Bumps Along The Way

Okay, we actually have a submission date for this Thursday, June 20, which is our Wednesday night.  Praying that our dossier will be accepted!

In other news, many of you know I received a knock on the head a few weeks ago.  I now have a concussion that is greatly limiting my activities.  My physiotherapist says to expect it to take months to heal.  You see the problem?  We are hoping to travel in a couple months and I should be preparing and learning Russian.  Instead, I am mostly resting.  I am so thankful for prayers for healing, patience, and rest.  Friends, please know that if you haven't heard from me for a while, that I am thinking of you and missing you and hoping to be back to my regular activities, including visiting and church, before long!

Progress

Our dossier is heading to Ukraine at long last.  This evening our facilitator there requested we email our homestudy so she can get a head start on translating.  If all goes well, they will submit it all to Children's services in Ukraine in about two weeks.  If it's accepted it will be approximately two months until we travel BUT they can be quite fussy about every detail being perfect.  Therefore I come to you requesting prayer!  I'm praying that whoever's working that day is feeling very agreeable and will be quite happy with every single piece of paper :) Feel free to join me!

We Got It !!!

After waiting 3 1/2 months, we finally have our approved home study in our hands!  This is such a relief.  Now we can move forward or "Hurry up and wait" as some describe the adoption process.  It looks like it will be longer than we thought until we travel.  At present it looks like about four months which would put us at August.  We were really hoping to have our little girl home for the summer but we don't have a lot of control over timing so it is what it is.  On a positive note, we should be here for the arrival of our first grandchild in July!

So we'll package everything up and send it off to our agency and wait and pray some more and try to just enjoy Spring and Summer.

Thank you to all who have prayed for us and encouraged us along the way.  Don't stop now!

Revised Homestudy

Our homestudy has been reconsidered, revised, re-edited, re-signed, and is on its way back to the AB government.   It should be on someone's desk on Monday.

Please, please join us in praying that it will be looked at quickly and if God thinks it's a good idea, approved!  We have been on pins and needles wondering if we're actually going ahead with this and hopefully we will soon know.   We are trusting (even when we don't feel it) that God knows what He is doing and He will keep on doing it.

Setbacks

Wow.  The last couple weeks have been challenging.  Once we finally received word on our LONG awaited home study approval, it was to hear that they weren't sure they could approve it. The person in charge of provincial home study approval wanted us to answer a number of questions regarding the adoption dissolution our family went through 2 years ago.  Fifteen questions to be precise, with much detail.  We also learned that we would have to sign up with an agency and pay a fair bit for it.  We have friends in the States who adopted without an agency, saving them dollars but adding a lot of work.  We decided to try this too but it turns out it's not an option in Canada.   All of this is definitely slowing down the whole process for us.  And there is no guarantee we'll be approved, even after all is done.

Well, we were so discouraged, maybe devastated.  We considered giving up.  We struggled with prayer and understanding the call we really thought we'd heard.  It just didn't seem like it would work.  Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.  We kept praying, "Let your kingdom come, let your will be done", but we didn't understand.

During those days, we heard positive encouraging whispers from many directions but they were largely drowned out by the shouting of uncertainties and fears.  After a couple days, it dawned on both of us that God whispers.  We pondered this for a while and decided we will move ahead towards that which we felt called.  We will listen to the whispers, past and present.  We will believe and not give up.  We will keep on moving in the adoption direction until we get there or can no longer move.  We will trust God to do what He wants to do.

So, we've signed up with an agency.  We spent the Family day weekend typing out long answers to heart wrenching questions and, once again, we will wait.

We appreciate your prayers and encouragement on the journey.

Her bedroom is ready!

We don't know whose bedroom yet but it's ready.  Hope she likes pink.  And birds.
We have been blessed to have connected with the family adopting the little girl we thought would be ours.  They are lovely people who also love Jesus!  An interesting tidbit :  As I was trying to choose a name for the girl I thought would be our daughter, one name kept jumping in my head.  It was not a name I wanted but it turns out it IS her new name.  Perhaps we were called to hold this little one up in prayer while her family was preparing to go meet her.  We are really happy for "our " girl and for this family and we're thrilled that we can begin a relationship with them. 

We are continuing on with our journey.  There are other children needing homes and we'll see where God leads us.  It has been amazing to follow several people's Ukraine adoption journeys and to see the absolutely amazing difference in these children once they have a family and know they are loved and special to someone.  It is a beautiful thing.  A bit of the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

Sad news and good news

First the good news:  Our girl is an orphan no longer!
Now the sad news:  We are not her new family  :(
We found out yesterday that a family from the States, who are presently in Ukraine, are adopting our hoped-for girl.  After 5 months of preparing to bring her home, we are quite devastated.  There were plenty of tears around here last night.  We are so glad that she will have a family, so thankful that she will no longer be alone, but sad for us.  Sad that we will never actually meet her.
We are laying all of this before our loving Father and waiting on Him for direction.  There are, of course, many more children needing families and that is where this all began.  We just need a bit of time to process this loss. 
As always, we appreciate your prayers.