, with all my heart;

I will sing your praises before the gods.

2I bow before your holy Temple as I worship.

I praise your name for your unfailing love and faithfulness;

for your promises are backed

by all the honor of your name.

3As soon as I pray, you answer me;

you encourage me by giving me strength.

4Every king in all the earth will thank you, LORD,

for all of them will hear your words.

5Yes, they will sing about the LORD’s ways,

for the glory of the LORD is very great.

6Though the LORD is great, he cares for the humble,

but he keeps his distance from the proud.

7Though I am surrounded by troubles,

you will protect me from the anger of my enemies.

You reach out your hand,

and the power of your right hand saves me.

8The LORD will work out his plans for my life—

for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever.

Don’t abandon me, for you made me.

Rewind: Kirill's Miracle Story, Part 3

2011-06-12T03:59:00.000-07:00

Before we left Russia, in the midst of all the craziness of trying to get things in order to bring Kirill home, I wanted to post some short picture-posts of our day-to-day and the things we did before I told part 3 of K's story. I knew if I didn't, I'd forget! I think there will be one more installment because I'm so long-winded. I just don't want to forget the details of this amazing journey!

I think I left off with us waiting for the court decree. We were told that according to Russian law, the Supreme Court had 5 days to prepare the decree. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Until Day 7. Timeframes are merely a suggestion in Russia. If you're reading this blog and you're early in the process of adopting from Russia, please go ahead and wrap your mind around that fact. :) Our facilitator called every day to check on the status of the decree, and everyday he would tell us, "Maybe it will be done tomorrow. We will hope for the best." Now we have learned that "We will hope for the best" from our facilitator (who is a wonderful man) really means, "I don't know." Again, the Russian way is so much different from the American way. This is neither good nor bad, just different. Russians do not get their panties in a wad about things they have no control over...they just "hope for the best."

We started to get worried when there was no decree after the fifth day. I felt uneasy until we had that piece of paper declaring Kirill was legally ours. We had so much disappointment in the course of our adoption; things that were not only unfair but also things that went against international adoption law happened to us and so I had a hard time trusting anything anyone said. In my mind, even a ruling from the Supreme Court might be changed somehow. During those days I had a lot of anxiety and didn't sleep very well. God used that to help me pray to him more, seek his peace, and trust him more deeply.

After the sixth day, panic increased because our visas were going to expire on June 10th. We had to get Kirill, get his paperwork processed in Pskov and Moscow, and get out of the country before our visas expired. If the decree didn't come through on the next day, there was no way we would be able to get out of the country in time, even with expediting our U.S. Embassy paperwork.

We prayed and prayed that God would move the judge to finish the decree. We were advised not to pressure him too much because that could make him take longer just to exercise control. It's a frustrating place to be, trying to gently persuade yet not pressure....when you really just want to go camp out at the supreme court building with signs and loudspeakers until they give you the decree.

On day 7, our facilitator called and said, "I think the decree will be ready today at 5 p.m. Or tomorrow. But we will hope for the best." LOL! I was beyond hoping for the best. So we packed up, not knowing if the decree would be ready, but if it was we had to immediately get on a train that left at 6:30 p.m. for Pskove. We went to the courthouse at 5 p.m., frantically ran to meet the secretary who brought down the decree, got back into the car, sped to the train station in 5 o'clock Moscow traffic, only to find there were no train tickets left.

WOMP, WOMP, WOMP.

Now it's funny, but at the time I was about to burst into tears. We HAD to be in Pskov on Friday morning because we needed to get Kirill's passport application in and pick up his birth certificate. The office that does birth certificates was going to be closed on Monday so if we didn't get to Pskov by Friday, we would not be able to get his birth certificate until Tuesday, which would mean there would be NO WAY we could get out of the country by the 10th.

We watched as our facilitator talked to the woman at the train ticket counter. He came back to us and told us that he would drive us if he had to, but that he was waiting to see if she could locate two tickets. Miraculously, she found two tickets together, but we would be sharing a sleeping compartment with two other people. I didn't care as long as we were on the train!

So we boarded the train and got settled into our lovely compartment with our two Russian "friends." One of the guys was nice, but the other one was NOT happy with sharing his compartment with "Americanskis". He kept chewing us out in Russian and every other word was "Americanskis!" The nice guy kept looking at the guy and rolling his eyes, kind of a signal of solidarity with us. Although we didn't speak each other's languages, no one had any trouble understanding the other. Greg and I just laid in our beds and read with headphones on while the angry Russian guy continued to spout angrily at us. It became funny at one point because he'd been going for about 45 minutes and we were not paying him any attention. He got frustrated with us not listening to him, so he started listening to music and singing over his headphones really loudly to annoy us. I guess he didn't realize that I've worked with kids and adolescents all my life, so that really doesn't bother me. I can tune out most anything. During the night, he got up to go to the bathroom or smoke, not sure which, and I noticed a knife in his bed. I motioned to Greg because if I was getting slashed in the middle of the night, I wanted to make sure he knew who did it. In the morning, as he was gathering his things, another knife fell out of his blanket. How many knives does one need on an overnight train to Pskov? Several apparently.

We got to Pskov unharmed and checked into the hotel. We had a couple of hours to shower and eat before our appointment to get Kirill's birth certificate. We found out that birth certificates are not issued on Fridays because they do marriages that day. But, our WONDERFUL facilitator had called and gotten special permission for us to get the birth certificate due to our circumstances and the fact that the office would be closed on Monday, as I mentioned earlier. We got the adoption certificate and birth certificate; an amazing moment. I cried as the woman read the certificates to us with Kirill's new name and our names listed as his parents.

We took these documents to the passport office to get Kirill's passport. There, I got to see his passport pictures, the first pictures I had seen of him since our visit in March. I was taking pictures of the pictures with my phone and the lady at the passport office was looking at me like I was crazy.

Cutest passport pictures ever!

We found out that the orphanage director wouldn't be able to bring Kirill to us until Monday. They had an official state visitor that day, so we had to wait over the weekend. It was tough after all the waiting we had already done, but we rested and got to see a lot of Pskov, which is a beautiful city.

Monday morning we woke up and anxiously awaited Kirill's arrival. It was such a wonderful reunion. I'll let the video do the talking!

Stay tuned, Part 4, the final installment, coming soon!

Welcome Home Kirill

2011-06-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

WE'RE HOME!

2011-06-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

I think this picture says it all!

Kirill Says Hi!

2011-06-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

GOTCHA DAY!

2011-06-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just arrived in Moscow on the overnight train and have a very short time to blog. Gotcha Day was crazy! I will tell the story later...we had some hiccups in our plans after we got Kirill. Nothing major, but had to chase papers in Pskov and do a lot of running around!

We are getting ready to go to the U.S. Embassy for Kirill's visa. The doctor just came to examine him in our hotel. He is extremely malnourished. The doctor was very concerned about how thin he is, but said otherwise he looks ok. He could not hear any issues with his heart by listening, but said we needed to get him to a cardiologist as soon as possible to make sure that the hole in his heart has closed on its own.

After bath in the hotel room

Gotcha!

So you're my daddy?

Enough with the camera already! I'm trying to eat!!!

He is eating very well though. He LOVES bananas and pretty much any food! He doesn't like to drink much. We have tried every kind of cup and liquid we can think of. This is worrying me a little. I know he is dehydrated because he doesn't pee very often. He only had one wet diaper all day yesterday.

Ok, I've got to run. Please pray for our precious Kirill. He is going to need so much. We are so thankful we got him out of the orphanage when we did. We cannot wait to get him home and fatten him up.

Passing the Time in Russia

2011-06-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

This trip started as a 5-day short trip to Russia. We are now on day 16! We are not complaining at all...but don't be surprised if I have a ceremonial burning for the 1 dress, 4 shirts and 2 pair of pants I brought. I keep reminding myself that there are many people in this world who would consider that an extensive wardrobe. We are so spoiled.

So you may be wondering how we've passed the last 13 days of waiting. There is no shortage of things to do in Russia! But first, you have to have a fabulous American family invite you to stay with them because they have all the good tips. :) What? You don't accept email invites to stay with complete strangers? Well, that's how we roll around here. We were SO BLESSED to have an American couple contact us and offer to allow us to stay at their apartment while we were in Moscow. If you've never priced hotels in Moscow, lemme tell ya...it ain't cheap. You can easily drop $200/night on a very modest hotel a good ways from the downtown area. The closer you get to Red Square, the more expensive it gets. So we took the American family up on their offer and we are so thankful we did! Not only did they give us an awesome place to stay, but we made new friends that will forever be a cherished part of Kirill's story and our lives. I just can't express how much they mean to us now!

Our friends' apartment in Moscow where we stayed

Like I said, if you find an awesome family, they can tell you lots of great places to visit and eat without breaking the bank. But if you don't happen to know an awesome family in Moscow, here are my suggestions:

You could visit St. Basil's...no, wait...you SHOULD visit St. Basil's and tour the inside:

Then, you could take a tour of the Metro Stations...because they are like mini-museums:

Greg and I found this statue to be our favorite because granny is packing some major heat.

Inside hall of a metro station...this one is actually kind of plain compared to some of the ones we saw.

Mass chaos that is the metro in Moscow

Then, you have to go shopping:

Izmaylovo Market where they sell a lot of handmade things...and some complete crap as well.

You might also need to find H&M to buy your new son some clothes!

Are you hungry yet? If so, there are some good places to eat, contrary to popular belief:

Honey Cake

Outdoor cafe near our hotel. Yay English menus!

Japanese food with our new friends Inna and Dima. Inna translated our court documents!

Stand where they sell a type of drink made from honey. The guy at the top is playing drums and the girl is dancing.

Make sure you see Red Square at night:

Take a walk by the river and play:

Our sweet American friends!

Tour Sparrow Hills for a fabulous view and to see the University of Moscow:

University of Moscow

There's lots of great free music if you look around hard enough:

Harpist in a hotel lobby

And fantastic views:

Looking out onto Red Square from St. Basil's

You can even go hang out with dead people:

Novedichy Convent and Cemetary

Boris Yeltsin

Chillin' in the cemetary

Novodevichy Convent

There are crazy cat ladies everywhere I guess.

Novodevichy

Then go to Gorky Park and meet the locals:

Walk down the river in the ritzy part of town and see some beautiful old buildings and monuments:

Visit the toy stores:

Greg LOVES Singamajigs!

Search for the nicest bathrooms (I also found the worst earlier at the cemetary, but I won't post that pic):

And find all the foreign embassies that you can because their buildings are usually pretty cool.

French Embassy...actually this part is the French Ambassador's residence

We did a lot more stuff, but I am not patient enough to load all the pics. We ate some good Mexican food and also went to the American Medical Clinic...not in that order. HA! So if you're desperately in need of either one of those things like we were, I can give you the 411 on them. :)

This is all I can post tonight. I'm tired and I need to try to sleep before our boy gets here tomorrow morning! I want to post about our time in Pskov too because it's been lovely, but that will have to wait.

From Russia with Love,
Tesney

The Celebration Begins

2011-06-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

After court was over, we were told the decree would be ready within 5 days and we could go pick up Kirill in Pskov as soon as the decree was ready. So we decided to stay in Moscow and just wait for the decree. We changed our plane tickets. We had already reserved the hotel for an extra night because we were not sure if court would be one day or two, so we had some time there to make a decision about our travel plans. It wasn't hard to decide; we weren't leaving Russia without our son this time. I didn't care if it took months, I wasn't getting on a plane without him!

We frantically emailed and Facebooked our awesome news. We Skyped with my family and some of our close friends. God just kept blessing us. People rallied to take care of everything at home since our trip got extended by two weeks.

AND THEN WE CELEBRATED!

HAPPY DADDY!

Suddenly, everything was brighter...especially St. Basil's

I have a slight obsession with the green doors in Russia. Guess what color I've decided to paint the door of our West Circle house since we've been here?

We celebrated in Red Square into the night!

Everything that has been done for us...there are not words to adequately describe how thankful we are for our biological family as well as our faith family...including so many of you. We could not have made this journey to Kirill without an army of people helping us. Many of you who simply read the blog but don't even know us have helped with finances and prayers and messages of support. Oh my, do we ever feel unworthy!!! I cannot say it enough: OUR GOD IS FAITHFUL! HE IS SO GOOD!

Next up: "How to Pass the Time in Russia"...stay tuned...LOTS of pictures and fun stories!

Kirill's Miracle Story-Part 2

2011-06-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

I left off the night before court. Greg and I miraculously slept that night. We woke up early and went to breakfast. I started to feel nervous as we were eating. We did a quick workout and then walked around the downtown area near our apartment to burn off nervous energy. Our court appointment wasn't until 3:10 p.m. and we were meeting our facilitator, Dima, at 1:50 p.m. to take the metro to the Supreme Court building.

I prayed all morning and kept singing "Our God" by Chris Tomlin. I kept singing it over and over and just praying that God would show himself to be more powerful than any judge on earth. As we walked out of the metro station to meet the translator, Natasha, I was humming "Our God." I remember vividly that moment for some reason. Over and over, I was praying to God to keep Satan out of the courtroom, give us peace, and help us say the right words to the judges. Once we met Natasha, we all headed to the Supreme Court building, which was a couple of blocks from the metro station.

When we arrived at the court building, our lawyer, Alexander, was there to meet us. We all had to go through strict security. We went through a scanner and had to give our passports to a couple of different people for security. A court official came down and took our passports again and then gave us cards that allowed us to enter the secure part of the building. It was all very formal and official. As we waited outside the courtroom in a waiting area, we chit-chatted with Alexander and Natasha about all of the formalities of getting into the building and that helped calm our nerves.

One of the court officials came out and took our passports (again). He told us that it would be a few minutes, that the case previous to ours was over and we would be next. He came back in about five minutes and took us into the courtroom. The judges came in...two men and a woman, we stood, and they started talking. When they were finished, Natasha informed us that they were reading the ruling for the previous case! LOL! We were so nervous and they weren't even talking to us yet. They left the room again and we waited.

At 3:20 p.m., our hearing started. The three judges walked in...all men. We stood as they talked and basically stated what the hearing was about. We sat down. The judge on the left was dark-haired and looked to be about 55 or so. He seemed to have compassion on his face and throughout the hearing, appeared to be the most interested in what was being said. He was also the one who talked the most and read the results of the hearing. The middle judge was large statured with gray hair. He looked to be older than the judge to his left, maybe 60ish. He showed absolutely no emotion, but did discuss some of the statements we made with the judge on his left and also asked us a question or two. The judge on the right was thin, gray-haired, and balding. He slept through the entire hearing. I'm not kidding. There was also a prosecutor, our attorney, the court secretary, and the court official that escorted us into the courtroom (I think he was like a bailiff in the U.S.).

The judges read the court decree from our hearing in Pskov. I was so difficult to sit through that without crying out. So many of the things in the decree were simply untrue. We had received a copy of the decree several weeks ago. I haven't been able to post anything about it because I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize our supreme court hearing. But the decree was written to support the judge's ruling, not to reflect what was stated in our court hearing. It was full of untrue statements, some about Clayton that were particularly infuriating to this mama.

Some were about things the social workers and doctors said in court; all of which were positive in court, but the judge had twisted and turned to make it sound like they were not in our favor. For example, one of the social workers testified that during one of the visits with Kirill, he was crying when he entered the room (because they had taken him away from his playtime to visit us). However, as soon as he entered the room I picked him up and consoled him and as the social worker described it in court, she said "it was as if this mother had a magic wand." She went on to say how that he quickly calmed down and how that she felt we had a strong bond with Kirill. The judge replied in court very curtly, "Can you show me this wand?" At the time, I wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or if she was just joking. However, it became clear when we got the decree. Because the judge wrote in her decree that the social worker testified that Kirill was crying during one of our visits and that she believed that this meant he was not happy with us. Clearly, she took anything she could out of context and twisted it to support her ruling. It was so hard to listen to again as it was being read by the supreme court judge. At one point my emotions were so overwhelming that I just stared at this seal behind the judge's bench and prayed hard for God to keep me from crying and let me be strong for Kirill. He did and I didn't break down, but oh how my heart hurt.

After the judge read the decree, Alexander gave a short opening statement. The judge asked the prosecutor if he wanted to respond and he declined. Then, Greg gave his speech and requested that the documents we had brought be entered into the hearing (letters of support from the National Down Syndrome Congress; letters from friends who have children with DS, both adopted and biological; a letter from the RISE school that Kirill will attend stating he has a spot reserved and describing the therapies/services they provide; and two additional letters from our home study agency regarding issues the judge had with their distance from our home). I have to say, my husband is amazing. He was so strong as he read, point by point, the reasons why the judge's original ruling was wrong. I know he had to have been nervous, but you couldn't tell at all. He was very confident, strong, and compassionate at the same time. He has been such a rock through all of this and I love him so much. I am so proud of him and his love for our family.

After Greg's speech, the judges asked him a few questions, mainly about his profession...nothing really difficult at all. Then the prosecutor was given a chance to cross-examine/respond, but he refused. Then it was my turn to talk. The judges instructed me very sternly to not repeat anything that Greg said. So I was frantically trying to look over my speech and hit any high points that he missed. I also was trying to highlight all of my experience with children with special needs. So I got about three sentences out before I mentioned my undergraduate training & volunteer work at RISE, where Kirill will attend school in the fall. Greg had mentioned RISE in his speech but just in the context that Kirill would go to school there. Immediately after I said "RISE", the main judge stopped me and told me not to repeat anything Greg said. They asked me several questions about my job, especially if I did research at the University of Alabama where I work. Finally, the dark-haired judge said, "Do you want to adopt this child for research or because you love him?" I was so taken aback by the question and at that point I got very emotional and answered (as best I can recall), "Because I love Kirill! We love him so much already and we want him to be our son! We are his family. Please do not deny him the right to a mother and father that love him." He told me to sit down and didn't let me finish my speech. I was dumbfounded. At that point, they asked the prosecutor if he had a response. This time he did.

He stood up and stated that he did not think we had provided enough evidence to overturn the original judge's ruling. He stated that he agreed with her ruling and felt that we should not be allowed to adopt Kirill and that he did not feel that it was in the child's best interest.

My heart stopped.

I wanted to scream, "YOU DIDN'T EVEN LET US FINISH. YOU DIDN'T LET US GIVE ALL OF THE EVIDENCE!"

As the judges left the courtroom, I looked at Greg, he squeezed my hand, and we both agreed that the outcome would not be in our favor. Natasha looked dejected. Alexander shrugged at us and said, "We will hope for the best." I started to prepare for the worst. Suddenly, my mind started going 90 mph as I thought of what to do next...would we go to the media? I just wanted it to all be over but this was so unbelievable! I couldn't imagine giving up and walking away without making such injustice known!

As we were waiting for the judges to return with their ruling, the bailiff came over and took our passports again. This time, he was just making small talk and looking at the pictures. He showed the prosecutor and then Natasha informed us he was interested in the various U.S. landmarks on the passport pages. Apparently, Russian passports are quite plain inside. He wanted to know what all the pictures were of, but we really didn't feel like talking at the moment. It was kind of funny looking back, but at the time I wanted to tell him to please just be quiet because we didn't feel like chatting it up about U.S. landmarks.

After about 5 minutes, the judges came back into the courtroom and we all stood. They read the ruling very quickly. It was so fast that Natasha was having a hard time even getting words out but I saw a smile spread across her face and she started nodding and saying "It's cancelled! The ruling has been changed! His name is Gregory Kirill Davis." That is really all I heard and I started crying and hugging Greg. The judge stopped and I realized that he was staring at me so he could finish talking. I don't even remember what he said. I was hugging everyone...Alexander, Natasha, Greg; I would have hugged the judges if I could have! I was mouthing to them "spasiba, spasiba, SPASIBA!" That means "thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!" in Russian. The entire hearing, from beginning to end, was about an hour and a half long. We were so shocked by the whole thing...I just couldn't believe that after all the heartache and waiting we were FINALLY Kirill's parents.

As we walked out of the courtroom, the Natasha kept saying, "It is a miracle. This is not possible! I cannot believe it!" Our facilitator, who was not allowed to come into the court building at all, was waiting for us outside. I tackled him for a big hug. I think he was surprised. He's not very emotional. But I didn't care. I just hugged and hugged him and he said, "I do not even have to ask, I can see that the ruling was in your favor!" I don't remember if it was Alexander or Dima, but one of them commented, "God wanted you to have this child. It was a higher power than the judge." Praise God! Isn't that the truth???

As we walked back to our metro station, we were all chatting furiously. We didn't know what to do with ourselves. Natasha, Greg and I were talking so fast and giddy to one another while Dima, our facilitator frantically made phone calls about what to do next. Natasha was so happy for us and I was so appreciative of her for caring so much about our case. She was just such a sweet and genuine person. We kept stopping in the middle of the sidewalk excitedly talking about everything that happened in the courtroom and how that nobody could believe the outcome. Finally, Natasha said, "Why do we keep stopping?!? We are so silly like school children! We are so excited we do not know what to do! Let's go back to your hotel and sit and talk!" So we did!

Sidenote: I really cannot say enough about how good the people are here. There are so many wonderful people in Russia. It makes me sad to think about that we won't see them again for a very long time, if ever again. They have all become friends to us and I love them dearly.

So that is the story of court. We are certain that we were a part of a miracle on May 24th. There was no way this could have happened without God. We give him every single bit of the honor and glory for allowing us to become Kirill's parents. We are so humbled that we can be a part of Kirill's story. It's an honor of which we will never be worthy, but we are so thankful that God has entrusted us with his precious life.

Tomorrow...another post..."The Celebration Begins!" Tonight, we go to sleep for the first night officially as Kirill's mommy and daddy. To see our names on his birth certificate...I can't tell you how fantastic that feels!

Psalm 82,

Tesney

THE MIRACLES CONTINUE...THE CANNELLS NOW HAVE $20K! PRAISE OUR GOD! HE IS AWESOME!
Thank you all so much for supporting this family. I am just in awe of God's provision right now. I think I might explode from his goodness and seeing his presence so clearly! Please, whatever situation you are in, trust in God and know that he is faithful to you. He has not promised ease in this life, but eternal life with him if you just trust in him to see you through.

Moving the Mountain-Part 1

2011-05-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

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.

30%!

2011-05-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

We have raised 30% of what the Cannells need for their adoption. Well on our way! I will post tonight about the first part of our trip to Kirill! Keep those donations coming and share, share, share! We're getting there fast! Right now, we are off to try to find gifts for the orphanage and orphanage workers. I can't wait to get a post up with pictures of our sweet boy! We found out yesterday that he was OFFICIALLY DISCHARGED from the orphanage. WOO HOO! That makes this mommy SO HAPPY. They are holding him there for us, but he's no longer a resident! YIPEEEEEE!

I would love for you to be praying for our friends, the Dixons, as they have court in Ethiopia today to try to adopt precious Selah. They have been told to expect not to pass court, but we know that God can work miracles, right??? So let's all PRAY! They are on their way to court as I type this. I will update on them later tonight as well.

Psalm 68:6
God places the lonely in families!

Kirill's Miracle Story

2011-05-28T04:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was sitting up thinking about how I wanted to tell the story of Kirill becoming our son. I just have so many things to tell you guys about the MIRACLE that has taken place over the last week. It's hard to believe that just one week ago, we were on a plane, heading to Moscow, with NO IDEA that we would be bringing Kirill home. I didn't post this on the blog, but the best hope we were given was that the Supreme Court would cancel the judge's original ruling and grant us another hearing in our region. This was our understanding of the court system here in Russia, as well as our agency's understanding after talking with our lawyer in Moscow. We were told that this trip was strictly for the supreme court hearing, that we would come back to the U.S. as soon as it was over and IF we were granted a new hearing in K's region by the supreme court, we would have to wait for anywhere from 1-3 months OR MORE for a new hearing in the region. But there wasn't an official timeline so even that time estimate was uncertain; we were told it could be longer or it could be shorter.

BUT GOD HAD A DIFFERENT PLAN.

I WANT TO SHARE THE STORY OF HOW KIRILL'S MIRACLE HAPPENED.

But as I was thinking about where to begin, I kept thinking about my friend Karrie Cannell, who is in the process of adopting two brothers from Eastern Europe. Their story kept interrupting my thoughts and made me pray hard for them. Karrie and her husband Donnie originally committed to one of the boys, Carson, and started the process to adopt him. Well, as the process moved forward, they found out Carson had a biological brother in another orphanage! So what did they do? They committed to adopt BOTH BOYS.

Carson and John have EB, or Epidermolysis Bullosa. EB is a genetic skin condition that causes painful blisters to form anywhere the skin is exposed to friction. The skin is so fragile that even the slightest touch can cause painful blisters that are prone to infection. Many children do not live for very long with this condition because of the high risk of infection. There are many precautions that have to be taken to care for the sores and prevent new blisters from forming. It is painful to see the photos of these boys because I know what orphanage conditions are like and I know that these boys do not get good care for such a fragile condition. Honestly, I'm surprised they are still alive because orphanages are not the cleanest places and they certainly aren't the most medically attentive places. THEY NEED TO COME HOME SOON.

These boys are in different orphanages in different regions because John is older and had already been transferred to an older children's orphanage. This means Donnie and Karrie have to come up with about twice as much money to adopt the two boys because they have to do it separately, and they have to have the money before they can travel to pick up their sons. They are submitted and just waiting on "the call" to go get their sons. How much do they need? Right now, about $20,000...which may sound like a lot, but really it's NOT. God can do that in no time at all!

Remember the 7-Day Blitz for Kirill?

So here's a breakdown of what the Cannells still need, taken from Karrie's blog:

$13,415 is what we have on Reeces Rainbow.
$1,000 deposit,~ if you will~ that we get back from RR.
$1,052 is what we have in Paypal.
$645 money on hand.
Total: $16,113 We still need: $21,155 to fully fund the adoption,
However~
Donnie is going to be gone from his job for 8 weeks, and he doesn't get vacation pay for his time away. The reality of it is, we have to cover his time away. That is another $10K ....that one is hard to swallow....we are going to cut things down and out of our monthly expenses while we are gone. So that will help. Praying the funds will go over and beyond to cover Donnies time away from his job. Thanking God for giving him such a great job that he will still have a job when we gets back. Some that go over to get there kiddos, have job issues when they return. We will keep them all in our prayers. It is hard to ask for money, it is almost embarrassing, but there is no way that we could fulfill God's calling without help. We make plenty of money to take care of our kids, and our two new sons. It's getting them here that puts us in a pickle ;) So please help us...Donate~Pray~ and share our story......thank you from the bottom of our hearts ♥

And here's where you come in...

I'm going to tell Kirill's miracle story, but not until the Cannell's are fully funded. As I was trying to type up K's miracle story last night, I just couldn't get Carson and John off my mind. I cannot imagine how this family must feel facing such expenses, BUT MONEY AIN'T NO THANG TO GOD! I have received almost 5,000 hits daily on this blog for a while. If each one of those people who visit donates $4, we could raise this amount in NO TIME AT ALL. If you think it's not your responsibility to help, then stop reading this blog. Because God COMMANDS us to care for orphans. That's not a "calling" that's a command...there's a BIG, HUGE DIFFERENCE. So, I'm asking all of Kirill's army to please give a little or a lot, however God leads you to give. Pray first, then ask God to tell you what he wants you to give. Don't dismiss this post and say, "I'll do it later." Go to the chip-in NOW and donate.

As soon as they're fully funded, I'm going to share the miracle of Kirill's story. But until then, I just can't do it because I keep trying and I can't get the Cannell boys out of my mind when I try to write. I know it's God telling me to advocate for them. So what are you waiting for??? Click on the Chip In below and DONATE. Let's get these boys HOME!

GOD OF MIRACLES

2011-05-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

WE ARE NOW THE PROUD PARENTS OF GREGORY KIRILL DAVIS. HE IS OURS. THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED THE JUDGE'S RULING. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, HIS NAME IS GREGORY KIRILL DAVIS AND WE WILL GO PICK HIM UP IN JUST A FEW SHORT DAYS AS SOON AS WE HAVE THE OFFICIAL COURT DECREE IN HAND. I WILL POST THE DETAILS WHEN I KNOW THEM. RIGHT NOW WE ARE IN A FLURRY OF TEARS AND EXCITEMENT AND WE WON'T KNOW EXACTLY HOW OUR NEXT FEW DAYS WILL GO UNTIL TOMORROW WHEN WE MEET AGAIN WITH OUR FACILITATOR.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT. MAY YOU SEE THAT GOD IS THE GOD OF MIRACLES AND THAT HE IS FAITHFUL TO COMPLETE THE WORK HE HAS STARTED IN YOU.

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW. PRAISE HIM ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW. PRAISE HIM ABOVE YE HEAVENLY HOSTS. PRAISE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST!

Going with God

2011-05-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

We leave in less than 24 hours. God is with us. We are going with him. We are taking peace, hope, and the understanding that HE is writing this story. We covet your prayers. We humbly ask for you to especially pray on May 24th beginning at 6:10 a.m. CST. This is the exact time we will be standing before the supreme court judge. Pray for him. Pray for our lawyer. Pray for Kirill. But above all else, pray that Christ is seen by everyone who hears Kirill's story. THANK YOU ALL! I will update here as soon as we know the supreme court ruling.

Easter, Kirill's Birthday, & Mother's Day...(and throw in a tornado)

2011-05-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

The last three weeks have probably been some of the hardest to endure since we returned from Russia. I thought it couldn't get any harder, but with important dates come tidal waves of emotion for which I cannot prepare my heart.

I'm a therapist.

I know about dates and the significance they play in the grieving process.

Only we cannot grieve.

We are stuck.

We're in this weird suspension between the best and worst case scenarios. It's such a difficult place to be. If I knew that Kirill was never coming home, I could fully grieve the loss and move forward through the pain. Or, if I knew for sure he was coming home, I could wait in joyful expectation. However, I know nothing of what the future holds. Only God knows. And while that thought comforts, it doesn't take away the pain of the here and now. And while we are suspended, life moves forward...

Easter...it came...and it was harder than I thought. I had decorated for Easter right around Valentine's Day. You know how when you decorate for a holiday and before you know it, the holiday is over and it seems like no time as passed until you're taking down the decorations? Well, I wanted to get my Easter decorations up as early as possible for that reason...because by the time it was time to take them down, I thought Kirill would be home! I love Easter for so many reasons. Of course I love it because of Christ's resurrection. I also love it because of the symbolism of new life and new creation. I love the spring. I love renewal. All of these things were going to be even more meaningful because of Kirill.

Then court happened.

I thought I could handle Easter. I thought I was ready for the tidal wave. I bought Easter treats for Clayton. I made plans for Easter lunch and an egg hunt. I was going to celebrate Jesus' resurrection despite our sadness. But I couldn't. And I didn't. Instead, we sent Clayton to church with friends and I spent the day in my closet floor, clinging to Greg, crying out to God and letting all of the pent up emotion out. It wasn't pretty. But it was necessary.

But the dates kept coming. The very next Sunday would be Kirill's 5th birthday. Greg and I prayed in preparation for the date. We knew it would be HARD. Harder than Easter. We prayed for strength. We prayed for distraction. We prayed for it to be a better day than Easter Sunday.

Clayton's birthday is also in May, just 11 days after Kirill's. He had asked to have his party on Kirill's birthday. In his 5-year-old mind, he and Kirill are "twins". He keeps saying that they are twins because they are both born in May and they are "just my same age" as he says. It's so cute how he says it..."We are adopting a brother and he's going to be just my same age!" So I couldn't say no to him when he asked to have his party on May 1st! We decided we would turn a day of sadness into a day of celebration.

Then the tornadoes hit. April 27th. I was in my office, which was approximately 200 yards from some of the worst devastation. I saw things I cannot unsee and heard things I cannot unhear. Physically and materially, we lost nothing...except cable and Internet for a few days...but our city was forever changed. Many people were without the most basic of needs. We busied ourselves with caring for others. May 1st was the Sunday after the tornado, so we called off the birthday party. We spent the day with a family who lost everything. Literally. They couldn't even find a piece of paper with an address to prove their residence in the debris that was their home. It put everything into perspective for us.

Life is unpredictable.

It can be gone in a second.

We will trust God. We will live for him alone. We will trust not in our own understanding.

And a week later, as Mother's Day approached, I did not dread it. I had a fantastic day. I know that God is sitll God. I know that I am going to be the mother of Kirill one way or another. I will see him in Heaven no matter what happens on this Earth. Whether or not he comes to be a part of our earthly family, he's a part of our family for eternity. I thanked God yesterday for his birth mother, who we learned so much about in our court proceedings. I prayed for her and the hole that she must have in her heart after giving up a child. I prayed for her to have peace and for her to know in her heart that Kirill is loved more than he will ever know. That he is being pursued by a family who wants him so badly and who has the ability to give him a wonderful life. That we will not give up until we have exhausted all of the avenues afforded to us by his country to adopt him.

We have made it through some tough dates lately. We also know that there will be more. Namely, May 24th when we appear before the Supreme Court in Moscow. I humbly ask you to pray for us as we make our final preparations for court.

Isaiah 43:2
When you go through deep waters,
      I will be with you.
   When you go through rivers of difficulty,
      you will not drown.
   When you walk through the fire of oppression,
      you will not be burned up;
      the flames will not consume you.

Joshua 1:9
This is my command—be strong and courageous!
     Do not be afraid or discouraged.

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Mother's Day 2011

Wishing Kirill was here to complete our family photo; hoping he will be here soon!

SUPREME COURT DATE

2011-04-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

We got our Supreme Court date!!! It is May 24th at 3:10 p.m. That will be 6:10 a.m. CST. I hope you will all join in prayer at that time for us as we appear before the Supreme Court in Moscow to appeal our adoption.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post again. But I have a couple of good reasons. We received our court date via telegram on Monday, April 25th. Greg checked the mail about 7:30 p.m. and there were two telegrams in Russian, one addressed to each of us. They were in phonetical Russian...meaning they were in Russian, but phonetically spelled using the English alphabet. So we couldn't use Google translate to figure it out. We ended up taking them to a friend's house who teaches languages at the U of A. He was able to translate it enough to figure out that it was our court date.

We were very excited but also unsure if it was official. By the time we got home that night it was almost 11:00 p.m. We had called, emailed and text messaged our adoption agency social worker. She called us back and said that they couldn't confirm the telegram message until they spoke to their Russian staff. None of them we were expecting us to receive notification of our court date via telegram. They thought it would be sent to our lawyer in Russia and he would let us know. So we waited on pins and needles...we're kinda accustomed to that by now.

By Tuesday afternoon we got confirmation from our adoption agency that it was indeed our court date! I was going to post it on here, but I never got a chance before I went to work on Wednesday. Then Wednesday our city was rocked by an F-5 tornado. We have just now gotten back internet service so I can post. Our area of the city is fine. Our apartment is fine and our friends and family are safe. However, much of our city is completely destroyed. I'm sure you've seen the coverage on the news.

So I'm asking that you please pray for our city as you pray for our Supreme Court date. Thank you all. we are so thankful for the support you've given us for so many weeks. You have been our Aarons, holding us up in prayer. We are so grateful. You will never understand how much the thoughts and prayers mean to us.

Raw

2011-04-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

I have hesitated to compose this post. I feel like it could be perceived as attention or sympathy-seeking. I don't want people to feel sorry for us. In fact, if you feel inclined to comment with some form of "I'm so sorry", although I know you really mean it and I appreciate your sharing our sorrow, I want you to instead leave a comment of praise to God for our suffering. Please don't take offense to that request...we are so blessed by your thoughts and prayers. But we KNOW that God is making us perfect in our weakness. So we will continue to endure any pain that comes our way by praising him and allowing him to heal us. We are blessed to be children of God and our suffering is making our faith stronger and our relationship with God more complete. First and foremost, every circumstance of our life should be lived for Christ, be it pleasant or unpleasant in the worldly sense of those words. To live is Christ and to die is gain. Greg and I keep reminding each other of that daily as we walk this difficult path we find ourselves on for this season of our lives. In the midst of our suffering, there is joy, hope and peace. There really is...I'm not just speaking Christianese.

Still, the suffering is raw. It is painful. There are times when I collapse in tears. I miss Kirill so much. I replay our last visit with him and wish I had kissed him one more time, savored his touch and his smell just a little longer, taken more pictures, told him how much we loved him just one more time before we walked out of the orphanage.

And then there are reminders that punch me in the gut with no time to prepare or shield myself from their emotional blows. Like ripping the scab from a wound and exposing the raw tissue once again. They come out of nowhere and they reduce me to a heap on on the floor.

There's the afternoon last week when I picked up a load of clothes from the cleaners. As I unwrapped the plastic covers I found the jacket I wore to court. I sat in my closet and cried as I remembered the last time I wore it and the horrible feelings of loss associated with that day.

There's the afternoon that I picked up Clayton from school and he told me they had talked about birthdays. He realized that Kirill's birthday was coming up, but Kirill wasn't going to be here, and they couldn't have a joint birthday party like we had planned. He cried and asked me over and over, "But WHY mommy? You said Kirill was coming home. You LIED to me." We both sobbed all the way home as I tried to explain to him that mommy didn't lie, it just didn't turn out the way we expected.

There's the alarm I had set on my phone weeks before we left for Russia reminding me to add Kirill to our medical insurance after we got home. When I saw the words on the screen of my phone, I had to brace myself against the wall as I cried out to God for strength to make it through the grief.

There's the text I got from someone who couldn't have know what happened, asking how Kirill was doing now that he was home. It took me a full 24 hours to find the words to respond.

Even as I sit here typing this, tears are streaming. Clayton is watching Saturday morning cartoons on Qubo and "Willa's Wild Life" is all about a bear from Russia. Clayton is repeating Russian phrases to the t.v. He should be saying them to Kirill...he should have a brother here watching cartoons with him. Sigh...

I wallow, I cry, I hide under the covers, I beg God to take the pain away, to work a miracle, to bring Kirill home. And I hear his voice saying, "I love Kirill more than you. I know your pain. I see your suffering. Trust me. Seek me. Listen to me. And know that I AM GOD...and you are not."

Then I get up, thank God, and ask him for what I need to make it through the next day, hour, or minute. And you know what? He always gives me just enough. And really, what else can we ask for?

Thank You God!

2011-04-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

The 7 Day Blitz met its goal in 4 days...holy moly. THANK YOU TO KIRILL'S ARMY OF SUPPORTERS.

It seems so lame. Two words...THANK YOU. But that's all I've got. I can't even come up with words to describe how my heart feels knowing that so many people are supporting us. So please, accept my lame thank you and just know, those two words have so much emotion behind them...hope, joy, peace, faith, encouragement, excitement, relief, humility, LOVE.

KIRILL SAYS "YAY!"

But it's not over. Because we still have three days left in the giveaway, you can still give...but there's a catch. We met our goal. Now let's help another family, OK? Go to Bethany's blog to read the whole story....and help bring Archie home too. If I could give you all a virtual hug, I would. Thank you again. SO. MUCH.

7-Day Blitz for Kirill

2011-04-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

I'm just overwhelmed...I don't even really know what to write about this. Several of my DS mommy blogger friends have gotten together and are doing an online fundraiser for Kirill. Because of the appeal, we are incurring a LOT more expense for this adoption than we ever anticipated. Knowing how much international adoption costs, these mommies put together a fundraiser to help us continue our journey to try to adopt Kirill. Here are the rules: For every $10 donation, you are entered in a contest to win some FABULOUS prizes. I've copied the following from Bethany's blog...go THERE to enter (or to Charissa's, Lisa's, Renee's, or McKenna's blogs)!

"Being an adoptive mother to a Russian orphan with Down syndrome, I could expand on the million-and-one reasons Tesney and Greg's rejected application to adopt has deeply affected me. But that is not what is important.

What is important is that they are appealing the judge's ruling to the Supreme Court of Moscow and they need our help.

The Davis family has been through so much already... and now they have been slammed with astronomical unforeseen financial hurdles in bringing Kirill home. In order to just begin the process of filing their appeal, they had to pay $2,500. They have been told that they should plan to attend the Supreme Court hearing, which is a trip to Russia they never planned to have to make... add $3,000 - $4,000. If the Supreme Court overturns the ruling, they will have to return home and wait for a date to travel to Kirill's region to reappear before the original judge in their case... add $4,000 - $5,000. Assuming everything goes as planned, they will remain in country for the 10 day waiting period and finalization of their adoption... add $3,000 - $3,500.

So how can you help? A few of us adoptive mommy bloggers have put our heads together to create a 7 day blitz for Kirill."

Our first prize...

Canon EOS Rebel XS Digital SLR camera

donated by Lisa, Charissa, McKenna, Renee and Bethany

or

$500 gift certificate to B&H Photo

Read all about the camera here.

And... a lifetime membership to ClickinMoms. An online haven of all things photography... tips and tutorials on everything from how to use your camera to editing your images to starting a photography business.

:::

Our second prize...

Cirque

by Lisa Tarkett Reed

recently juried into the FMH Crestwood Gallery for the Celebration exhibition
completed in 2010
oil on canvas
measures 3 feet by 4 feet

Oil paintings by regional artist, Lisa Tarkett Reed, celebrate and explore the relationships and patterns in nature. Reed’s paintings are inspired by her growing collection of natural objects. Flowers, crystals, rocks, leaves, shells and bones, collected by Reed over decades, provide points of departure in her work. As Reed layers line, shape and color, she discovers and plays with the geometry, relationships, and patterns inherent in organic forms.

In October 2011, Reed will have a solo exhibition at The Artists’ Gallery in Frederick, MD. Currently, Reed has a solo exhibition at Les Idees Gallery, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Reed has had solo exhibitions at the Sweetwater Center for the Arts, Gallery Lascaux, Gallery 937 and View from Zenith Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as well as at Shenandoah University, Leesburg, Virginia, Figure Five Gallery, San Francisco, California and the Walker Fine Arts Center Gallery at Patrick Henry Community College, Roanoke, Virginia. Reed has shown her work in group exhibitions at the Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mary Condon Hodgson Gallery at Frederick Community College, Frederick, Maryland, The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center, Frederick, Maryland, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, Pennsylvania.

Reed has taught drawing and painting for over fifteen years in regional art centers in Maryland, Pittsburgh and Virginia and at private schools in Brooklyn and Virginia.

Reed earned a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied painting in Rome, Italy as part of the Temple University Abroad Program. Reed earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California.

In 2009, Reed founded Sister MamaCita, a Mothers’ Cooperative in the Arts and sister group to the Philadelphia based MamaCita, a Mothers’ Cooperative in the Arts founded by Melissa Tevere in 2005.

::

Our third prize...

Custom blog makeover (Bethany).

You will get...
custom header
custom background
custom signature and sidebar headers
installation of pages
installation of facebook/twitter/rss feed widgets
and more!
::

Our fourth prize...

UltraHD Flip video camera.
donated by Joanne Charland, momma to Vinnie (a T21 friend)
Read all about the video camera here.

::

Our fifth prize...

Organic Bloom Frame
by Lindsey Smith Photography

measures 16" x 20"
choose from a variety of styles and color combinations

:::
Our sixth prize...

Schmetterlingszauber
(Three Little Butterflies)
hardcover book, signed by Conny Wenk

"Schmetterlingszauber is a book about the wonderful friendship of three beautiful little girls. Although they are colorful and unique like little butterflies, they have many more things in common than they don't.

They love spending lots of time together, whether they hang out at home or on the playground having fun galore. Sometimes they even have picnics on a beautiful meadow. They love dressing up like little princesses, polishing their nails, having little "imitation" tattoos, singing and dancing, telling bedtime stories to each other and of course, jumping on the bed.

They can be really wild ... but to me they are just three little butterflies."

:::

Our seventh prize...

(3) handmade hats.
donated by Heather Randlett, momma to Bridget (a T21 friend)

1. Newborn/Baby Beanie-Style Hat... This crocheted baby beanie is crafted with a soft cotton/bamboo blend yarn, adorned with a shabby chic crocheted flower. Perfect for cute newborn baby pictures.

2. Women's Beanie-Style Hat... This crocheted beanie-style hat is crafted with a super soft alpaca/acrylic blend yarn, with 3 beautiful colors - celery green, mocha, and cream.

3. Women's Ski-Style Hat... This knitted snug-fitting ski-style hat is crafted with a soft acrylic/wool blend yarn in a rich cranberry color.

**All are hand wash only, lay flat to dry.

:::

Rules...

1) Every $10 donation using the ChipIn to Kirill will earn you an entry into the drawing for one of the prizes.
2) Prizes can be shipped overseas if the winner is willing to pay for shipping.
3) Donations will be accepted through Monday, April 11th.
4) Winners will be announced Tuesday, April 12th.

A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

I am so overwhelmed at what these wonderful ladies are doing to help us continue our adoption. So jump on over to one of their blogs and enter. BUT MOST OF ALL, PLEASE PRAY FOR KIRILL AND OUR ADOPTION. THANK YOU SO MUCH...YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOUR SUPPORT MEANS TO US. REALLY, THERE ARE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS HOW HUMBLED AND GRATEFUL WE ARE TO EVERYONE WHO HAS PRAYED, DONATED, OR SENT A KIND WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT TO US. KIRILL IS SO LOVED!

Just Keep Running

2011-03-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

^{Hebrews 12:1-3}
¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. ² We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. ³ Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.

In the past, I've tried to be a runner. I even ran a half-marathon once and vowed that if God let me finish without dying, I would never attempt something so stupid again. I'm slow, I have terrible form, and I suck wind the entire time. I really loved jogging for a while; it was therapeutic. But there's a difference between a jogging and running. Jogging is pretty much fast walking. If anything, I'm a jogger; I'm not a runner.

Several of my good friends are runners. I've been to marathons to cheer them on and I'm always in awe of their ability to endure the race when everything in their mind and body tells them to STOP. I've watched them around mile 23, struggling to put one foot in front of the other but somehow mustering the strength and endurance to just keep running through the pain.

A few nights ago I had a dream. It was so vivid and I've been replaying it over and over in my mind. I was running a race and I actually won. At the end of the race, I crossed the finish line and Greg was there waiting for me. We were celebrating the victory, but he told me that I couldn't get the prizes for winning the race. I had not paid the entry fee, so I wasn't qualified to win anything. The prizes were also vivid in my mind; there were clothes, money, children's items, and gift certificates to various stores. But I couldn't have any of the prizes because I was never officially entered into the race. I had to accept that I had run the race and finished in first place; but I would not be able to have any material "treasures" to show for my accomplishment of finishing first. And I was okay with this. I was reminded of Jesus and how he ran the race of life, enduring the horrible persecution of men, winning nothing here on earth, but winning everything in heaven.

I believe God gave me this dream to let me know that no matter what happens with Kirill, I am simply called to run the race. I'm not guaranteed any kind of earthly rewards. My prize is Jesus and being with him in Heaven. My race is to run to HIM. So I will keep putting one foot in front of the other despite the pain. I will keep my eyes focused on the prize and run the path that Jesus has paved for me. Because the race is won and victory is in HIM.

Conglomeration

2011-03-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Brain. Is. Fried. Going on fumes...not much sleeping going on around here. So here are some of the thoughts that are keeping me up at night. It's a conglomeration. Bear with me.

The waiting is excruciating. I'm not some kind of super-human pillar of strength. I have bad (OK, terrible) moments. Ask Greg...he gets to see most all of my weak moments. I'm just so sad about not bring able to bring Kirill home right now. BUT...we are strong in Christ. We have God's peace and we KNOW that he knows our heart, he loves Kirill more than even us, and he hears and IS ANSWERING all the hundreds of thousands...I think probably millions by now...prayers going up for Kirill and the other children of his region. We don't know how that's going to look in the end when God is finished writing Kirill's story, but we know it will be used to spread the love of Christ. I know God is being glorified through our precious Kirill.
Can anyone tell me how to make a navigation bar? I want to be able to have a place at the top of my blog that will take people to Kirill's Story so that it's easy to find and share. I want to keep posting on here and I don't want that post to get buried. Contact me if you can help...there is an email me option on my profile. I'm not techie. At. All. I could figure it out I'm sure, but I don't have time right now. Someone else designed our other (family) blog and there is a navigation bar on it, but I didn't make it. :)
I'm totally overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, support, prayers...totally overwhelmed. I mean, the prayers...wow, "Save Kirill" logos are all over my FB page, I have tons of emails coming in every day, there are lots of sweet comments on my blog, texts, random acts letting us know people are thinking of us, offers to help with Clayton while we work on our appeal, friends cleaning, doing errands, helping me respond to messages...I could go on and on. There's no way I can ever thank everyone for everything. I'm just praying that somehow God lets them know how much it means to us. We hope we can be that kind of support to others. The love of Christ's body is a truly amazing thing.
Clayton is not fully aware of what's going on, so that's kind of hard. We didn't want to tell him too much. He's SO EXCITED about Kirill and until we are told "no" and have exhausted every avenue to bring him home, we are not going to tell Clayton otherwise. Right now he's sleeping with the blankie we took Kirill to the orphanage. They gave it back to us during our last trip because they thought we would be taking him home and wanted to send the things we had taken him on our first trip. I cannot hardly look at it without crying. Clayton asked if he could sleep with it so it will have someone to love it until Kirill comes home. Breaks. My. Heart.
Our agency thinks our appeal will be filed on Monday or Tuesday and then hopefully the Supreme Court will hear our case quickly. They are guesstimating that it may be heard sometime in the first couple of weeks in April. When we have an exact date, you can be sure I will post it on here. We will need an army of prayer warriors praying for Kirill on that day for sure!

Ok, there's more in my head but I'm going to really try to sleep tonight. I'm going back to work tomorrow for the first time since we left for Russia two weeks ago. It will be tough in some ways, but I'm also welcoming the distraction. I really love my job too, so that helps tremendously!

Again, I just have to end with a big THANK YOU. We will never be able to adequately express our gratitude for your prayers and encouragement.

Kirill's Story

2011-03-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

For those of you just joining our family's journey to adopt Kirill, I thought it might be helpful to have a summary so you don't have to go back and read this entire blog. That could take a long time since we started our adoption almost two years ago.

Two years ago; that was when Greg and I began praying for God to do whatever he wanted with our lives. We handed him a “blank check” so to speak, and told him to cash it. He opened our eyes to children with disabilities wasting away across the ocean in Eastern Europe. We joined God and started our adoption journey.

Our family is more than equipped to handle a child with special needs. I have a degree in Early Childhood Education. I am a member of the Board of Directors of Best Buddies of Alabama. I have volunteered for RISE and Eagles’ Wings. All of these organizations serve individuals with special needs. My husband I have close friends and family who have special needs and we are a big part of each other’s lives. Our wedding party included some of these special people. Our involvement with individuals with special needs led us to adopt a child with special needs; specifically, we chose Down Syndrome.

As we prayed over the faces of thousands of orphaned children with Down Syndrome, we ultimately chose a little boy named Sergey from Russia. Eight months later, as we neared the finish line of our adoption, one of Sergey’s family members in Russia stepped forward to adopt him. We were heartbroken for our loss, but God showed us that we were following him, and his ways are perfect. We knew we still wanted to adopt, so the way we saw it, two children would find homes because of our journey…Sergey went to his family and now we would choose another child to come into our family. We took great comfort in knowing that God could see this when we first committed to Sergey! We were honored to be a part of his plan.

Shortly after losing Sergey, we received a new referral with a grainy photo of a four-year-old blond-haired boy wearing pink glasses named Kirill. We were instantly in love with him. We had to re-file a lot of our paperwork because of the change in referrals and regions of Russia, but we were fast and we thought we were looking at three more months at the most until we would have Kirill home.

That was well over a year ago.

Since then so many things have happened. A tragic story of an adoptive mother sending her child back to his country alone on a plane with a note pinned to his shirt rocked our world…he was from Russia. Adoptions in Russia came to a screeching halt. Kirill’s region stopped processing adoptions for eight long months. The judge refused to accept any Amercian adoption cases until an official treaty was signed between the United States and Russia.

Even though we wouldn’t be able to finalize the adoption in court until the treaty was signed, we were allowed to go visit Kirill and sign our official petition to adopt him in August 2010. We fell more deeply in love with him. This was our son.

During that time, we found out that Kirill is the first child from his region EVER to be adopted with Down Syndrome. A birth mother keeping her child with Down Syndrome is unheard of in this area of the world. Adoptions of children with Down Syndrome just don’t happen there, these children are literally hidden away from society in orphanages and mental institutions. As our process continued, it became apparent that Kirill would be a pioneer. If our adoption was approved, it would pave the way for other children with special needs to be adopted from this region.

Then, a miracle happened around Christmas and the judge in this region suddenly changed her mind and began processing American adoptions again. We were elated. Could this be the light at the end of a very long tunnel? I was somewhat nervous about Kirill being the first child adopted with Down Syndrome from his region, but our agency was very confident that if we got a court date, our adoption would be approved. In seventeen years, they had never had a case rejected IF the family was issued a court date. We were told not to worry, so I didn’t. After meeting the judge’s requests for several supporting court documents, we were finally granted a court date-March 17, 2011. St. Patrick’s Day…I was thrilled. This would be our new favorite holiday! Our son was coming home!

Our other son, Clayton, who had just turned three when we started this adoption process, has prayed fervently for his brother. He is now almost five. When we told him Kirill was coming home, oh my…we had an excited big brother on our hands! At one point he even went to his room, dumped out his toy cars and divided them into two stacks…one for him and one for Kirill. He will not even speak of having separate bedrooms. He wants Kirill to sleep in the same room as him and has been sleeping with a stuffed animal he is planning to give to Kirill.

Last week, as we sat in the courtroom and suffered through five agonizing hours of difficult questioning, we were not prepared for anything but an approval of our case. Two doctors, two social workers, and the Minister of Children’s Services all made very strong statements on our behalf. They spoke strongly on our behalf.

But when the ruling was read, the judge said, “Your application to adopt is rejected.” The basis given was that Kirill was “not socially adaptable” due to his “medical condition” and he was better off in an institution than in a home with a family. As the judge read her ruling, she stated several times that we were a good family, that we met all the criteria to adopt a child, but that she would not approve our adoption because Kirill has Down Syndrome and he could not socially adapt to being adopted. She told us that we could adopt another child, because legally our application had no problems according to Russian adoption law. The ruling stated she would approve our adoption for a “typical” child, but not this child. The ruling also stated that he would be better served in a mental institution than in our home; an institution that does the best it can with what it has, but that has one caregiver for every 13 children, all of which have intellectual disabilities. Even though we were approved by our home study and by the USCIS to adopt a child with special needs. Even though we have so much personal experience with children with special needs AND the resources, knowledge, and community support to provide him with the therapies that he will need (and could never get in an institution) to grow and develop at his maximum potential. Even though we had two doctors (from his current and previous orphanages), two social workers (one from the region and one from the orphanage), and the Minister of Children's Services testify that Kirill would be better off in our home than he was in an institution.

It was like a terrible dream. We were so unprepared for this outcome. As we left the courthouse in a mental fog, the doctors and social workers that had testified on our behalf came to us and said, “If you appeal, we will speak again for you. Appeal this decision. Kirill belongs with your family.” Of course we were going to appeal…I could no more walk away from our biological son, Clayton, at this point. Kirill is just as much my son. WE LOVE HIM. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think about having to explain to Clayton that Kirill may not be coming home. I cry everytime I think about it. He loves his brother so much already.

So here we are, asking God to move the mountain that is standing between Kirill and us as we appeal to the Supreme Court in Moscow. Please pray with us and for us.

PRAYERS

2011-03-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

WE DESPERATELY NEED THEM NOW. I will post more if/when I can, but for now, please pray for our appeal. Pray harder than you ever have. Thank you all so much...we feel the prayers and we know they are powerful. We are leaning on God and his infinite wisdom. We will follow him and praise his name no matter where he leads us.

Trusting HIM...

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!

2011-03-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest. I was dreading today. World Down Syndrome Day is always on 3.21 because there are three copies of the 21st chromosome and that is what results in a person having Down Syndrome. It's a day I was hoping to celebrate as the "official" mommy of Kirill. As far as I'm concerned, I'm already his mommy, but legally...well, you know that story.

But when I woke up this morning, I wasn't hopeless. I actually felt rejuvenated and encouraged. God has granted us exactly what we've needed over the past few days. It's been really awesome to feel every moment, God just giving us what we need to make it to the next minute. It's given us clarity and focus like never before. So today, he knew we needed to work on the appeal and write and make phone calls.

Greg and I started the day with a two-hour drive each way to our state's capital to get documents apostilled for our appeal. What better way to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day that taking the steps we need to take to fight for our son's rights to a family? We Fed-Ex'd them to K's country and it was like this huge sigh of relief to know we got them headed in the right direction.

The rest of the day I've spent writing and calling everyone I can think of that might be able to help us. I've been so encouraged at the way Kirill's story is spreading. I can't keep up with all the blog posts being dedicated to him. He's been on two websites that I know of for orphan advocacy groups. It's really so incredible to think about...this tiny boy who can't even talk is being raised up to the highest place and giving a powerful testimony to the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE. If you know of a blog or website where our story has been posted, please comment with the link. I'm trying to cross-post them all on Facebook to keep spreading the word about our son.

I'm just amazed at the story God is writing through Kirill. Comparing our plans to God's plans are like comparing cheap paperback novels to fine literature. His stories are so much better than anything we could ever come up with on our own.

So Happy World Down Syndrome everyone! We hope that you will spend some time in prayer for our Kirill and our adoption. Our story is still being written...it isn't over yet!

How to Pray

2011-03-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

I've been praying so much lately, and in my small feeble mind, I see no other way to pray except, "GOD, please bring Kirill home." But he is so much bigger than my tiny mind. I've stopped praying for safety, for comfort, for what "I" think should happen. What I'm praying, and I ask you to join me, is that GOD is glorified. That's it. Plain and simple. There is no other reason we are here on this earth other than to bring glory to God. If I have to suffer the pain of waiting longer or the suffering of loss, I will do it and I will find joy in the journey through God, somehow.

Of course we will continue to BEG God to allow Kirill to be our son here on Earth. But if he never is allowed to be a part of our family, I will be able to hold him again in Heaven. And somehow, even if that is the outcome, God will be glorified. I can't see how right now. I can't understand. But that doesn't matter. Because we trust God and his infinite wisdom that is so much greater than us or our plans. Glory to him. Thank you for letting us be your servants Lord.

Our Worst Fears

2011-03-19T14:27:00.000-07:00

Were confirmed on Thursday, March 17th, at 3:30 p.m. in a courtroom in K's region. "Rejected" were the words of the judge. Our application to adopt Kirill was rejected after a five hour court hearing. I'm sorry I haven't posted but honestly, I'm just now emotionally able to type this post. Please be in prayer for our judge and the prosecutor who deliberated and made the decision. We are appealing to the Supreme Court in Moscow. It will take about two weeks for us to find out the result of our appeal. We just need prayers now. To say we are devastated would be an understatement. Our hearts are broken into a million pieces and we are grieved to our core. But we will appeal and we will do everything we can to bring our son home. I don't want to do ANYTHING that could jeopardize K coming home, so what I post will be selective. I want to keep this blog public because I know many people are praying for us and for Kirill. Please keep your comments kind; we do not want to be critical of the country that we love where our son lives...we have so much love for the people there...ALL of them. I want to keep the blog public but I cannot if there are negative comments left because we just need to pray for everyone involved, not criticize them.

James 1:2-4

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Forefinger ≠ Four Fingers

2011-03-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

First off, I just have to say it is really good to be back in K's country. I really missed it and I have really developed a huge love for this country. This trip has been a much easier trip as far as feeling comfortable with our surroundings and not being so unsure of ourselves with the local people. We feel that they are really very friendly if you try to talk with them; especially younger people who enjoy practicing English and having a few laughs as you try to speak Russian words/phrases.

So much to catch up on here, but first I have to tell you all about the 8 medical specialist exam. I got in trouble with Greg for posting about my hoo-hah fears in my previous post. Chalk it up to fatigue, nerves, and...well, who am I kidding? I could make excuses but it's just who I am...I often speak before I think...or type. Needless to say, I was VERY RELIEVED that there was no checking of anything below the belt.

However, I did manage to make a complete fool of myself anyway. We had been to see one specialist, the psychiatrist, and the translator told us that he was very easy and friendly. He asked us four or five questions and that was it. It was so easy. But then came the neurologist. The facilitator told us she was more thorough and that she sometimes seemed very serious, but not to worry, just to answer her questions. Greg and I were seen together for all of the exams, but I always went first because I like to get things over with...especially unpleasant or nerve-wrecking experiences!

So here we are in the neurologist's office. She asks a few questions about our health and then asks us to do a few tests. We have to do the normal reflex stuff, just like American doctors. No big deal, everything is going well, I'm still VERY nervous though. She asks me to stand up with my feet together and arms out. Then she asks me to close my eyes and, as our interpreter said, "touch your nose with your four fingers." So I'm standing there, eyes closed, trying to get all four of my fingers on my nose. I start hearing Greg snicker, then the translator, then the doctor. They are all belly-laughing at me! I'm standing there thinking, "What? Did I do it wrong? Ohmygoodness! We're not going to be able to adopt K because I can't get all four fingers on my nose!" Seriously, it was sheer exhaustion plus nerves because any fool would know that she meant "touch your nose with your forefinger." Hello? Same test we do here in the U.S. But I seriously couldn't hear anything except "touch your nose with four fingers," or, in my really tired state, "get all four fingers on your nose!"

So yeah, it was awesome. The translator and Greg didn't stop laughing about it for the rest of the day. I'm sure the neurologist wrote that I was neurologically fine but just not that smart. Oh well...

We're Here!!!

2011-03-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

We made it to Moscow for the first leg of our second trip! So far things have gone so smoothly. I hesitated to type that at first, but I really have no fear because our God is faithful. No matter what happens, good or bad, we will be joyful.

We are off to get some sleep. Tomorrow we will go through an 8 medical specialist examination. Sounds fun, right? I hope they don't have to look at my hoo-ha.

How Can I Help?

2011-02-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

Lots of people are asking us this as our trip draws near. I'm telling them all the same thing...PRAY! :) Because that's really all we need. However, I also have a very practical thing that will help the children that we will leave behind at Kirill's orphanage.

Kirill's orphanage is very, very poor. They need so many things. They depend on adoptive families to provide these needs. We will be the first family in SEVEN YEARS to adopt from this orphanage. So they haven't gotten much in the way of donations in the past seven years.

A little about the orphanage...it houses 98 (soon to be 97 :) ) children with special needs, ages 4-18. They do get some humanitarian aid, but I can tell you from what we witnessed first-hand, they are very poor and need so much more. Greg and I will be taking money with us on our trip and purchasing items in-country to give to the orphanage. It's just easier/more practical to do it that way because of cost to ship or check the luggage we would need to carry donations. Also, the orphanages have specific things that they need at specific times due to the special needs of the orphans housed there. So until we go, we won't be sure of what the needs are at this time. If you would like to make a donation, we will use it to purchase things like diapers, medical supplies, therapeutic toys, books, sheets, clothing, food/snacks, etc for the orphanage. We would love to overwhelm them with donations of things that they so desperately need. My hope is that we can buy enough to fill our car with things for the orphanage each day that we make a trip out there while we are in country (two trips). Heck, we will rent a van if need be. I have a PayPal account to make it easy for you. Just send donations via paypal to tesneydavis(at)hotmail(dot)com. Or if you want to mail us a check, that will work too; email me at the same email address and I will send you our mailing address. I promise the money will be used for these precious children that need it so badly. Will you consider making a donation? Nothing is too small.

Aren't We All a Little Schizophrenic?

2011-02-24T13:31:00.000-08:00

Brace yourselves. This may be a long one.

Last week, Friday to be exact, I received an *ahem* not-so-sweet FB message from a "friend". You know, because all of my FB friends are close, personal acquaintances who I know very well and who know me very well (sarcasm in case you don't have a sense of humor). It was a response to something totally unrelated to orphan care...football, but tucked away in the message was the following statement, "When you're not making tacky remarks about football, your self-righteous duplicitous views of the world drive me absolutely insane." (Not gonna lie, had to google "duplicitous" to find out what it meant). Frankly, I was very hurt by the message. I was also angry...my initial gut reaction was to get all defensive. Thoughts like, "Who does she think she is?!? Or, how dare she say that about ME when SHE (insert critical thought here)?!? But then I went to God seeking peace and guidance about the message. Since then, I've been really praying and thinking about how I come across to people. Honestly, I probably seem a little schizophrenic. Here's why...

God is constantly convicting me of sin in my life. For example, a couple of years ago I was listening to a morning radio show and the hosts were talking about how they had given up their football passion because it had become an idol to them. I thought to myself, "Well good for them, but not me. Football isn't a problem for me...it's entertainment. I'm a fan. There's nothing wrong with that." But a seed was planted. It was kind of like the pea under the princess' mattress. I kept being bothered by it and it made me uncomfortable. So recently, I've had a real change of heart about football. I've realized I need to see it for what it is in my life: an idol. It's hard. Very hard. I grew up on football in the South. I love it with a passion. But I've been so bothered by the obscene amounts of money I've spent on it, the time I've wasted on it, the way I feel about the other team and how I see people mistreating each other in the name of football rivalry. Now if you have known me for very long, this is kind of a big change for me. So it may look a little schizophrenic when I have always been an outspoken fan of my football team, then I suddenly change my position on the whole football fanaticism issue. It may seem hypocritical to some at first. I can't control the way it is perceived; I just have to do what my heart is convicted to do. Obviously from the message I received that I referenced earlier, at least one person perceived that in a negative way.

Similarly, I have been extremely materialistic in the past. In fact, I STILL AM. Confession: I really like "stuff" and I battle with Satan every. single. day. over it. Sadly, sometimes he wins. Does this mean that I can't speak out against materialism? Does it mean that just because I don't have complete control over my own materialistic nature I can't challenge myself and others to do better? I don't think so...I think Jesus used people who didn't have their act together all the time. If he didn't, he wouldn't have anyone to spread the Gospel. In fact, he kind of uses the most unlikely people sometimes...the worst sinners, the least of these, and even people who started out as his mortal enemies.

The thing is, as long as I'm allowing God to transform my life to better fit with his plan (which is simply to spread the Gospel...that should be the entire purpose, the one and only purpose of my life), I'm going to be continuously convicted of things I need to change, let go of, and get rid of in my life. He's going to be cleaning out my closets and getting rid of the yucky. What is yucky for me may not be yucky for you. We all have our idols, but they aren't all the same. What is the same is that these idols make it impossible for us to love others like Christ needs us to love others. I want to do what God tells us to do in Isaiah 1:17

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Let me be clear: the LAST thing I want to be is a turn-off to people in my advocacy for social justice issues and the importance of standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves because of the yucky in my life. I know that sometimes my messages may be misunderstood because they come from a human heart...a heart that is not always pure, but a heart that is sincerely longing to be more like Christ and less like myself. I want the outside and inside to match, but sometimes it doesn't because I'm a work in progress. I struggle with making the outside match the inside DAILY. Who doesn't??? Even the most "perfect" Christians struggle with it. Mother Teresa penned the following:

"I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony," she wrote in an undated letter. (Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2007/09/New-Book-Reveals-Mother-Teresas-Struggle-With-Faith.aspx#ixzz1EtjYNiYI)

The truth is, I'm a work in progress. I'm a HUGE mess. The people who know me best can vouch for that. I have maybe three or four friends who know the good, bad, and ugly about me. All of it. These people could tell you that I have sinned in ways that are TERRIBLE. Let's face it...we are all just big 'ol piles of poo...but God loves us so much despite everything we do to try to mess up our lives. I take great comfort in that, don't you?

So if that comes across as self-righteous, that is definitely not my intention. However, I know that skeptics will see it as they may. I will be misunderstood. I will lose friends over my faith. God promised that when we're living for him, we will be persecuted. 2 Tim 3:12 says, "Indeed, all who desire to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." I would actually be more upset if I wasn't persecuted. I'm not saying I want drama to follow me around everywhere, or maybe I am...this is something I'm wrestling with right now...so I'm not exactly how it's supposed to look for me. I really just want to encourage people to think outside of American borders and have a more realistic world view, because it's a process that I'm going through and I see how much peace God gives me when I'm trying to live outside of my perfect little American bubble. More than anything, I want to challenge everyone, myself most of all, to think about what kingdom they belong to...earthly or heavenly...in every area of life. I'm pretty outspoken & passionate in my temperament (I know...shocker), so I really struggle with saying what is on my heart in kind of in-your-face ways. I really want to be gentle, and I'm working hard on that...knowing what to say, when to say it, and in what tone. I often think to myself, "Should I just shut up now? Are people thinking I'm that annoying, crazy, over-the-top person?" So I don't say anything when clearly I should. Then I get mad at myself for being silent. Other times I think, "I said too much. I turned someone off. I made them uncomfortable or angry or attacked." Then I get mad at myself for speaking at all. So saying too much or too little...I'm constantly doubting myself. I am schizophrenic. Then I see a picture like this:

This is not a photoshopped image. It is a real picture taken by Kevin Carter. It has changed me. It haunts me at night. It makes me wrestle with things that make me very uncomfortable.

It's a little girl, dying of starvation in Sudan, and a vulture in the background waiting to pick her bones clean. Images like this make me realize something. Being quiet is not an option for me. It just isn't. Even as I struggle with how to flesh it out in my own life, I will unapologetically advocate for human beings. This little girl had a soul. Who is responsible for her? Who will speak up on her behalf? If not me, then who? Can I really ever say too much about how much people in this world need us...aren't we supposed to be Jesus on this Earth? When I ask myself those questions I realize I really don't have time to bother with what people think of my "world views". Even if I seem a little schizophrenic. I won't answer to them when God asks me what I did for the least of these. I feel an urgency to be outspoken for them, and for that, I will not apologize.

Prayers, Prints, and Planes

2011-02-12T05:30:00.000-08:00

Can I just say that GOD totally rocks?!? Your adoption peeps will understand what a MIRACLE we encountered this week with our USCIS fingerprinting. Here's a little backstory for those of you not familiar with what USCIS fingerprinting is:

In order to adopt a child from a foreign country, you have to fill out a petition with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to classify an orphan as a member of your family, which in our case is called an I-600A form. A part of the process of getting approved is doing biometric fingerprints, or FBI prints. These prints are only good for 18 months, then they delete them, and your USCIS approval is expired.

So, we got our USCIS approval back in November of 2009, when we were in the beginning stages of the adoption process. Never in a million years did I think they would expire before our adoption was finalized! But alas, they expire February 27th, so it was necessary for us to have them re-done. We have known this was the case, but our adoption agency kept telling us to hold off on having them re-done because they kept thinking we would get a court date before they expired. Well, you all know that story if you've been keeping up with our adoption. If you're new to this blog go back to August 2010 and start reading there to catch up.

We held off until we KNEW there was NO WAY we were getting a court date before they expired, sent off our request, and got our fingerprinting date...February 7. However, due to who-knows-what, we were told that the USCIS was backed up on printing and it could take up to three months to get our prints back from the date they were taken. Since our court date is March 17th, we couldn't wait three months. Our agency advised us to start PRAYING and call our Senators and State Representatives to ask for help getting the prints expedited.

We called both Richard Shelby's and Jeff Sessions' offices. Both were very helpful, but I have to say, Richard Shelby's office was incredibly responsive. We called them before we got printed and they told us exactly what they needed to help. So as soon as our prints were taken on Monday, we emailed them and let them know the prints were done. We were told it would take at least 48 hours just for the prints to get into the system so we didn't expect to hear anything back from them for a couple of days. Imagine our shock when LESS THAN 24 HOURS LATER...ON TUESDAY MORNING, THE 8TH, RICHARD SHELBY'S OFFICE CALLED GREG AND TOLD HIM THEY JUST GOTTEN OFF THE PHONE WITH USCIS, THE PRINTS WERE DONE AND OUR USCIS APPROVAL WAS IN THE MAIL!!! I have to give huge props to Shelby's office for their kindness and responsiveness, but we all know all the glory goes to God for making this happen. It was like God was just saying, "See? I got this. Don't worry and don't be afraid."

Just another MIRACLE in Kirill's story. God works so powerfully through the least of these and I'm so humbled to get to be his mommy.

One last thing...we've been working on our plane tickets this week. Can I just say how exciting it's been to book two round-trip tickets and one one-way ticket? When we got the itinerary with "Gregory Kirill Davis" printed in black and white, I almost broke down. It makes it so real. One month from today we will leave to go get him...I CANNOT WAIT!

So What's Next?

2011-02-03T03:21:00.000-08:00

Now that we have our court date (ah...I still can't believe I'm typing that...SO THRILLED! THANK YOU GOD!), what happens next? Well, the first thing we have to do is KEEP PRAYING. We still have a lot of steps to bring K home for good, so keep your prayers going strong. They are powerful and effective! Pray that God continues to be glorified through our adoption and K's life. We KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has already been such a testament to God's name.

We will travel to K's country, to the capital city, and have medicals done there with 8 medical specialists. Once we are done with that, we will travel to K's region for our court date. Once we get there, the first day, we will complete final court paperwork and visit with K!!! MY HEART IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE JUST TYPING THAT...WE WILL SEE HIM IN A LITTLE OVER A MONTH!!! :) :) :) The next day, we have court. If we are approved, that will begin a 10-day grace period. That time is designed to give anyone a chance to object to the adoption. During that time, we will come back home. We could stay, but we will be missing Clayton so much and we feel that we need to come home to see him. Plus, those 10 days would be pretty difficult. There isn't a lot to do in K's region; it's a beautiful city but it would be hard to fill 10 days there. We wouldn't necessarily be able to visit him everyday if we did stay because of travel to and from the orphanage. It takes a couple of hours to drive there from the city and we would have to hire a driver each day, which would be very expensive. So for all of those reasons, we will come home.

We will return to K's country after the 10 day grace period and the first thing we will do is go to his region and pick him up! He will be ours at that point. :) :) :) We have to complete some post-adoption paperwork there, then we will go back to the capital city. In the capital, K will have a medical exam done. Then we will have to register K with the consulate and get his passport and visa. Once we get all of that done, we will come HOME! :) I'm not posting exact dates on here for privacy's sake, but we will be home sometime the first week in April.

Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. Our family is completely overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support we have received. I'm terribly behind on responding to all the Facebook messages, emails, texts, and phone calls. Please know that it's only because there aren't enough hours in the day to respond immediately but I will do my best to respond eventually. We need these words of encouragement so much. YOU have been Jesus on earth to us and for that we are humbled and so, so grateful. God is so good. His plan in all of this is unfolding. I can't share all the details yet, but we are finding out things that are blowing us away. God has been working very hard behind the scenes in ways that we could have never imagined. I can't wait to tell you more!

MARCH 17TH

2011-02-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

That's all we know. But we have a court date and it's March 17th!!! PRAISE GOD! HE IS FAITHFUL...MOUNTAINS MOVED!

O How He Loves

2011-02-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

When we committed to adopt, we knew there would be two trips with a period of waiting between the two. We didn't anticipate the wait to be terribly long; maybe three months at the most. We are now beginning the seventh month since we saw our son. It seems like an eternity ago, and most of the time I cope with the wait by NOT thinking about it. I try to stay busy and occupy my time and mind with other things; Lord knows I'm good at staying busy! But sometimes I let myself just dwell on the time we spent with K. I let myself go back there with all five senses and just grieve the fact that he's still not home. Sunday was one of those days, and honestly, I've had a hard time coming out of it. I just ache to touch, smell, hear, and see my son. I'm dying to kiss his face and snuggle his fragile little body.

The main thing that I can remember is the way his head felt. He has really fine blond hair that is buzzed close to his head (that's how all the children...girls and boys...have their hair cut at the orphanage where he lives). I just kept stroking his hair and trying to burn the way it felt into my memory. His body was cold, like a corpse. I kept trying to wrap my arms around him to cover his cold skin and warm his tiny frame.

His smell was distinct. He didn't smell sweet like Johnson and Johnson Lavender Baby Wash. Frankly, he smelled like urine. The first day his diaper was so full that its contents spilled out onto his clothing and mine. I was wet from his urine and saliva. K kept his hands in his mouth all the time. His hands were raw and bleeding from being in his mouth so much. His thumb was cracked, red, and covered with open sores. His ears were also raw with sores inside because he usually kept whatever hand wasn't in his mouth in his ear. But I didn't care at all. In fact, I didn't want to wash the pants that I had on for a long time because they smelled like K. He reeked of human excrement and soured clothing, but to me it was the sweetest smell in the world.

K didn't really look like the pictures we were given. He was much thinner and smaller than I expected. In his photos, he looked plump-faced, pink and healthy. In real life, his eyes were purple and his skin was mottled. The sparkle in his eyes from the pictures wasn't there. There were sores on his body where he had picked and scratched his own skin; probably for stimulation. He was wearing girls clothing and shoes. He had on the same dirty shirt both days we visited with him. His glasses were gone. We were told because other children would grab them and break them. He obviously couldn't see well because when we would give him toys, pictures, or a book he would bend down to put his face right up to it so he could see it. He was a beautiful, beautiful boy. I haven't seen such beauty since I first laid my eyes on Clayton.

K didn't talk at all. He grunted and hissed to show is pleasure or dislike. He giggled when we tickled him. I played with his feet, doing "patty cake" with them. He banged them together as if to say, "again! again!" So we played that game as long as he was interested. Although we couldn't talk to each other, we had no trouble communicating. I love to watch the videos of our time with K because I can hear his sounds. To me, it sounds like a beautiful song.

The four hours we spent over two days with our son was a blend of exhiliration and agony. Every second was a treasure because we knew, at any moment, the orphanage social worker would come in to tell us our time was up. Every second I frantically tried to file away in my memory because I knew it was all I would have of K until we returned to bring him home for good.

Now as we begin our seventh month of waiting, it occurs to me that this must be how God feels about us. We are dirty, covered in our own filth, but God thinks we smell like lavender body wash. Our feeble attempts to talk to God come out as grunts and hisses, but he hears them as a sweet symphony. We must look terribly unkept in comparison to the beauty of God's surroundings in Heaven, especially the way we abuse our bodies and minds with worldly things. Yet he thinks we are beautiful. He's frantically soaking in every second we choose to spend with him, knowing that we will soon return to the orphange of this world and all its depravity. All he wants is to bring us home.

Domino Thoughts

2011-01-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

We are begging you to keep praying this week more steadfastly than ever. Pray for the judge specifically. We have felt a powerful urge to pray for her as a person, not just her decision about our adoption, and we believe that the Spirit is working on her in bigger ways than we ever imagined. We were so strengthened by your prayers last week. I literally felt the arms of God's love around me; especially when I would start to lose a little bit of my faith. I'm not a strong person naturally, so it was obviously God's strength carrying me. So please friends, continue to offer up those prayers. If you feel inclined to fast, I know there will be many fasting again this Tuesday for our adoption and the adoptions of the other three children from our region whose adoptions hang in the balance. I'm not trying to be sensational or dramatic when I say that; I just want you to understand the seriousness of what we are facing. We know that spiritual warfare is being battled over the lives of these children, as it is in all of our lives. Prayer is our weapon in this war.
We have been told by our adoption agency that she will give our facilitator an answer about our court date on Wednesday (which is Tuesday night in the U.S. since we are anywhere from 7-10 hours behind EE time, depending on where in the U.S. you live). This means we probably won't find out any news about her decision until Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning. I will do my best to update the blog and post on Facebook as soon as we hear something. If the answer is no, then it may take a little time for me to process this and I might not update immediately. But I promise I will do my best to let everyone know as soon as I'm able to post.
We got our fingerprinting date to have our USCIS fingerprints re-done. It's going to be February 7th at 8 a.m. I'm very thankful it's so quick. We sent in our application on January 6. So it took about a month to get the date. I hope we get the results back as quickly after we get the fingerprints done. Ours expire on February 27th. We cannot adopt without the results so it's kind of a big deal. If you're not familiar with FBI fingerprinting and adoptions, these are one of the big things you do at the beginning of the process. They are good for 18 months. We had ours done for the first time in November of 2009. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would have to have them redone...I just couldn't have imagined that we wouldn't have our child home after 18 months.
We are already hearing stories of how Kirill's story has changed lives and glorified God. Praise God! We would love to hear any stories you have. We also love comments...like I said, the prayers are sustaining us...and we love to hear that you are praying!
THIS SERMON (Unstoppable) has carried me through the last week. I'm urging you to listen to it. It will change your life, I promise, especially if you are wondering why God seems to be ignoring your prayers or wonder why suffering is a part of your life.
I have a huge food baby from this past week. My initial reaction to bad news/stress/worry is not eating for a day or two. Then as I embrace the stress, I embrace carbohydrates and sugar. Gigi's cupcakes just opened in my town and I think I've single-handedly kept it in business for the past three days. I need an intervention or people are going to ask if I'm expecting.
We lost another Reece's Rainbow child this week. Sandra died in an orphanage without ever knowing the love of parents, family, brothers or sisters. She has been a child that I've always looked at fondly. Something about her angelic face touched me. I'm not sure exactly how many children from Reece's Rainbow have died this winter, but it seems like more than in past years. Children in EE orphanages are especially susceptible to death during the harsh winter months because of illness and lack of medical care. Outbreaks of flu and pneumonia can take children quickly when there isn't medicine to treat the illness and the child is already fragile from lack of nutrition, love, and routine health care. Add in the medical fragility of heart conditions that many children with DS have, and it's a tenuous situation. Simple surgeries and medicines widely available in the U.S. could save these children. There is no reason they should die. None. What is your excuse? Is God calling you to adopt? Think about it and if your reasons are all selfish (e.g., it will change my lifestyle, it will require me to sacrifice financially, it will take up my time), then that, my friends, is just plain wrong. I'm sorry if I sound too assertive but I just don't feel like we have time to beat around the bush on why adoption is so important.

And finally, In Christ Alone is probably my favorite worship song. I'm listening to it with new ears during this season of our adoption. I love the ethereal, wispy blend of the words and the music. The first and last stanzas are really powerful and have become my theme song for the week.

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

No guilt of life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

Wait

2011-01-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

^{Psalm 33:18-22}
¹⁸ But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
   on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
¹⁹ to deliver them from death
   and keep them alive in famine.
²⁰ We wait in hope for the LORD;
   he is our help and our shield.
²¹ In him our hearts rejoice,
   for we trust in his holy name.
²² May your unfailing love be with us, LORD,
   even as we put our hope in you.

^{Psalm 27:13-14}
¹³ I remain confident of this:
   I will see the goodness of the LORD
   in the land of the living.
¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;
   be strong and take heart
   and wait for the LORD.

^{Psalm 40:1-3}
¹ I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
      and he turned to me and heard my cry.
² He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
      out of the mud and the mire.
   He set my feet on solid ground
      and steadied me as I walked along.
³ He has given me a new song to sing,
      a hymn of praise to our God.
   Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
      They will put their trust in the Lord.

^{Lamentations 3:22-33}
²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
   therefore I will wait for him.”
²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
   to the one who seeks him;
²⁶ it is good to wait quietly
   for the salvation of the LORD.
²⁷ It is good for a man to bear the yoke
   while he is young.
²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence,
   for the LORD has laid it on him.
²⁹ Let him bury his face in the dust—
   there may yet be hope.
³⁰ Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,
   and let him be filled with disgrace.
³¹ For no one is cast off
   by the Lord forever.
³² Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
   so great is his unfailing love.
³³ For he does not willingly bring affliction
   or grief to anyone.

Today's news was clear: wait. To quote our agency worker, "it is neither good nor bad. The judge took your case and will have an answer in a week. So we wait." I disagree that it was neither good nor bad. It was good news. It was an answer to our prayers: wait.

We tend to focus on ourselves and what this means to us personally. But what if this process isn't about us at all? What if this entire process is for someone else? I'm not even talking about K. What if this process is for the judge? What if it's for a complete stranger that hears our story and is moved? What if it's for people we meet in K's country who see us giving everything we have emotionally and physically to adopt our son? What if it's for the orphanage workers who are being changed by taking care of our son in our absence? Are we willing to put our own desires aside to further God's kingdom according to HIS perfect time?

So please, if you've been praying for this situation, do not lose heart! Yes, it would have been awesome if God had granted our pleas in the way we asked and we got a court date today. But won't it be that much more awesome when he answers according to HIS will and in HIS time? How much better are his ways than ours?

So we wait.

God's Comfort Is...

2011-01-26T08:58:00.000-08:00

13 families gathering around us to pray over our adoption last night
14 college students gathering during the night to pray over our adoption
a friend texting me scripture every hour, on the hour, all day and into the night
over 30 text messages from friends offering encouragement and support
over 20 emails offering encouragement and support...2 from strangers
lots of Facebook messages & posts
many people, I'll never know how many for sure, fasting all day for our adoption
phone calls from people throughout the day offering words of comfort and strength
Reece's Rainbow Yahoo Group
two other adoptive mommies from our region staying up in prayer all night long

II Cor 1:3-7
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

All We Can Do

2011-01-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

Wow...this is a hard post to write. I've tried to come up with a creative way to start but I just don't have any words that seem to do justice to the enormity of my emotions. I think I'm the closest to being empty of myself and control that I've ever been. That's a great thing; a very peaceful feeling. I know that regardless of the outcome, I'm HIS and HE IS MINE. I have no fear in this life, because to die is gain. Soak that in...let it marinate...

Tonight while our country sleeps, our facilitator will be meeting with the judge to ask her to assign us a court date. This will also affect the adoption of other families in our region, as K and one other little girl will be the first children with Down Syndrome ever adopted out of that region. One other family trying to adopt from that region will not be allowed a first travel date until our adoptions are final.

Adopting children with DS is new & foreign to the people there. Our children will open the door for many others if we are allowed to adopt them. I can't stress enough the importance of this meeting. When we were at the orphanage, we were told that we were the first visitors to the orphanage in SEVEN YEARS. Seven years since anyone had wanted a child from this orphanage full of 98 precious little souls. Ninety-eight children that were labeled as "damaged" by their society and placed as far out of sight and mind as possible.

People have been praying, fasting, sending texts, emails, phone calls...I'm overwhelmed with the support and the love we've been given. K is going to have such a great extended family of people who have labored in prayer for him. I don't think you will ever know how humbled, blessed, and strengthened we have been by your prayers. I know K is feeling the prayers as well.

I've heard people say, "Well, all we can do is pray" about situations before. God has taught me something very important through all of this: that is a crappy expression. I think I'm changing it around. I'm going to start saying: "We can do ALL when we pray." Prayer is HUGE. PRAYER IS DOING SOMETHING. PRAYER IS DOING THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. WE ARE TALKING TO THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE!

God forgive me for not praying more. For not praying when things are "good" and I think I'm in control. God controls it all. Even the judge...

Proverbs 21

1. The Lord can control a king's mind as he controls a river;
he can direct it as he pleases.

As soon as we know anything, I will let you all know by any and all means possible...blog, Facebook, text, email, Twitter...you will actually probably be able to hear me yelling from our apartment if we get a court date. Remember though, no matter what, God is still God. We are only here by his hand to carry out his purpose, which is spreading the Gospel of Christ. We will continue to live out our purpose no matter what! Thank you for being faithful in prayer for us & K.

Strength

2011-01-24T11:30:00.000-08:00

Psalm 20

¹ May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
   may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
² May he send you help from the sanctuary
   and grant you support from Zion.
³ May he remember all your sacrifices
   and accept your burnt offerings.^[b]
⁴ May he give you the desire of your heart
   and make all your plans succeed.
⁵ May we shout for joy over your victory
   and lift up our banners in the name of our God.
   May the LORD grant all your requests.
⁶ Now this I know:
   The LORD gives victory to his anointed.
He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary
   with the victorious power of his right hand.
⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
   but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
⁸ They are brought to their knees and fall,
   but we rise up and stand firm.
⁹ LORD, give victory to the king!
   Answer us when we call!

Psalm 82

¹ God presides over heaven’s court;
      he pronounces judgment on the heavenly beings:
² “How long will you hand down unjust decisions
      by favoring the wicked?
³ “Give justice to the poor and the orphan;
      uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.
⁴ Rescue the poor and helpless;
      deliver them from the grasp of evil people.
⁵ But these oppressors know nothing;
      they are so ignorant!
   They wander about in darkness,
      while the whole world is shaken to the core.
⁶ I say, ‘You are gods;
      you are all children of the Most High.
⁷ But you will die like mere mortals
      and fall like every other ruler.’”
⁸ Rise up, O God, and judge the earth,
      for all the nations belong to you.

This Love by Mandi Mapes

(You should go to iTunes immediately and download this song if you're adopting!)

I’ve never felt this way before
funny how you found your way to my door   
and suddenly my prayers are coming true
and these arms are not letting go of you

this love this love is the deep kind
you’re my baby, you’re my sunshine
I’ll hold your hand, be your biggest fan
and I’ll love you all of the time

our eyes are not quite the same shade
and your hair blows in the wind a different way 
but I am your mother and 
I love you just the same 
so I’ll take your hand honey 
and you can take my name

my heart has been redeemed,
adopted and now I know my Father
this grace that I’ve received 
I want to show you
I want to show you

this love this love is the deep kind
it hangs on through the storm and the sunshine
I’ll hold your hand, be your biggest fan
and I’ll love you all of the time

Can You Hear the Children?

2011-01-23T03:56:00.001-08:00

I found this poem on John Piper's website. I absolutely love it.

Do you hear the children crying?
I can hear them every day,
Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

Somewhere safe from all the dangers,
Somewhere safe from Crack and AIDS,
Safe from lust and lurking strangers,
Safe from war and bombing raids.

Somewhere safe from malnutrition,
Safe from daddy's damning voice,
Safe from mommy's cool ambition,
Safe from deadly goddess, Choice.

Do you hear the children crying?
I can hear them every day,
Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

* * * *

Do you see the children meeting?
I can see them in the sky,
Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.
Why the milk no longer nourished,
Why the water made them sick,
Why the crops no longer flourished,
Why the belly got so thick.

Why they never knew the reason
Friends had vanished out of sight,
Why some suffered for a season,
Others never saw the light.

Do you see the children meeting?
I can see them in the sky,
Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.

* * * *

Do you hear the children singing?
I can hear them high above,
Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

Glory for the gift of living,
Glory for the end of pain,
Glory for the gift of giving,
Glory for eternal gain.

Glory from the ones forsaken,
Glory from the lost and lone,
Glory when the infants waken,
Orphans on the Father's throne

Do you hear the children singing?
I can hear them high above,
Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

* * * *

Do you see the children coming?
I can see them on the clouds,
Coming, strumming, drumming, humming
Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

Songs with lots of happy clapping,
Songs that set the heart on fire,
Songs that make your foot start tapping,
Songs that make a merry choir.

Songs so loud the mountains tremble,
Songs so pure the canyons ring,
When the children all assemble
Millions, millions, round the King.

Do you see the children coming?
I can see them on the clouds,
Coming, strumming, drumming, humming
Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

* * * *

Do you see the children waiting?
I can see them all aglow
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
Who of us will rise and go?

Will we turn and fly to meet them
In the light of candle two?
I intend to rise and greet them.
Come and go with me, would you?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2011-01-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I'm most afraid of in this adoption process is that our story is going to be a discouragement to other families considering adoption. Our adoption has been extremely arduous, this is true. But I want you to understand something; I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I want to take some time to explain WHY our process has been so difficult. We sometimes joke, between our tears, that it has been "a series of unfortunate events."

First of all, our adoption is NOT typical for Eastern European adoptions. Most EE adoptions, from start to finish, take about 8-12 months. We are on month 19. If you've been following our journey from the beginning, you already understand all of the ups and downs that we've experienced. If you are new to this blog, I want to take this post to explain our unique experience and why our adoption has been anything BUT typical.

In the summer of 2009, we committed to adopt a little 2-year-old boy named Sergey from the same country as Kirill (whom we are currently adopting). Our homestudy was completed in a couple of months and we completed our dossier by Christmas. It was submitted to our country and we anticipated we would travel sometime in January 2010.

Days and weeks passed and I began to worry. I was reassured by our adoption agency that everything was fine and we would receive our travel date "any day now." However, I knew something was up after February came and went and still no travel date. On March 16, 2010, I received a phone call while running errands. I will never forget where I was or the words from our social worker, "We have received devastating news about little Sergey." Basically everything after that was a blur, but I heard enough to know that Sergey wasn't going to be ours. He never should have been listed on his country's registry of orphans because all of his family members had not been notified of his orphaned status. When the Minister of Education discovered this error, he contacted the family members who decided to adopt Sergey. This was probably one of the worst days of my life. I just couldn't understand how such a terrible mistake could happen. However, God revealed many things to us through this experience. We are adopting because we are following what we believe is God's command to care for orphans. Our goal is to help solve the orphan crisis by adopting a child and hopefully inspiring others to adopt. We feel that because of our interest in Sergey, his family members were notified and he is now one less orphan. We choose to look at this situation as a blessing because through our adoption process, there will be two children in homes, out of orphanages, and with loving families.

We took some time to grieve the loss of our hopes and dreams to make Sergey a part of our family. We knew we still wanted to adopt a little boy with Down Syndrome, but we had no idea of where to begin as far as choosing another child. We knew we didn't want to change agencies or countries because a) we were very happy with our adoption agency and b) we didn't want to have to redo all of our paperwork, which would result in a loss of time and money. Our adoption agency works in more than one region of the country Sergey was from, so we asked them to help us identify a child. They gave us several names and photos of children, but we really only considered one...a four-year-old boy named Kirill. It's a long story that you can read about HERE, but Kirill was just supposed to be ours and we knew it right away. So we committed to adopt Kirill and began making the necessary changes to our dossier due to K being in a different region and being a different age. This was the first round of redoing paperwork...there would be many, many more. The main things we had to do: update our homestudy to reflect our desire for and ability to parent an older child AND update our USCIS approval for an older child. This paperwork was done rather quickly and we had re-submitted our dossier to Kirill's region by mid-April.

But mid-April was the same month that Torry Hansen decided to send her adopted child back to Eastern Europe, all alone, on a plane, because she couldn't parent him. Now I want to take an opportunity here to clarify something that has been bothering me for a long, long time. The Torry Hansen case makes me extremely angry. Her careless actions have caused many, many children to remain in orphanages when they could be home with their families. Does this mean I don't empathize her? Absolutely not. I totally get that she was probably overwhelmed and felt desperate. I have worked with families in my professional life, and I also have personal connections to families who have had to dissolve their adoptions. It is a hellish thing to go through, there is no doubt. However, I WILL NEVER CONDONE CHILD ABANDONMENT AS JUSTIFIABLE. What she did was WRONG. Period. There is never an excuse to abandon a child. If you disagree, that's your opinion. I have a very different one. There are measures that adoptive parents can take to dissolve an adoption. Ms. Hansen did absolutely nothing to try to follow the procedures for dissolving an adoption. She did not disclose to ANYONE that she was having difficulty with her child. In fact, when follow-up visits were done by the social worker, Ms. Hansen did not report any problems at all. There are many other details of the case that I won't go into because it really doesn't pertain to this post. I'm sorry I'm off on a tangent, but I just want people to understand that it's o.k. to be angry with someone for doing something so wrong. You can still love them and pray for them, but you do not have to condone their actions. I've had several people try to tell me that she had her reasons and as Christians we should be understanding of her and not be angry with her. I disagree. I think Christ got angry when he was on earth and saw injustice, sin, and mistreatment of children. I think it's o.k. if that makes us angry. Do I hate Torry Hansen? Absolutely not. I am hopeful that she is getting the help she so desperately needs. Am I angry at her actions and the pain it has caused the families and children whose adoptions have been halted because of her? Absolutely. Do I think Satan used her to his advantage? Absolutely.

Back to the story...so the Torry Hansen situation caused adoptions to come to a screeching halt. We were told that it might me months before adoptions resumed and we would be able to travel to meet Kirill. It was a 1-2 punch to the gut to get that news so soon after we lost Sergey. I just couldn't believe it was happening.

There was so much confusion during this time. We really weren't sure what was going on with adoptions in K's country because there were so many conflicting reports coming from the media. Our adoption agency really couldn't give us much information because they didn't know anything for certain. So we waited...

As we waited we started to hear that other regions were moving and processing adoptions, but not ours. Finally, in July 2010, we got a phone call that we would be traveling in August to meet Kirill and accept our referral. Finally! We were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...or so we thought.

While we were in country, we were told that the judge in our region was not issuing new court dates. The U.S. and K's country had been working on a treaty regarding intercountry adoptions. Until that treaty was signed an official, our judge didn't feel comfortable issuing court dates. However, we were also told that our judge would be going to a meeting of the supreme court and that she might change her mind after that meeting. We left not knowing when we would return, but we knew it probably wouldn't be as soon as we had originally thought.

Our agency remained hopeful that the judge would change her mind and we would have K home by Christmas. So they advised us to go ahead and get the necessary paperwork and medicals for our second trip. This was expensive and we knew the documents would expire in three months. We hoped to be back in country before they expired. However, the days and weeks came and went and we were finally notified that our judge was not going to change her mind. Another story had broken about a family abusing their adopted children, all of whom were from K's country. This time the story was even more horrific. The three teenage girls were tortured by their adoptive parents. This story caused our judge to remain firm in her decision. There are other reasons that played into her decision, we were told. These reasons made sense and even though we felt defeated, we kind of understood the judge's hesitation to process adoptions. So we did all we could do...prayed and prayed and prayed..

Then in December we received wonderful news that our judge had decided to go ahead with adoptions and start issuing court dates again. We were beyond ecstatic. We scurried to get the paperwork, which had expired by this time, redone and sent to our judge. God had answered our prayer, but Satan was waiting to mess it all up again. There were more paperwork issues and I won't go into detail, but it delayed getting our court date again.

That brings us to the present. Now we have received word that our facilitator will meet with the judge this coming Wednesday to ask her for a court date for us. This meeting is so important. I don't think I can stress enough how much we need prayers. My friend Ashley has written an excellent post on her blog with more details. I'm not going to re-invent the wheel since she has written about it already, but I would encourage you to hop on over to her blog HERE and read about the imminent need for prayers.

I want to leave you with a verse that has become my strength over the last few days. It is Psalm 112:6-8:

⁶ Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
   they will be remembered forever.
⁷ They will have no fear of bad news;
   their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
⁸ Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
   in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.

Tips for Traveling in Eastern Europe

2011-01-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

I have traveled quite a bit in my life...12 different countries on three different continents. I'm a very adventurous traveler...I'm not boasting, but I want you to understand where I'm coming from here. Travel in EE is very different from any other country/region, in my opinion-especially if you are going to rural areas. Here are some of the things that we learned while traveling in Eastern Europe. If you have been to EE and want to add your own, please comment!

People smoke everywhere, all the time. EVERY. WHERE. ALL. THE. TIME. You cannot escape it. Your clothes and hair will perpetually smell like you've been clubbing all night long. While we were there, I kept saying to Greg, "EE has a smell about it. It smells the same everywhere. I can't put my finger on it." He replied, "Yeah, it's called cigarette smoke."
Your pee will smell funny. Ok, I don't know why this is, but trust me. Your pee and poop will smell funny there. I'm not sure if it's the smoke or the food or a combination of both, but just take my word for it and don't be surprised when you go potty.
Rooster Offal are rooster testicles. No matter how much mushroom gravy is on them, I don't recommend eating them.
Smoked meat is either wet smoked or dry smoked. Go with dry. Wet looks and tastes like raw hamburger meat.
There will be things floating in your drinks. Random fruits and bits of food that are unidentifiable. They drink a lot of these super sweet juice drinks...think the syrup from frozen strawberries. If this concerns you, stick with bottled water.
The EE way is to push and shove your way to the front of a line. If you tend to be courteous, this will be extremely difficult for you. Just keep in mind that if you don't do as the EE's, you will never get to the front of the line. So check your manners at the concourse in the airport when you arrive. You won't be needing them.
Women dress EXTREMELY provocatively in the summer months. Pray you travel in the winter. Summer is worse that the Victoria's Secret fashion show. This is not an exaggeration. I promise. I saw more hiney cheeks and boobage than I care to ever see again. Greg said he needed blinders as he felt wrong just seeing all these body parts exposed in broad daylight everywhere he looked.
TAKE FOOD. Ok, I cannot stress this enough. We packed our large suitcase that we checked with toys for the orphanage and food. That's it. Take a variety. We took almonds, trail mix, protein bars, beef jerky, peanut butter, dried fruit, and other individually packaged items that traveled well. The reason I say this is not because you can't find food over there. You just don't ever know when you will be able to go to the store. For example, we took an overnight train from Moscow to K's city in EE. It was 12+ hours. There is no food on the train. Even if there was a dining cart, you couldn't read the menu. Then we were picked up and taken immediately to the orphanage. So if we wouldn't have had snacks, we would not have eaten for almost 24 straight hours. There just wasn't an opportunity to find food. As a diabetic, I would have been in a WORLD of trouble had we not taken a lot of food.
Having said that, when you do eat, you do have some good choices. I recommend soups and stews, fish, or chicken. The food isn't bad, it's just different. There is a lot of mushroom, dill, and sour cream used in recipes. I do not eat mushrooms or sour cream, so if I can tell you that you can find things you like, you can believe it. :) I'm not picky, it just so happens that two of the maybe five foods I don't like are staples in EE.
Traffic is nuts. No, really...you cannot understand until you've been there. Think NASCAR meets monster truck obstacle course in the middle of New York City. I honestly thought I was going to meet Jesus on several occasions. We saw many serious wrecks. They drive FAST and the roads are TERRIBLE as far as their condition. There are more potholes than actual blacktop and the average speed at which you travel over them is 90 mph. We went airborne twice. I'm dead serious. Greg thought it was fun. Me, not so much.
There is no use to try to learn the language. Learn "please, thank you, water, hello, and goodbye." That's about all you need to know. Remember, you will have an interpreter the whole time. The times when they are not around, you can use sign language. Nothing is in English...be prepared for that. Not even in the airports or train stations. But you will be fine with sign language, I promise. I have a great story about trying to find a hair dryer...
Do not over pack. Just don't. You will regret it if you take too much. Here's what I took and I felt like it was the perfect amount for one week in the summer months: a pair of black loose-fitting pants that could go dressy or not, a pair of khaki Columbia travel pants, a pair of brown pants, two travel dresses, black shorts, 2 camis, 2 t-shirts for sleep/lounging, a cardigan, a white t-shirt, a brown tank top, 8 pair of underwear, 2 bras, TOMS shoes, and black Volitile wedges. Looking back, I could have made it with one t-shirt for lounging and one travel dress. But I did wear everything at least twice so I probably would pack the same since it all fit in my suitcase. People in EE wear the same thing for days at a time. Our interpreter wore the same dress the entire time we were there. So if you change a lot, it will make you stick out. With what I took, I could mix and match for an entire week with clothes to spare if something got especially dirty. I washed underwear in the hotel sink at one point because I did change those a lot to keep me from feeling too gross. We were lucky to travel in summer because I didn't have to worry about coats, socks, or other warm clothes. I packed everything I needed for a week in a 15-in. rolling carry-on and only checked our big suitcase that had food and toys in it. It can be done.
Anything goes as far as clothing. We were told to dress in black or dark colors as to not stand out. I totally think this is some kind of old rule that Americans still believe to be true. Maybe it used to be like this during communist times, but not now. We saw everything over there. EE's are very tall, thin, and have a distinct "sharp" look about them. We were just rounder and shorter so we stood out because of that. No way you can change those things to blend in!
Contrary to popular belief, most places do not take U.S. currency. We were told by our agency that our hotel and most other places would take U.S. currency. We didn't find anywhere that took it. So go ahead and change money that you think you will need. We got stuck with no rubles on a couple of occasions and it was not fun borrowing money from our facilitator and/or scurrying to find a bank.
Xanax is your friend. Get some for the flights. Especially if you get stuck on the same flight as 70 American teenagers returning from a summer in EE. Yeah, I double-dosed for that.
There is internet service everywhere. You can easily find an internet cafe or get internet service at most hotels for little or no charge.
Check with your cell provider and be careful about buying international service plans. We were told by AT&T that for $30/month we could have 50 text messages and unlimited data on our phones. That was bull. When we got home we were greeted by a $400 bill for just my phone. Greg's was through his work so that was not good either. These international plans do not apply in some EE countries. Even though I specifically asked about ours and was assured that it would be covered, it was not. So next time we will leave our phones off and just use the internet to communicate. AT&T did remove the charges because I called and raised cane and told them the name of the customer rep that sold me the plan. Bottom line...just be very careful with cell plans.
Take a travel blanket, a sheet and a pillowcase if you are going to be on the train overnight. It also comes in handy at the hotel. I'm not a real germ freak (well, I kinda am), but you just feel better putting your face on a surface that doesn't smell like it was washed in cigarette butts.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are tons more things that I'm forgetting! My best advice is be sure to pack your sense of humor. Know that there are going to be times when things are going to go wrong. It's fine. It's a part of the fun of travel!

5 Months Later

2011-01-06T06:52:00.001-08:00

If you've been following our adoption journey from the beginning, you've probably noticed lots of ebbs and flows on this blog. Adoption tends to be a series of excrutiating wait time followed by periods of frantic activity followed by more waiting followed by more waiting...and on and on it goes. So somewhere in the waiting/frantic cycle, I totally forgot to chronicle the rest of our trip to meet Kirill back in August. I'm only 5 months late. In adoption time, that translates to roughly a week and a half. Good thing I'm functioning on adoption time.

To pick up where I left off in this post, we left Moscow at 6 p.m. on an overnight train bound for the Eastern European city where K lives. Moscow is the closest airport to this city, which isn't saying much since we had to take LONG train ride to get there after we left Moscow. We were picked up the next day by our facilitator, Marina, and our interpreter, Elena. They were both LOVELY women that we really grew to love over the next few days.

As they drove us to our hotel, Marina began to explain our itenerary for the next few days. I have to insert here that I was SO NERVOUS at this point. It's just so surreal to be in a car with complete strangers (at the time), trusting them to navigate your life for the next few days. It was a HUGE test of my faith and my reluctance to give up control. We were completely at the mercy of stangers and were 100% reliant on them to tell us what to do, where to go, what to eat, etc. The only thing I could remotely relate it to is being blind. I'm not trying to compare what we experienced to something as profound as blindness, but I'm just trying to somehow convey how we were so dependent on God at this point because we had absolutely no way to communicate or understand the culture without these women. We just had to let go completely and trust that God was working through them.

As Marina was explaining what we would be doing for the rest of the day, she inserted that our train was late and we would need to go straight to the Minister of Science and Education's office without cleaning up at the hotel. So we literally dropped our bags at the hotel and headed to a very formal government building. To say we were disgusting is an understatement. We had been riding on a smoky (people smoke everywhere in EE...inside, outside, on trains, in hotels...there's no such thing as a "no smoking" section...plus the forrest fires had covered all of Moscow and the outlying areas in a thick blanket of smoke) train all night after spending a day walking around Moscow the day before. We had not showered since the morning before and by the time we got to the orphanage it was late afternoon. Talk about greasy...it took me back to the semester I spend in Europe in college. We backpacked and wouldn't shower for like 6 days at a time...but we weren't trying to prove that we were fit parents back then either.

We met with the Minister of Science and Education to sign a form stating our intent to visit with K and review his referral. She was such a pleasant lady. She asked us some tough questions about why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs. But I could tell that she was in our corner and wanted to see K go to a family. She even had his picture on a bulletin board in her office. She explained to us that she keeps photos of all the children in the process of adoption on that board and is happy when they are placed with their families. I thought that spoke volumes about her heart. As we left, she said, "I think you will be wonderful parents to K and I wish you the best." We left from her office and went straight to the orphanage to meet K.

Driving to the orphanage took about an hour and a half by car from the city. We drove on paved roads most of the time but about ten miles from the orphanage we turned onto a dirt road which took us to a very secluded area in the woods. Literally...in. the. woods. That was where the orphanage was located, deep in the woods...very secluded. So we pull up to the orphanage. I'm going to probably just tell you the facts here and leave out emotion since this blog is public. The orphanage was a group of three buildings. One building was where the children lived. The other building looked like some sort of storage facility or something like that. One building looked abandoned.

When we pulled up there were about twenty children playing outside. One of them, a little girl, ran up to Greg and put her arms up for him to hold her. He picked her up and she squealed with delight. She was so thin and frail. I also took a turn holding her. The orphanage workers came and took her as they shooed the children inside. It's not acceptable to see or photograph the other children, so the workers were following the rules and trying to keep us from seeing the other children. Still, we were so haunted by those faces that we did see. I can't really put it into words. I kept telling Greg they looked like ghost children. Their skin was almost transparent and they were all very small and frail with hollow eyes. I could go into more detail, but quite frankly it's painful and I just can't do it because my son is still there and will continue to be one of those children until we go back to adopt him.

We were ushered into the orphanage director's office. He was a very gentle and kind man. We were allowed to ask questions and he also was allowed to ask us a few questions. We were told that K had just been transferred to this orphanage from a baby orphanage. This orphanage was for 4-18 year-old children with special needs. That is how much we DIDN'T know coming into this trip. We didn't even know the name of the orphanage or where it was located. We had no idea that K had been transferred to an older child orphanage. We thought he was still at the baby house. So this was kind of shocking to us. Still, we just took it in stride and continued our visit with the staff. After a few minutes, the social worker came in and we were allowed to ask her questions. She knew more about K than the director because she had more contact with the children on a day-to-day basis. Then the medical director came in and she answered medical questions. As a part of her questioning, she read us the document that K's parents had to fill out to relinquish custody and declare him an orphan. There are no words for what that did to my heart. I truly felt for his parents; to them there was no other choice but to give up their son. I also felt an overwhelming gratitude to them for giving us such a precious gift. It's a very strange and emotional experience to hear their words read aloud.

As we met with these people, I could tell they were somewhat leery of us. However, by the end of our time together, I really felt comfortable with them and I think we were able to explain to them why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs. We left the director's office and the social worker took us to a room where we would be visiting with K. She left us there while she went to get K. We could hear the social worker and K's caregiver coming up the stairs with him and the first time I laid eyes on him...oh my word. I'm in tears just typing this. I cannot tell you what it was like watching this tiny boy walk up the stairs toward us. The boy I'd seen for months in pictures and imagined in my mind was now in front of me in person. It was surreal.

As he toddled toward us, he head-planted into a corner of the wall. He started screaming immediately and my heart broke. I was thinking, "great, his first meeting with us and he's traumatized!" But his caregiver consoled him and he recovered pretty quickly. I tried not to snatch him up because I didn't want to startle him. It took all the restraint I had, but Greg and I both let him just explore the room and stayed very close to him until he got used to us. We would touch him gently or pick him up for short moments, but we didn't want to smother him because we knew we were strangers to him. At one point, I was taking pictures and Greg was videoing. This is the moment that I will cherish forever. I'm so glad Greg captured it on video. I'll let the video speak for itself.

That's where I'll close for now. I'm sure you're tired of reading and I'm certainly tired of typing. Plus, putting this all out of my head onto paper is really emotionally draining. It forces me to think about K and about the fact that it's been five long months since I saw his precious face, stroked his buzzed little head, and kissed his sweet little cheeks. At times it feels like my heart will literally crack into pieces so I avoid thinking about it a lot in order to cope. When I'm dying inside, I have to remember Christ and the pain he endured to adopt me. Getting up every morning is only possible through my Lord. Thank God he paved the way for me on this journey.

Passion

2011-01-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

A friend recently told me about Drawn From Water, an orphanage in Africa that rescues "mingi" children from genocide. What are "mingi" children, you ask? They are children with "defects" that cause their tribe to consider them to be possessed by demons. These "defects" can be anything from unplanned pregnancy by the mother to top teeth coming in before their bottom teeth. Yes, you read that right...they can be killed because of the order in which they cut their teeth. How are they killed? They are cast into a nearby river and left to drown or abandoned in the bush and left to die. The orphanage literally rescues them from these terrible deaths and takes them into their orphanage.

Pick up your bottom jaw. THIS. REALLY. HAPPENS. And it grosses me out.

Why it grosses me out may surprise you though. I'm not grossed out by the tribe. They do not know any better. Drawn From Water is trying (and succeeding!) in teaching these tribes the truth about "mingi" children. They are changing their hearts and beliefs. It is wonderfully amazing to read their success stories. What grosses me out is that this is happening while I'm sitting in my nice, warm apartment with my latte in hand, watching football. I'm grossed out with myself for having closed eyes to the reality of what is going on in our world. I know I can't change the world entirely, but I can do my part. And I'm not. Drawn From Water, like Reece's Rainbow, stirs a passion in me. I'm not sure what God is trying to tell me yet, but I do know that I have been trying for two months to get this orphanage out of my head and I cannot. It's nagging at me all the time, especially when I lay down at night and pray for the children there.

Why am I blogging about this? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, I've been thinking a lot about passions lately. Why do we have them? Why do some come and go? Why do some stay forever? Why do we lose passion? Why do some people live their entire lives for one passion, wholly sold-out to this one thing that impacts all areas of life?

I don't have the answers to that. I don't want to live my life frantically chasing one passion after another. I have a tendency to get on "kicks". Can anyone out there relate? You know, I'm the person that will jump head-first into something without really thinking about it and then drop it like a hot potato after a couple of months. I really don't like that personality trait. It can also drive the hubs crazy. When we were talking about adoption, he sort of jokingly, sort of seriously asked, "Are you really sure about this or is it one of your kicks?" Obviously now he knows it wasn't a kick, but I really did understand his concerns because I know myself pretty well and I'm a kicky kind of gal.

So how do you figure out the difference between a "kick" and a passion??? I definitely think we can have more than one passion, and God is teaching me about more of mine. I know that God has made me passionate about one thing: children with special needs. I'm 100% certain of that. I've known it since I was 16 years old. There's nothing else that stirs my soul like seeing an individual who is "differently abled." I just want to go talk to them, find out about their interests, become their friend. It's not in a "I feel sorry for that person" kind of way. It's like I just have to get to know them because I want to be a part of their life. No clue why...it's a chemistry that I can't explain with words.

I think that's why I can't get Drawn From Water off my mind. I love their purpose of not only saving children who are labeled as different, but also educating the tribes. I think that's why I love Reece's Rainbow too. I look at all the faces of those orphaned children with special needs and ache physically when I think about them spending their lives outside of a family. There's also the common thread of orphaned children. I'm passionate about children having families. So I guess that's my other passion...I cannot stand the thought of a child not having a loving family.

So as the new year begins, what is your passion? What is it that you cannot get out of your mind, out of your soul? What keeps you up at night? If you don't know, maybe you (like me), drown out your passions with lattes and football. I would really encourage you to read this blog post about finding your passion. It was part of the inspiration for this post, along with Drawn From Water. Let's all resolve to find our passions and get to work this year! Deal?!?

*Feel free to leave a comment about what your passion is and what you plan to do about it in 2011. It's such an encouragement to each other to hear each other's passions. Plus, you may inspire a passion in someone else!

THANK YOU!

2010-12-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Every single time someone donates to our adoption, I'm moved to tears. Someone made a generous donation to our Family Support Page through Reece's Rainbow. I'm not sure who it was, but we are so grateful. Please know that we are thankful for your generosity and we love you very much, whoever you are, because you love us and our precious Kirill enough to help us bring him home! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Last Paper?

2010-12-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

I've said this about ten times before in this process, but I THINK I just Fed-Ex'd the last piece of adoption paperwork. Now as I'm typing that, I'm thinking..."you're going to jinx it!" But I refuse to let that thought take over. The judge requested some additional information and all of our court documents had expired, so that was all in this set of papers. Please say a prayer for that envelope. I know Satan is trying to keep it from reaching its final destination. Another adoptive family that is adopting from the same country and region as we are said, "We're getting closer because things are getting harder." She is so right. If you don't believe in spiritual warfare, adopt. So please be in prayer for Satan to be restrained and our paperwork to arrive in country, safe and sound.

Cautiously Optimistic

2010-12-06T17:39:00.001-08:00

I love our social worker with our adoption agency. She uses the term "cautiously optimistic" a lot; usually goes a little something like this:

Me: "So do you think we're going to have K home by the spring?"

Her: "Well, we're cautiously optimistic that you will travel shortly after the first of the year."

OR....

Me: "This is the last of the paperwork, right?"

Her: "We're cautiously optimistic that you won't have to do anymore paperwork."

I've adopted this term and I use it all the time now. Today, I'm cautiously optimistic that God has moved a giant mountain out of our way. I want so badly to get excited about the latest turn of events and think this, indeed, is the light at the end of the tunnel. But, as we've learned the hard way, as soon as we think there are no other obstacles and the finish line is in sight, we usually run into a wall. We patiently deconstruct the wall, brick by brick, and keep pressing on toward the goal...bringing our precious son home.

So today, I'm cautiously optimistic. It looks like the obstacle we were facing has been removed. I will believe it when I see it, but for now, I'm cautiously optimistic. :) Regardless of whether it has been removed or not, God is sovereign and he is faithful. Please continue to pray for us and for sweet Kirill until we do finally board that plane and bring him home.

From the Mountaintop to the Valley

2010-12-05T14:20:00.001-08:00

We feel like this adoption is a never-ending series of trips from the highest high to the lowest low. We're back in the valley today. I cannot share details since I made the blog public again. Just know that we need some serious help from God to move a mountain that has been placed in our way. Don't worry; we are still pursuing K. However, we may be facing more delays. We know God is sovereign above all. We know he doesn't want K to stay in an orphanage either. So we are putting all of our hope in him and praying that he moves this mountain. Please join us in praying; it is our only hope to avoid several more months away from our son.

Christmas Miracle

2010-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

Well folks, looks like we've got ourselves a true Christmas miracle. Prayers for our sweet K have been heard and the judge in our region will begin accepting court cases for adoption starting TODAY! As many of you know, the judge in our region did not want to assign new court dates until the bilateral treaty on adoptions between the U.S. and Russia is signed. Although that has not yet occurred, she has decided to go ahead and resume issuing court dates. This is amazing news because we did not believe the treaty would be signed until December 31st, and even then we might have to wait for the judge to get to our case.

Please continue to pray for our judge. We really do feel that she has had reasons for not issuing new court dates all this time. We have been told by our agency, who we trust, that she has been very concerned about the children of her region always. They have given us instances where she has really worked with families to get children home who were in need of medical care. We know that she feels a burden of responsibility for the children she approves for adoption. Please pray for her wisdom and that she sees how much we love K and want him to be home with us.

We have to redo some paperwork that has expired, but hope to have a consultation with our agency in the next couple of days to find out exactly what they need. At that point, we will rush like mad to get the papers to them so the judge can review our case. Hopefully, we will have a court date in the near future! I will keep you all updated. But for now, just know we are finally seeing a light at the end of a very long, dark, and emotion-filled tunnel!

Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree

2010-10-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

It's time for the Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree! It kicks off tomorrow, November 1st. I will be fundraising for Victoria, Russia Region 6. The children on Reece's Rainbow each have their own grant fund. The larger the grant fund, the more like a child is to find a forever family. A typical international adoption of a child with Down Syndrome is approximately $25,000 (average). Most families are more than able to financially support a child once they get home, but most families do NOT have an extra $25K laying around upfront. Think of it this way, what if you had to come up with $25K before you could have a child the "normal" way? Most people wouldn't have kids, would they? Remember, there is no shortage of families who are willing to adopt these precious children with Down Syndrome, only a shortage of funds to do so.

To donate to Victoria's grant fund, simply click on the ornament on my sidebar with her beautiful picture on it. If you give $35, you will receive an Reece's Rainbow ornament with Victoria's picture on it. I've seen the ornaments and they are beautiful. My ornaments from last year are among my favorites. Eventually, I want to have a whole tree just for my little RR angels! Watch the video below before you decide if you will give or not. Pay close attention around the 6:04 mark for an angel you may recognize!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The First Trip-Part 1

2010-08-11T03:59:00.000-07:00

Hotel Lobby

Our guide, Dima

Outside of St. Basil's

I want to remember as much as possible about this trip, so bear with me as I may be a little wordy (not unusual for me anyway). I guess the best way to document our trip to meet Kirill is to divide it up into parts. Otherwise, this post could take longer to read that the trip itself. So this post is dedicated to the first leg of our trip.

We left Tuscaloosa around three o'clock on Friday afternoon headed for Atlanta, where we flew out of on Saturday morning. We had planned to leave around noon but it just seemed like all the last minute details were taking forever and we had to get some paperwork together for our adoption agency that they were wanting for our second trip. It wasn't necessary that we get the paperwork done before we left, but "preferable" so we wanted to go ahead and take care of it. So anyway, I was a stressball (of course) and when we finally got into the vehicle I couldn't stop worrying that we had forgotten something very important. We hadn't, but I couldn't shake the feeling.

When we got to Atlanta, we decided to go eat for our anniversary since we would be on an overnight train the night of our actual anniversary (the 12th). We ate at the Atlanta Fish Market and then headed to the hotel to try to get some sleep. We both tossed and turned a good bit; Greg didn't sleep at all.

Next morning, we headed to the airport bright and early. Our flight didn't leave till 10, but we left the hotel at 8 to give ourselves plenty of time. Glad we did because we got all the way to the airport and I remembered that I left my insulin in the fridge in the hotel room. Fantastic. We had to go all the way back to the hotel, but still had time to spare after we checked in at the airport. Emergency diverted.

Our flight to D.C. and to Eastern Europe were both uneventful. One thing we learned; it pays to make friends with the stewards on long flights. Our steward was a huge African American guy who looked like he could play football at Bama. Greg was convinced he was an air marshall. Regardless, we shared our story with him and talked to him a lot about his family and he totally hooked us up the rest of the flight with whatever we needed including things we should have had to pay for like drinks and snacks.

I popped some Xanex and was out for the entire flight. Gracious, I love that stuff when I'm flying. I didn't feel a single air pocket. We arrived in Eastern Europe at 11:30 a.m. and we were greeted at the airport by smoke and heat. It was 90 degrees and the fires around the city had filled the city with smoke. It was inside the buildings and hard to get away from; especially in buildings with no a/c. We headed to customs and learned the system very quickly there; elbow your way to the front, no need for lines, just look out for number one and don't worry about the other guy. We made it through and headed to baggage where we would meet our guide, Dima.

Dima introduced us to driving in Eastern Europe. Basically, they drive as fast as they can and like absolute maniacs. If you have been to NYC or European countries, you may think they drive crazy there. Well, it's NOTHING compared to EE. We were told to expect this before we left, but I was all, "yeah, yeah...I've traveled a lot....seen crazy traffic...it's probably no worse than Europe." Well it is worse...about ten thousand times worse and the drivers would just as soon run over you as to look at you.

We made it to our hotel, where Dima gave us a quick city tutorial and dropped us off. Our hotel was exquisite. I don't think I have ever stayed anywhere so fancy! It was so nice to be able to relax in an American-style hotel when we first arrived. I don't like to be a spoiled American traveler and I feel like I have a pretty adventurous attitude about travel, but with all the nerves and emotions tied into this trip, it was comforting to have a place that felt a little like home. Well, not really like home because we don't live in a palace, but the room was like American hotel rooms...very, very nice American hotel rooms.

We tried to fight sleep but ended up taking a short nap at the hotel before venturing out for the evening. After our rest, we went to Red Square. There we saw St. Basil's Cathedral, which is just as amazing as the pictures. It was breathtaking to see Red Square and all of the beautiful architecture. Check that off the bucket list.

We also visited GUM (pronounced "goom"), which is a ginormous mall. There we went to a really fancy grocery store...similar to the one in Harold's if you have ever been to NYC...and bought some groceries because we were starving but didn't really know where to eat for dinner.

The next morning we headed to Arbat Street, which is full of touristy shops and restaurants. I was dying for coffee so we stopped at Dunkin Donuts, and totally broke our "no American chain restaurants in foreign countries" rule. Oh well, I had to have some coffee or my head would be splitting by lunch...and an eclair just for good measure. We ate lunch at a place Dima suggested called MyMy (pronounced "moo moo"). The food was traditional food and everything we ordered was quite good.

We spent the rest of the day at Christ Cathedral and Red Square. It was so surreal to see these places in person. It was also surreal to see all the booties hanging out of girls shorts. Wow, the girls in the city are scantily clad to say the least. It didn't help that they were having a heat wave so girls were walking around in less than bathing suits. Another thing I couldn't help but notice was underwear is optional. In fact, it is preferred to NOT wear it, I believe. And make sure that if you don't wear it, your over shirt is some sort of see-though material. Mesh shirts for men are very en vogue; best not let the ladies have all the fun!

After a day of walking miles and wearing ourselves completely out, it was time to go to Kirill's region via overnight train. Dima picked us up at our hotel around 6:45 a.m. and that started the second part of our journey to meet Kirill.

Next Time There Will be Pictures

2010-08-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

I really hate blog posts without pictures. Even if I have to look up some random clip art to include with a post, I have to put a picture with my words. Well, this time I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to do a picture-less post in anticipation of posting NEW pictures of our sweet Kirill that WE will take IN PERSON in just a few days.

Here are my last minute thoughts/notes before we leave:

We leave tomorrow for Atlanta where we will spend the night. Plane tickets out of Atlanta were cheaper, plus we will only have one layover vs. two if we flew out of Birmingham. Paying for a night in a hotel is still cheaper than flying out of Birmingham plus paying long-term parking (we can leave our car at the hotel for free as a part of a "park and fly" deal we got).

I highly recommend our travel agency, Golden Rule. They have been outstanding. They provide excellent service for humanitarian, adoption, and missions travel. Our agent was wonderful and did a great job making all of our travel arrangements on very short notice for (literally) hundreds of dollars cheaper than any other airline, travel agency, or online travel site. Don't get me wrong, it still ain't cheap to fly to Eastern Europe! But it was much less with Golden Rule.

I've really been struggling with my emotions for the past couple of weeks. On one hand, I'm so excited to meet our sweet Kirill. However, knowing that we will leave him there for who knows how long breaks my heart. It has been so hard to be happy about this trip because of the anticipatory grief I feel about leaving Kirill. Bittersweet seems so inadequate to describe my feelings. It seems so strange to feel such polar opposite emotions all at once.

As for how long it will be between trips, we have no clue right now. The news from our agency regarding court dates has been slim to none. There is talk that the judge in our region has decided that she will not hear any adoption cases until the treaty between the U.S. and Kirill's country is signed, sealed, delivered and implemented. The could be weeks, it could be months, it could even be longer. I don't want to think about it at all because it just seems so daunting. The unknowns and the waiting are the worst parts of adoption. Can I get an amen from my adoption peeps???

If you are praying for us, these are the specific requests we have:

1. The judge will resume issuing court dates immediately and will not wait until the treaty is signed.

2. Our travel will go as smoothly as possible.

3. We will be able to show the love of Christ to the people we meet, whether it be in the airport, hotel, streets, orphanage...wherever we are we want to be Jesus to the people we meet.

4. My diabetes will BEHAVE while we travel. My blood sugars tend to go all wonky with travel; it's the nature of the disease. It can make travel extremely difficult. So please pray that it remains stable throughout our trip.

5. Our marriage...ha! Seriously, please pray for me and Greg to be patient and keep a good sense of humor as we travel.

Next post will be from Eastern Europe! Stay tuned for pictures!!!

Travel Date

2010-07-21T19:42:00.000-07:00

I don't even know how to begin this post. We've been waiting for "the call" for so long that I really think I'd resigned myself to believe it wasn't ever going to happen. But it did! My phone rang yesterday at 1:27 p.m. It's funny how I know exactly what time it was. I was sitting at my desk at work and when I saw the number of our adoption agency pop up on our phone, I immediately looked at my clock to see what time it was for some reason. Anyway, that moment will be burned into my brain forever. I braced myself for bad news; I think it was almost a post-traumatic response to having received such horrible news about Sergey back in March. When I heard our social worker's voice, I almost expected to hear her say, "I'm so sorry Tesney, but I've got some devastating news." That was exactly what she said when she informed me about Sergey. So when she started telling me that she had tentative travel dates, I think I was so ecstatic that I didn't even hear anything past that.

After a few minutes of squealing on the inside, I tried to get my thoughts together and write down the important details. We will be traveling for one week in August. We have three days at the orphanage with Kirill. We have been so blessed to be in contact with two other families who have recently traveled to this region; to the very baby house where Kirill lives! So we do have a good idea of what to expect there. We have been very pleased to hear that the orphanage is one of the nicest orphanages in the region and the director is "a breath of fresh air." I couldn't be happier that our sweet Kirill has been given good care as far as we can tell.

We also got updated medical records-no surprises there-they seem to indicate that Kirill is pretty healthy. There are a couple of things that I'm just a tiny bit concerned about, but nothing that can't be addressed once we are back in the states. Anyone who has experience with international adoptions can tell you that medical records can be quite inaccurate and you never really know until you get the child back to the states for a thorough evaluation!

We also got the full-sized files of Kirill's pictures. We already had the pics...the ones we have shared here...but they were thumbnail-sized and didn't really show all of his features well. So here they are again so you can get a better look at how cute Kirill really is!

So we are frantically getting things ready to travel in just a few days!!! It's crazy how you go from wait, wait, wait to GO! GO! GO! when you adopt. We have felt that this day would never come, so now that it's here it feels surreal.

Recognize This Face?

2010-07-18T08:39:00.001-07:00

I got a Facebook message this week from another family who is in the process of adopting from our region. It included a link that had pictures of children from one of the orphanages. This picture of a little boy named Kirill was on the site. I'm almost 100% positive it's our Kirill as a baby. I can't be certain, but the ears are exactly alike. Plus, they have the date of birth listed and it's the same as our Kirill, except for the year. It's not uncommon for sites that feature pictures of children to have mistakes regarding birthdate years. Plus, I just can't imagine that there is another Kirill with exactly the same birthdate that looks so much like our Kirill and is in an orphanage in the same region. That would be a HUGE coincidence. What do you think??? I'd especially like to hear from my friends who have adopted from Eastern Europe.

I know I've been pretty silent lately on here. I just haven't had much to say. I could type volumes about how bad the waiting sucks, but that really doesn't do much to help the situation. It just makes me think about it more and believe me, I don't need help with that. We did hear from our agency that the Director of the Federal Database of Orphans has been on vacay and is was supposed to return this past week. We were told to expect him to take a week or two to re-orient and get organized after being gone on vacation, and then we would get our first travel date. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hopeful. It's just become too hard to get focused on any date. At this point, I'll be happy if Kirill is home by the time he's 18.

So that's pretty much it for now. I'll update as soon as I know anything. I'm really better at updating on Facebook about the day-to-day stuff. So check there for more information! I hope to have some really good news soon.

No news is...well, no news.

2010-05-16T15:22:00.001-07:00

It seems like so much has been happening in our adoption, yet really nothing is happening. There's been a lot of information and misinformation about what is going on in our country so I have just avoided posting altogether until we had a better idea of things. But it's looking like that could mean I won't be posting for a couple of months, so I thought I'd at least try to explain what we know right now.

U.S. and officials from our country met last week and came to an agreement on a bilateral agreement regarding intercountry adoptions. This is great news and means that we will be able to adopt Kirill. However, it is going to take a couple of months for the agreement to be signed and become "official". This is (potentially) bad news. It means that we may have to wait until the agreement is "official" to travel. Or we may not. We just don't know yet. Here is an exerpt from an email we received from our adoption agency regarding how things stand:

"The political party that backs (President of undisclosed EE country) support continued processing of adoption while the agreement is finalized and announced such last week so everyone is hopeful that the regional Ministries of Education and Science will follow suit but it is too soon to know. We hope to have confirmation from each region as to how it plans to work over the course of the rest of this week/ early next week. The language of the agreement has not been made public yet so do not have the details of the agreement at this point. I know the waiting is difficult! We hope to have some more news soon!"

If you are praying for us, please pray for a couple of things specifically:

1. The Minister of Education and Science (MOE) in our region decides to continue processing adoptions while the agreement is finalized.

2. The judge in our region also decides to continue processing adoptions while the agreement is being finalized.

3. We receive our first travel date very soon. Like yesterday. LOL.

4. Kirill is allowed to remain in the orphanage and isn't moved to an institution until we can finalize the adoption.

I hope I have exciting news to post soon. But right now, it's just more hurry up and wait!

We Have a Name!

2010-04-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

Gregory Kirill Davis

Obviously, we named him after Greg, whose first name is "Gregory." I'm just now seeing it written together as I'm typing it on this blog. I think it looks and sounds really good together!

A couple of other points of interest: delegates from the U.S. are in our country as we speak to meet with country officials in the capital to discuss intercountry adoptions. We have been told by our adoption agency that the outcome of these talks will likely determine whether or not our country will continue to allow U.S. families to adopt from their country. If they don't go well, then they will likely freeze adoptions until an agreement can be reached. That could take months or even years. We all know how slowly governments work...imagine trying to get two governments on the same page about an issue. So I'm asking you to please pray, pray, pray that these talks go well and adoptions continue without interruption. Our social worker will be attending a meeting in NYC on Saturday where she will be informed of the outcome of these meetings. She has promised to get in touch with us on Monday upon her return. I will post as soon as I hear something from our social worker on Monday. Until then, please be praying!

Adoption Crisis

2010-04-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

"Crisis"...I hear this word A LOT in the profession in which I work. I deal with people in crisis on an almost daily basis. So when someone referred to our situation as an "adoption crisis," I was taken aback. Not because I think it's an inaccurate description, but because I really haven't felt like I've been in crisis. Please don't misunderstand me here; this has probably been the hardest thing I've endured in a very long time, if not ever in my life. For those of you who aren't familiar with our journey, here's the synopsis:

-Called to adopt last year (July '09)

-Committed to a little boy named Sergey

-Get to the end of the adoption paperwork process, send dossier to Sergey's country, and while waiting on travel date, lose the referral because one of Sergey's family members objected to the adoption.

-Heartbroken, decide to continue the adoption journey and commit to another child.

-Commit to Kirill

-Redo some paperwork & re-send dossier to different region of the same country.

-mother sends her child back to his home country, resulting in possible suspensions of all U.S. adoptions of children from that country.

So here we are. This is the second time we've been at the point of just waiting on a travel date to meet our child and something has happened. Both times we've literally been days away from receiving the news we've been anticipating for almost a year: "Mr. and Mrs. Davis, your travel appointment is (insert date here)." Both times we have had the rug pulled out from underneath us. We have felt frustrated, angry, devastated, heartbroken, confused, shocked, and every other upsetting emotion you can imagine. But through it all, you know what we have felt more than anything?

PEACE

I'm not saying we haven't cried or been upset. I've cried out in frustration to God louder than ever. But that's the beauty of God's peace...the more I have cried out, the more peace he has given me about the situation. It is totally him too. Because if you know me well, you probably wouldn't describe me as a peaceful person. Impatient, easily frustrated, and stressed...yes. Peaceful...no. Outspoken, opinionated, selfish...yes. Peaceful...no. So you see, it could ONLY BE GOD giving me this kind of peace because it is totally out of my nature if I'm relying on me. But this situation has become so much bigger than me so I've had to just give it completely to God. In return, he has given me the peace that passes understanding.

This song is one of the ways that God has blessed me with peace. I have probably heard it a hundred times before but had never listened to the words at all. As I was driving home from work one afternoon, it came on the radio. I had been praying just moments before for God to please give me peace about our adoption. As I listed to the words, tears began to flow and I knew that God was giving me a message. I hope that it will encourage you as well.

I'm Going to Go Off...

2010-04-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

NOW! With all the stress I've been under trying to adopt our precious son who just happens to have Down Syndrome, all I have to do is read a story like this one to make me go completely mad. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach and all I can do is pray that I have a merciful attitude, but IT'S SO HARD. I'm not sure how Jesus would respond to the couple that elected to do this; and I'm NOT JUDGING THEM...leaving that to God. In fact, I have prayed for them, the doctor, and the millions of people in the world who believe that aborting 9 out of 10 babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome in utero is o.k. Just the thought that a child was chosen to be aborted simply because he had Down Syndrome makes me shudder to the soul. I can't help but have a very primal gut reaction to the whole thing because these children are Jesus on Earth. Ask any family of a child with Down Syndrome. I have never heard a single one say that they would change their child with Down Syndrome to a "typical" child if they had the chance. I have talked to literally a hundred or more families of children with Down Syndrome and they unanimously say they wouldn't change a thing about their journeys. But you know what? The thing that makes me the most upset isn't even the abortion. The thing that makes me the saddest about this story is that they refer to the child with Down Syndrome as a "deformed fetus" and the child that was mistakenly aborted, or the "normal" one, as "the couples' daughter." VOMIT. So why is the child that wasn't blessed with an extra chromosome a "daughter" and the child that was blessed with an extra chromosome a "deformed fetus"?!? It speaks volumes to the way our world still sees children with Down Syndrome. But I'm here to tell you there is nothing deformed about any of these precious children! If anyone ever tells me my son is "deformed," I'm pretty sure it will be the last time they ever utter the word "deformed" again. That's a promise. Because I've got just enough Julia Sugarbaker in me to dress someone down in a heartbeat.

JCICS NEEDS YOUR HELP!

2010-04-12T19:08:00.001-07:00

Below you will find a link to the Joint Council of International Children's Services blog. There, you can link to a letter that they have prepared for President Obama and President Mevdevev. Sign the letter to let them know that we support the prosecution of anyone who abuses or neglects internationally adopted children AND that we are asking that international adoptions are allowed to continue, uninterrupted, despite the heinous act committed by the adoptive mom in Tennessee. It takes about 30 seconds and it could mean the difference between life and death for orphans in Russia. If he isn't adopted he will go to an institution. 85% of Eastern European children with disabilities die within the first year after being transferred to institutions. So please, please take a few seconds and sign the letter.

Joint Council of International Children's Services

No Panicking Allowed

2010-04-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

That has become my mantra since this story broke last Thursday. One thing we were told when we started the adoption process was to "expect the unexpected." Our home study agency social worker told us that several times during our interviews, but at the time, we didn't fully understand how true that statement would become in our own adoption journey. But God is still the same God that called us to this journey. God has been with us the entire way and he's not leaving us now. So when I first heard the story and the potential impact it would have on all American adoptions of foreign children, my initial reaction was to panic. "NO GOD! YOU CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN! NOT AFTER WHAT WE'VE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH. I DON'T THINK I CAN TAKE ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT." But through prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit, I've been reassured. God is telling me, "No panicking allowed. I've got this. Remain in me and everything will be o.k." You see, God is not shocked by the recent developments. He knew this would be a part of our journey when we started. He also knew that if we relied on him, nothing could steal our joy or cause us to lose faith. So by faith, we are moving forward and we will not be shaken. God is our rock. He's solid. We don't have to be shaken by anything as long as we are standing on him. Praise God for his faithfulness!

Some things to remember about Russian adoptions. First of all, this story is not the norm. Most children adopted from Russia into American families have a happy outcome. This story has brought up 10-15 other stories of negative outcomes where children were abused and even killed by adoptive parents. It horrific to think that this could happen to any child. Especially given that families are provided with great support systems once they return to the U.S. All agencies provide follow-up and offer assistance to families that have difficulty adjusting with their adoptive children. Sadly, a few adoptions end up disrupting and the parents relinquish custody of the children because they are not equipped to handle their emotional and behavioral needs. But there are appropriate steps that these parents can take to do so. Putting a child on a plane back to their home country is ludicrous.

Secondly, any child who has lived in an orphanage or institution are likely to have difficulty bonding with their adoptive families initially. Bonding issues are to be expected and agencies do everything they can to prepare you for these issues during the home study process. Adoption and home study agencies provide resources and support for bonding difficulties after placement. Most adopted children adapt and develop a healthy bond with their adoptive parents and other family members. I'm trying NOT to comment too much on the mom who started all this mess, but I will say, as a mental health professional who has worked with children adopted from other countries (and who often had attachment and bonding issues), that six months is not enough time to expect a child adopted from an orphanage to bond with their adoptive family. While it is true that some children bond more quickly than others, in the grand scheme of things, six months is a relatively short period of time. For every three months that a child is in an orphanage, you can expect one month of delay in all areas of development (emotional, physical, cognitive, and behavioral). So to expect a child to change seven years' worth of delay in six months is very unrealistic.

In case you would like to keep up with the latest developments, here are the links to the two websites that are dependable for accurate, up-to-date information. Remember, the media is not the most reliable source for information. :) I've had to watch the news cautiously in the past few days because I know that Satan can discourage me through all the sensationalized reporting. Please keep praying for a swift and positive outcome so that the families waiting to adopt Russian children can get their children home as soon as possible.

Joint Council on International Children's Services

Joint Council Blog

Q & A...Including Updates

2010-04-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

We've gotten so many questions about our adoption with the change in circumstances and we are so happy to answer these questions (most of them...unless they're mean-spirited...then we hope those people turn into a goon). Seriously, I think most people are asking because they are genuinely concerned/interested/worried/happy/curious...and I'm eager to talk with anyone who will listen about our adoption and/or adoption in general. My prayer is that the twists and turns of our adoption process will not discourage people from adopting. In fact, that is my biggest fear...that people will hear our story and say, "I don't want to adopt because something bad might happen." To those people I want to say, "You mean something worse than helpless children living a life of neglect and poverty?" Because the disappointment of not getting the child we had planned to adopt is nothing compared to the hell that the 147 million orphans suffer every. single. day. 147 minus 2...because now Sergey AND Kirill will have homes and had God allowed OUR plans to prevail, only Sergey would have a home. So I'm really thankful HE has the bigger picture in mind!

So I want to answer some of the more common questions we have gotten since we lost Sergey and committed to Kirill. Please feel free to comment and ask any other questions you might have. Or if you're more comfortable emailing me, there's a link in my profile.

Q: Who is the family member that objected to you adopting Sergey?

A: We don't know. We aren't allowed to know. Think HIPPA here in the U.S...that's private information and we have no right to know. The only thing we know is that it is a first-line blood relative. All first-line blood relatives have to sign off on the adoption of a child in Sergey's country. Most of the time, this is done before the child is made available for referral. For some reason, in Sergey's case, it wasn't. So when the Minister of Education (MOE) got our dossier and started looking at Sergey's file, he/she realized that all of his first-line blood relatives had not been notified of his orphan status at birth. Therefore, he had to notify them in order for Sergey to be free for adoption. At least one of these family members objected when they learned about Sergey. According to the law, that family member has to either take the child (most likely what happened) or find another family who is willing to adopt the child (unlikely). We are so thankful that one of his family members wanted him...what a blessing he will be to them!

Q: What if that family member doesn't follow through with taking Sergey home?

A: If they don't take him within a specified time frame, Sergey will return to the database of orphans in his country. At that point, he will be free for adoption again. His family member cannot ever object to him being adopted again. If that were to happen, we would jump at the chance to adopt him. However, we really hope that this doesn't happen; that his family loves him and that they are blessed.

Q: Will you have to start the process over/Will you lose time?

A: No and yes...we don't have to start the process over, but we do lose a little time (about two weeks...not much at all). Since we stuck with the same country for our adoption of Kirill, we don't have to start the process over. Everything we have done (home study, USCIS approval, etc.) can be used toward our adoption of Kirill. We do lose a little bit of time, but not much. That is only because Kirill is in a different region. If he were in the same region as Sergey, it might have been faster because our dossier was already in that region, translated, and in the MOE's office. Since Kirill is in a different region, we had to transfer the dossier to the new region, and that region has a few different papers that they require for the dossier, we did have to redo some paperwork and re-send our entire dossier to the new region. We have already done that, so that lets you know that it wasn't that big of a deal. There were a few hiccups (as there always will be with adoption...ha!) and a couple of really stressful days when it didn't look like things were going to go too smoothly, but God was faithful and it all worked out. As our social worker told us, "Don't let the paperwork deter you from choosing a child in a different region." It was definitely doable in a very short timeframe. As of April 2, we are already at the same point in the process with Kirill as we were when we lost Sergey...waiting for our first travel date. Only this time we are praying that it ends with us getting a date and meeting our son! But if it doesn't happen for the same reason as it didn't happen with Sergey, we will praise God...because that means another orphan home with a family...and there are 147 million more to choose from so we will just keep trying!

Q: Will you still have to make two trips?

A: Yes, all regions of this part of Eastern Europe require two trips.

Q: Will you lose any money because you changed children?

A: No; all of the money we had paid our agency just goes toward Kirill's adoption. Now, had we changed agencies, we would have lost money. Luckily, we have a FABULOUS agency and we are very satisfied with their services. We wanted to stick with them and Kirill just happened to be one of the children our agency represented too! God's hand was in every detail of this journey to Kirill!

Q: How did Clayton take the news?

A: Like any other three-year-old. We explained that Sergey's "grandma" (even though we didn't know that for sure, we just wanted to give him an image of a family member) was taking him to live with her. We told him that we would not be bringing Sergey to our house. Clayton whined a little and said, "But I have a Gator (motorized ride-on thingie) with two seats; one for me and one for John Sergeant! We will have to get another baby for that seat." What can I say; kids are resilient. He still prays for Sergey (only now he's added Sergey's grandma), and he has added Kirill to his prayers, "keep him safe until mommy and daddy can fly on a big airplane to get him." He also puts on my glasses and says, "LOOK! I look just like Kirill!" He tells people that Kirill is a "big kid like me," and that "Kirill is just my same age!" I still think he has no clue what is in store for him when his brother comes to live with us for real, but he understands things as much as any other three-year-old.

Like I said, if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask! Unless you're mean, then I will turn you into a goon. Just sayin'.