Hard to be Scrooge

Well we've spent the last 10 days trying to get over a cold. Both Teresa & I picked up something our last day or two in Ukraine. Runny nose, stuff running down our throats. Oops overshare.

We usually alternate between our families each Christmas, this year we stayed home. We didn't decorate anything. Wayne (younger son) came over for a few hours and it was all very relaxed. We talked to lots of our family by phone and that made it seem a little more like Christmas.

Where things are with Dennis, Sergei, and Vitali: We have written and had notorized all the information that we thought was relevant to the case and met with the attorney for the State Department for Adoption in Kyiv. They will forward a letter to the director in the town where the kids were born asking that he justify how the current situation is in all of the kids best interest. He will need to respond by February.

We never know how much to believe of everything that we see or hear. If we thought that the kids would all be together or near each other we would leave things as they are now. However we were told that a Psychologist interviewed the boys and they were not aware that they had a younger sister. According to some written reports and some other comments the kids biological father died shortly after she was born. She spent the first 18 months of her life in the hospital (we suspect fetal alcohol syndrome)and then was moved directly into the foster home where she still is. About nine months after she was born the parental rights of the mother were revoked. The record says that she was present in court that day and did not object to her rights for all four kids being terminated. The social worker found the boys with no adults in the home. All of the furniture had been sold, there was no firewood, coal or gas at the home and the electricity had been shut off. It also listed the mother as an alcoholic and living an immoral lifestyle. Sadly that seems typical for many of the children in the orphanages.

From what we were told the father had had three wives and eleven children among them before he died. The boys mother being the last of the three. The boys do seem to remember having some half-siblings. Over the last two years they have only been visited once by a grandmother.

At present the foster family receives a pension (something like what social security in the US would provide a surviving child) as well as payments for being foster parents. When we were first told about the girl we said no problem we will adopt all four of them. Later we were told that she was already adopted by the foster family and finally that they filed adoption papers when they heard we had a referral for the boys. At each step along the way we asked if that would be a problem for us adopting the boys and were always told it would not be. Until the last time when we learned that the papers had not been filed until after we arrived.

The inspector is following Ukrainian law about not seperating children however that same law says that you must do what is in the best interest of all of the children. It appears to us that it is in the foster family's financial interest to never complete the adoption of the girl. They have already said they can't adopt all four kids. The problem with this scenario is that it means the boys will never be adoptable and will remain in the orphanage system until they age out somewhere around 16-18 years old.

So for now we are willing to wait a few months and see if there is any possibility that we can adopt the boys.

As Americans we now know that in terms of material things we have all of our needs met and most of our wants. We have a loving and supportive family, we have friends, neighbors and a church that also supports us emotionally and with their time. (Hopefully we can pay it forward) Why were we born Americans when most of the people born on this planet are just barely getting by? I don't know.

Even in our personal finances we are much better off than we thought we would be just a few weeks ago. Our facilitator itemized the actual expenses of the trip and sent us home with the rest of the cash that had not been spent. Some of our time off was understood to be unpaid and yet employers provided Christmas bonuses that covered the time we were off.

We have been very angry that everything did not work out the way we had hoped and yet for the last few days I've had a song running through my head from about twenty years ago. It's called "doubly good to you"

If you look at the blogs that I follow you will see that Heidi and Felix got home on Christmas Eve with their kids. Join us in Thanking God that they are home and with three new Americans. (Adopted kids become American citizens when they land here) And please continue to pray with us that Jim & Kari will soon have their kids home also.

Our story is not over yet but we will post much less frequently over the next few months. Two accountants, year end reports for four organizations and having been away for four weeks should keep us off the blog for most of the time.

May you enjoy a very Merry Christmas with those who are most important to you at this time of year. And remember to Thank the Lord, He's been doubly good to You.

Home! Time for work and to regroup.

It's been a long 27 hour day but we are home. When we landed in NY we thought we loved the sound of English. However after sitting on the runway for over an hour and then enduring another five hours of flight with your stereotypical loud Americans talking non-stop we may have to reconsider.

Depending on how we sleep I don't know that we will be to work right at 8 but it is good to be home.

Thanks Julie for picking us up extra late when you have school tomorrow. And thank you Donna and Larry for the driveway and walk getting shoveled. BTW it is currently minus 6 Farenheit. And still a couple of inches of snow around the house.

Я американский

I am an American.

And in just a few hours we will be leaving. We had thought we might make an earlier flight but Delta only has three per week and they were full. So we leave Monday and pick up nine hours in route to Colorado. It will be a long day but we are ready to be home.

Our hearts may be heavier than we expected at this point but we've lost about 85 pounds of luggage. That's about 1/3 of what we brought.

Embassy Email

We don't see it on the Embassy's web site either but here is what they sent.

Dear Friends and Wardens,

The Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy will be closed to the public starting December 24, 2008, until January 9, 2009. During this period, assistance will be available in emergency situations only. For emergency assistance on December 29, 30, 31, 2008, and January 5, 6, 8, 9, 2009 please contact the American Citizens Services Unit directly at (+38 044) 490 4445. For the rest of the time, emergency assistance will be handled by the Embassy Duty Officer at (+38 044) 490-4000. Emergency services include: medical emergency, victims of violent crime, destitute Americans, detention or arrest, U.S. passport loss. Routine ACS services will not be provided from December 24 to January 9. American Citizens Services Unit will resume its regular working hours and services on January 12, 2008.

US Embassy Closure Dates

For those of you in Ukraine working on adoption we just want to make sure that you got the email from the US Embassy in Kyiv. They are closing from December 24 and not reopening for normal business until January 12. They are also planning to close at noon on December 19.

Thank You All

Thank you family and friends for your support during this time. The phone calls, emails and blog comments have been very valuable to us. We feel especially blessed with our new friends from among the Ukraine adoptive families.

Thank you Jim & Kari for the evening together it was just what we needed.

And still be willing to hang out after our instant backseat cramming still smelling direct from the the train ride shake and bake.

In case you haven't read it elsewhere the trains are HOT. In the hall outside our bunk room I found a thermometer that read 75. The room was hotter I'm thinking close to 80 with no way to open any window.

It's Not our plan

We haven't said much during the last week. We definitely fell in love with the boys, however they are not going to be our boys. When we were at the SDAPRC we were not told that there was a fourth family member. A three year old little girl. The short story is that after we were informed of her existance each official said it shouldn't be any problem to adopt the boys as she was already placed with a Ukrainian family. In the end the children will not be split up, we understand, but it isn't easy.

Now we get to practice what we have taught and said for years. It is not our plan but we trust that God does have a plan.

We will leave for Kyiv tomorrow. We could ask for a second referral but today we don't feel like thinking of anything. We could be leaving for home anytime from Wednesday through next Monday.

Learning how money works in Ukraine

At this point we feel it better not to comment on our situation with the boys. So since I haven't posted for a few days I thought I would talk about our experience with money in Ukraine.

First if you are bringing cash to exchange make sure that they are new uncirculated bills. Some banks or exchange companies have machines to verify that the bills are good but the safest method is new bills not folded.

Traveler's checks are not worth the hassle. If you have ever tried to pull out more than $10,000.00 in cash in the US then you are assumed to be a drug dealer and get to fill out extra forms and prove who you are and what you are using the money for. This is the same basic idea with traveler's checks in Ukraine.

Credit cards are accepted in some locations but are rather limited. Also make sure that you tell your bank the dates that you are traveling and where otherwise they will put a fraud block on your card. When I set up Skype I put an automatic refill from the credit card. However I told our bank we were traveling to Ukraine and Skype was billed from Sweden. Yes they stopped the payment. It's fixed now.

ATM cards. We were warned not to use these but they have been one of the easiest methods to use. Again make sure you have communicated to your bank that you want to use it outside the US. Also being slightly paranoid we limit the amount in the account and it is not our normal checking account card. We opened a new account with a bank that we have not used before. Then we left deposit slips with a neighbor and they add deposits as needed. There are still some catches to this. It has taken me an average of four ATM machines to get money. Sometimes they are not using a network that the card does. Sometimes the machines are out of money and sometimes they to not have enough for your request. Pulling out US $300-500 (2,000 - 3,500 Hryvna) is the equivelant of the average Ukrainian's monthly salary except in maybe Kyiv. So our plan is always to be pulling out what we need a few days in advance. Still I don't like carrying as much US currency as people told us too. ATM machines are very available in even small towns.

I assume this would also work with credit cards as most of the ATM's have Visa or Mastercard logos. Just haven't tried that yet.

The exchange rate was stable for most of the last two years that I have been watching it. Since we have been here it has really moved in our favor. We got 5.75 Hryvna (Greevna) to the dollar when we arrived and are now getting 7.50. Even including the fees it looks like we get the best exchange rate by using the ATM cards. ATM machines here are called bankomats.

This is clearly still a cash economy. And after hearing some stories I understand why. One person talked about a relative who bought a car taking out a loan. The bank wrote the note that said it had to be paid in hard currency. (Dollar, British Pound or Euro) As the exchange rate as gone up we have also noticed that the spread to buy dollars is now between 5-10%. This individual is now really hurting due to both the exchange rate and the extra cost.

Enough for now hopefully we can soon fill you in on more of the story. As my Aunt told us last night, whatever happens God is still in control. It's just easier to hear than put into practice.

Keep Praying

We have made some progress and are hopeful that we now have the right people involved to resolve the issues that have come up. We appreciate your encouragement and prayers.

The last four posts include pictures from the orphanage. Including something that I think is false advertising. We have only seen the sun two days since we've been in Ukraine, I'm not sure how one would know how to draw it ;-) Yes I miss my Colorado sun and blue skies.

The computer lab at the school is quite good they have one machine for about every six kids. It's not brand new but it is a good lab.

All of the buildings here including the orphanage are not too appealing from the outside. Many buildings are pretty decent inside. All parts of the orphanage are always clean.

Bureaucracy!!! Argh.

We know every country has it but we are frustrated right now. It seems that some paper work in dealing with the boy's family was not properly filled out. Now no one wants to take responsibility for it and simply fix it. So we have spent the last two days driving to the town where they were born (about 75 kilometres away) and talking to various administrators. Then they pulled a committee together we appeared before them and they have said that they will recommend approval of fixing the paperwork but they want to pass it on to a higher official in the state (Oblast) capital of Kherson to actually sign off on the paperwork. Hopefully that will happen today and we can get on with going to court for the adoption.

We have been able to visit Vitali at the hospital each day. He is doing well and is supposed to have his chest X-ray done today. Since he has not been coughing the last few days his Doctor expects that the X-ray will be good and that he is over his Pneumonia and will be able to go back to the orphanage.

Since we have been traveling we have not seen Dennis and Sergei for four days. I told Teresa it was a good thing we left them with picture albums so they will remember us. She alternated between slugging my arm and almost crying.

Hopefully good news and a timeline for this trip by the end of today.

Mothering Mama Teresa

We have been asked not to come to the orphanage or the hospital on Saturday or Sunday. Essentially we have no rights to see or be with the children until after we have been to court. Right now we are allowed to be with them because we are with either the Director or the Doctor both of whom are not working this weekend.

I’ve been too entertained. Teresa is usually in charge in most situations. When we were at the orphanage we were getting ready to leave and the director asked Teresa where her scarf was. It seems it was too cold to be outside without a scarf and having her coat buttoned all the way up. Teresa said she had left it at the hotel. The director offered to loan Teresa a scarf. We finally managed to convince her that Teresa would survive the walk to and from the Taxi.

For Internet access I go to the lobby of our hotel and have a hard wire connection. Teresa walked out to see what was going on and the lady at the front desk pointed at her feet and walked her back to the room to put her slippers on. Socks are not acceptable for walking down the hall.

We have been disruptive at the orphanage. All the kids want to see what new activity Teresa has brought for the boys to work on. So we have been moved from the game room/gym to the computer lab. In the lab we have been given little pieces of carpet to sit on. Teresa always seems to be off her carpet when the director checks in on us and gets scolded and told to sit here.

The director really is good hearted and cares deeply for the kids. We were entertained by one little thing. It may just be our perception but when we brought Jim King Ministries newsletter that we had printed out it seemed that she did not want to ask if it was for her to keep or if we wanted it back. It was carefully moved and covered in a stack of papers. We had printed it for her and are glad that it was meaningful to her.

We have picked names for the boys and our paperwork was completed and notarized. As soon as we get word back from the State Department for Adoption in Kyiv we should be able to get our court date.

Thank You Jim King Ministries

Some of our friends and family have asked about helping the orphanage.
The simplest way can be found at the sponsors of this orphanage.

http://www.jimking.org



They have done an outstanding job of creating, staffing and funding this orphanage.

If you want to see the orphanage web page itself

http://www.houseofjoy.com.ua

We don't want anyone to feel pressured but did want to honor those who have helped our boys. This page is in Russian but if you look in the top right hand corner and click on the letters En it will convert the page to English

"Da" (Yes) It's Really Thanksgiving Part 2

Teresa here:

First we want to apologize to those who have been waiting to hear more information about the kids. This week we have been on an emotional roller coaster ride.
After we got off the train, Monday, we had an hour ride to a small town called Kahovka. This town is on the Dnipro River. In fact the hotel we are staying in is a little more than a block from the river. The even more interesting thing about the town is our translator, Oksana, grew up in this town. Our hotel is across the street from her school and about three blocks from where she lived. She said it hasn’t change in twenty five years.

The first thing that happened when we got to town is to visit the inspector for this area. In this meeting we were told “Dennis said “NO” to two foster parents. In case you are not aware of the rules here, at the age of eight or nine the child has to give their consent to an adoption. The inspector said it will be our job to convince Dennis, who is nine years old, that he wants us as his parents. She did give some encouraging word by saying she liked us but didn’t like the foster parents. About 3 hours later we were on our way to the orphanage. We were also instructed not to tell the boys why were there for the first meeting.

The orphanage was in the middle with apartment complexes all around. We were escorted to the Orphanage Director’s office by the Inspector and Oksana (translator). In there we were told the names of children, why parental rights were terminated, their birthdays, and the health of the children. We were told again that Dennis had said “NO” to two foster families. We were allowed to ask a few questions. We were also told Vitali (five years old) was in the hospital and had been there for about 1 week.

We were given a few minutes to get ready to meet Dennis (nine years old) and Sergei (seven years old). They were very quiet at first. We had a small beach ball and got Dennis to get on the floor with us to play with the ball but Sergei would not leave the table. After a few minutes, I went up and played with Sergei with some cars and a loader. I showed him how he could lift the cars with the loader. Before it was over we had both of the boys on the floor playing. They have such great smiles. They left the room but were back in about 10 minutes. Dennis was asked if he wanted to see the pictures we had brought. He said “NO, I do not want to be adopted.” Our hearts were overwhelmed. Everyone decided to give them some time to spend with us and see if that changes his mind.

Tuesday we got to go to the hospital and see Vitali. He had so much fun with us. He called us him American Mama and Papa. Soon after we left the Hospital he asked the doctor to call his American Mama and Papa to come visit him tomorrow. The doctor, Maria, has been very wonderful and let us visit Vitali every day. She said we have given Vitali the emotional support to help him get well. He is such a great boy. He loves to laugh, play ball, get hugs, and pull Papa’s ears.

Sergei is quiet but loves toys. Dennis said Sergei would say “yes” to whatever as long as toys were involved. He loves playing with transformers, building small Lego sets, and wants to try anything that has to do with snow (like skiing, snowboarding, and Sledding). Oh, my I guess I get to go to the mountain and get cold and wet. OH, BOY!!! I can’t wait.

Dennis is a very caring and responsible young man. He loves taking pictures with the camera. After we showed him how to make video clips he decided to make all the unusual sounds that boys seem to like making. I guess no matter what country the boys are from, they all like to make the same sounds. OH, MY I guess I have moved to Mars for life. Don’t tell Jim but I am glad I have moved to Mars. The boys have snatched my heart.

The authorities decided that Thursday was it. Dennis would have to give his decision or it would be finished. None of the boys will go with us if Dennis says “NO.” Thursday at 3 o’clock will be the deciding moment. The emotions were overwhelming. They are great boys and I pray that the answer will be “YES”. Both Dennis and Sergei were brought to the Director’s office and in front of the Director, Supervisor, Oksana, Jim, and I. They were asked a lot of questions which I am not sure what all of them were. What was the most important was the answer to only one question. IT IS “YES”. THEY WANTED TO GO TO AMERICA WITH US!!! I really don’t think I would have handled it well if they had say “NO.”

God answers pray in very unique ways. To me this is amazing. Most of you that know us, know we have been working on this for about 2 ½ years. We could never figure out why it was taking so long when there were so many children. The boys have been in an orphanage for 19 months. (Children have to be on a registry for 14 months before they are even available for international adoption.) Then if Dennis had said “YES” to any foster parents they would not be available for international adoption. And if that is not enough Dennis said “YES” to go to a country where they have never been and we use a different language which they really don’t know. The boys fit our family so well (Rabbit Ears and all.) This really makes me know “God takes care of us; all we have to do is trust.”

“DA” – Now it’s really Thanksgiving

We met with the orphanage director, the inspector (Probably about the equivalent of head of a county department of social services in the states), the two older boys and our translator. The boys were asked if they wanted to be adopted and go with us to America. And they both said “DA”

We haven’t written much over the last few days because there is a lot more to the story. But for now for us it really is Thanksgiving.

And this story is: To be continued

Electronics, Tools and Toys

For those of you who are about to make this journey we have decided to talk about what has worked for us and what hasn’t. First get a Ukrainian cell phone. They are very cheap. The total for the cell phone itself and about 150 minutes was $64.00. In this plan you get free incoming calls and free calls to anyone else with the same company.

The second thing that I would do is get a Skype account for online phone calls. If you are calling computer to computer there is no charge. We decided to get US phone numbers for our family and work to be able to call us for free. These accounts cost $15.00 for each line for three months. In addition we set up the account so that when we are on the computer we can answer the phone and those call cost two cents per minute. When we log off the computer we set Skype to forward the calls to our Ukrainian cell phone. These calls cost about 15 cents per minute. In our opinion that is worth it to have the support of our families. With this you will need a headset that also has a microphone.

We brought a laptop but you can use internet cafes. They are plentiful even in small towns. If you are not bringing a laptop go to an internet cafe once you have your cell phone and forward your Skype account to your new number.

It’s heavy, it was the one thing at customs at the airport that got lots of questions but we have used our 500 watt converter many times. We got ours through Magellan’s travel magazine. Not the least expensive place to buy one but it is good quality.

I’d also say don’t bring your blow dryer or curling iron (Teresa disagrees) these will not work unless you have the above converter. And for the $12-15 each I’d buy them here. Fox Mart carries them but is a little more expensive than at something like a hardware store. Teresa just didn’t like the time and effort it took that was also the day I ran the hot water out of the shower before she got one. Our current hotel has a blow dryer just like many in the US would. Most adoptive parents seems to rent apartments rather than at a hotel. Generally this is a better way to go. But in the small town we are in the hotel seemed the better option.

If you are bringing lots of electrical items get 2-4 of the little adapters. These are not converters but seem to work well at charging electric razors, cameras, ipods, mp3 players and computers. Most laptops are built to handle electrical current worldwide.

Do get a little hand held camera/video recorder. The one we bought was about $120 plus we bought a 4 gig card for extra memory. We can record about two hours of video plus thousands of pictures. It really is no bigger than your fist. I hadn’t been shopping for a while and was shocked at the size and quality that is now available.

Being a tech junkie I brought an external hard drive to store all the pictures on. It is probably over kill but I like it. And it takes a small amount of space and weight compared with much of what my wife brought.

We also bought some devices called empower that are supposed to work in the handle of many planes so that you are not operating on batteries until they go dead on the flight. The plane that we were on was older and did not have these even though the airline had assured us that it would when we called them.

The last items are probably not needed but we are justifying it by calling them scream insurance for the trip home, a personal DVD player with a ten inch screen. We also ordered some Russian language DVD’s, some online and others at the Russian bookstore in Denver. Mostly cartoons.

We brought at least five set of earphones/earbuds. Several splitters so that multiple people can watch either the DVD or Computer together.

Several of the USB/Camera cables, always have a backup in my opinion.

We also brought a small color printer (3 inches high by 6 inches deep by 12 inches wide, loaded the computer with plenty of games and clip art/coloring books that can be printed out each day for the kids. It also makes it possible for us to print out an additional copy of any item in our dossier. We had this advice from a family that traveled about four years ago. They said don’t tell any official that you are making a copy, just tell them that you left it at the motel/apartment and go print it out. This won’t work on items that were apostilled with a raised seal.

We also brought a variety of paper in a box about the size of a ream of paper. Labels for the photo albums, picture quality paper as well as plain white. Many of these are available just in slightly different sizes.

And we also bought a small scanner that is just barely 9 inches wide and about the size of four pencils wrapped together. With this any of the documents that we are transporting but not allowed to keep we will have for the kid’s records later in life.

I’m not advocating doing anything illegal. Just hoping to speed things along and keep all records for when the kids have questions when they are older.

I’ll post pictures of these items in our attached photo album.

So much to say and no words

The title is both when we try talking with the boys and for writing tonight. We met with the youngest at the hospital. He seems to be nearly over his Pneumonia. Teresa brought a number of items for him to play with. The banana was downed quickly but the big hit seemed to be the finger puppets. All three of the boys seems to be well adjusted considering what they've gone through. We were allowed more time at both the hospital and the orphanage than we had been promised yesterday. This orphanage is one of the smallest and they have never done an international adoption before. The director is very much loved by the kids. While we were at the hospital one of the other girls from the orphanage saw the director and came running for a big hug. The orphanage is sponsored by a Jim King from Oklahoma and is well maintained on the inside. It also means that Americans are appreciated for helping the orphanage. We have brought fruit and sweets but the boys are not very hungry. That is a good thing. They have been well cared for it terms of food for the last year and a half.

All the boys have their own personality and it is starting to show. We bought robots for them to put together. Something like Legos. We working on building them and Teresa asked if he wanted the instructions he told her to keep them he just wanted the blocks. The room we are allowed to play with the boys in has windows on two sides and we had an audience with half the kids looking in just before it was time for supper.

We are already starting to fall in love with the boys. I am probably not keeping a straight line of thought tonight but here it is anyway.

Train ride and orphanage visit

We had a safe comfortable 12 hour train ride from Kyiv to Kherson. The sleeping compartments are really pretty decent. And in the toilet reporting department they were not nearly as bad as had been described. They didn't even get messy on the floor until the last couple of hours.

We continue to be spoiled. Our hotel in Kakhovka is very nice. Full shower plenty of closet space a small refridgerator, satellite tv 300 plus channels but only 6 in English.

We met with two of the three boys and they are wonderful. The third boy is currently in the hospital with Pnemonia. We will get to see him in about an hour. The two older boys health and attachment to one another is excellant, they did want to make sure that their younger brother got some of the candy we brought for them. We blew up some beach balls to play and they quickly got the idea that it was okay to throw it at someone's head. Including Teresa and mine. Oops I probably started that one. The orphanage director took it well. That means she didn't send me home immediately.

There are a couple of items of concern with some of the oldest boys comments but at this point we hope and pray.

I'll write more tonight. Motel staff and I haven't figured out the wireless but they have a desk with hard wired connection in the lobby. I haven't been able to get on the office email account today.

More about our Appointment

Thursday when we had our appointment we were surprised to learn that our facilitator/translator could go in with us. Everything that we had heard/been told in the past was that the State Department for Adoption (SDA) wanted only their translators present with the parents.

We were shown into a small room with a table and a semi-circular couch on one side that we sat on and the SDA's social worker/Physcologist on the other side. Valentin our translator had a chair to right of the couch and their were two desks behind the social worker with computers on them. An additional SDA worker sat at one of the computers.

After asking us some brief questions about why we wanted to adopt and what kind of work we did they opened a binder with maybe 20 sets of siblings in it. We were a little disappointed that with as many kids needing families that none of the options in their book matched what we had requested. We had wanted at least one boy and one girl. There were only three groups of kids with any girls in them. One of those groups had five girls and a brother and our home study only approved us for a maximum of three. All of the groups had at least three siblings in them. We were never shown any smaller families. Mama Teresa was pretty happy with that part of things. Nearly all of the family groups had kids that were 11, 12 even 16 years old. We had requested kids between the ages of 2-8.

Each of the files had a photo of each of the kids. Most of the pictures were 2-4 years old. Some files would have written updates about the kids but most were just the original intake report. The reports would have 1-2 sentences about their medical condition. Another sentence or two about why parental rights had been revoked and not much more information.

After talking about nearly half the family groups we started narrowing the list down to two or three families. In the end we selected the group of three boys that we are going to visit. We had used the full hour and they were ready to have us out and the next family come in. They did call the orphanage director to see if there was any more information. The social worker was very pleasant and smiling but was not going to budge in terms of letting us look at any of their other books.

It is definitely a weird feeling to know that our lives and the lives of our kids will be based on that quick of a meeting and that little information. We were praying while looking but still felt unsettled as we left.

OH MY GOODNESS

Leave it to Jim to JUST show bathrooms when there are some great sights in Kyiv. That’s males, for you!!! They look at things so differently. I must be nuts because I will soon be out numbered in the house once again. Oh, well at least I have experience with Boys. All I know is they’re all nuts. Just like today Jim decided we should meet some other Adoptive Families in Independence Square and of course, we should take the Ukraine Metro where you go underground and can’t see where you are going and NO ONE speaks English. He is really nuts because the other day when we found the Metro he almost got in trouble with the guards because he was trying to go in the out door. He actually did great. We got tokens and went the correct direction. Not One Mistake. (But don’t tell him that, because it will go to his head.) It was actually great to get out and see others. Oh, by the way this is Teresa, the one who hates to write.

We met with our Facilitator, tonight and he gave us train tickets (Another Great Adventure with more bathroom experiences for Jim to Document) and the packet that allows us to see our kids. Well, we pray that they are ours. I am a bit nervous the oldest can say no, “I don’t like them” and that’s the end of that. When it comes down to it we really want our kids, whoever they are. We just have to trust in God. We leave Kyiv Sunday Night and will arrive in Kherson on Monday morning. Then we have about an hour or two driving to get to Kakhovka. There is a Power Plant in this city.

This whole trip, so far, has been an eye opening experience. So far the people at least most of them have been patient with Americans who don’t speak Ukrainian or Russian. They walk by you as if you are tied to a pole (Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere). Crossing the street is like taking your life in your hands (some cars stop but not all of them. There is no rhyme or reason, how you cross a street.). We follow behind a Ukrainian crossing the street (and he or she waves their bags just right and the cars stop.

Well, Jim thinks I am writing a book so I guess I better stop for now.

What we've been waiting for...

No not the squat toilet that Teresa got to use for the first time.

WE HAVE OUR REFERRAL

We will be traveling by train about 300 miles south of Kyiv on Sunday to Kherson and then about 50 kilometres to the orphanage. Oh yeah the WHO part of the question. There are three brothers we will be meeting with. This is not a done deal yet but we are very excited and hopeful. They are 5,7, and 9, years old.

Lost and Found

We've had some sleep and are almost starting to feel human again. When we went through customs they were really only unsure about one item. We bought a converter that will handle 500 watts. It has been worth the extra hassle. It runs the blow dryer and is the only converter that works with our little printer. (Um yes we are traveling light, yea right)

As I mentioned we got in early and waited a little for our driver. His name was Sergei and he had a sign with our name on it. As soon as we got settled in and had lunch I got the password for our secure wireless internet and logged on. Only to find that our facilitator said his driver was still waiting for us at the airport. Luckily our internet Skype phone worked and I was able to talk with him. It seems that our Pastor's friend here at the office decided that we needed a ride from the airport. Both driver's name is Sergei and both had signs with our name on it. I guess two rides are better than none. We owe Sergei big time for waiting around the airport for about three hours and talking the airline into confirming that we were on the flight.

Then we went shopping. Tried my Russian to purchase some banana's. Evidently I wasn't getting the numbers right. Finally both sides gave up trying and we left with a kilo for 10 Hyrvna. I think I ran the hot water out this morning and Teresa got a cold shower. Not a good way to start off to make a happy Mama. I also suggested that rather than bring her curling iron we just buy one here. One of the ladies from the office went with us looking for one and we were unsuccessful. Luckily this afternoon when we were walking I saw a store that looked like it might have one, it did and for only about $13. So I am now at least back to even in the score and a good husband again.

Here's a picture of our bathroom. As you can see it's tough and it has heated floors. Now Teresa has a new idea for when we get home. argh.

Safely in Kyiv

Just a quick note. We had an uneventful trip and are safe in Kyiv. The biggest surprise was our flight was about an hour early thanks to strong tail winds and we even cleared customs before our driver arrived.

We have been given a very warm welcome at the Union Conference office. Thank you very much Pastor Udo, it's great to have friends with connections. They fixed a great lunch of borsch, salad and mashed potatoes. The new rooms that we are staying in our less than a month old. We are the second people to have used them.

More later when I can think straight.

Packed and Dangerous

It's just a matter of hours now until we board our flight. About ten hours to be more precise. We are most dangerous to my poor arm muscles that haven't had a workout carrying this much weight in years. We had to take a few items out of two bags as they were each at 50 pounds. We are taking enough cords for cameras, computers and dvd players that I'm sure TSA will search us thoroughly.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishing and prayers.

63 Hours

Okay I'm really an accountant so we have now switched to hours rather than days. We have set up two phone numbers and a voice mail box on Skype. If you are in Denver or the Baltimore/Washington area these are local calls for you. We believe that when we get our Ukrainian cell phones that we can forward the calls from Skype to the cell phone.

Denver Area: 720-324-7950
Baltimore/Washington Area: 301-476-0927

Please notice the Kiev time gadget on this page.

Also our email address is now available in my profile.

Test Video

Test Video of Teresa's Office. Takes a little while to load but I think we will be able to show some videos. They won't be of the kids until after the 10 day waiting period after court.

If anyone has problems let us know and we will try to work out the details. If you are using dial up internet you probably won't be able to get the video. Sorry!

Countdown at 5

We've been really busy trying to wrap up all the loose ends of our jobs. Even our weekend was busy. Teresa is in charge of Children's church this happens once each month. We appreciate the team being willing to take this on while we are gone.

We very much appreciate all the encouragement from all our friends and family.

We also bought a new little HD video camera. I'll try posting a little video clip before we go. We have been playing with lots of toys and have decided to put more of our information here this weekend. We have added local phone numbers in both Denver and Maryland that will go to our Skype account and hopefully be forwarded to our Ukrainian cell phone.

I'll try to be a little more regular at posting. And hopefully Teresa will add a female perspective soon.

In the countdown 12 (Minor news America elected a President)

Well we are trying to wrap things up at all of our jobs and the pressure is probably starting to get to us a little. We are thankful for each item we can check off our list. About two years ago we got a new associate Pastor at church. He and his wife met and married in Ukraine. We are thankful for all the extra help he has been able to provide. They have been in the states for about 6 years now.

Yes, America elected a new President tonight. We are still more excited about our trip to Ukraine and meeting our kids. Okay, my candidate did not win. I'm sure my sister is happy about the results.

Also I've put a new picture in our profile. Needed a better picture of my beautiful wife.

Picture here just for a day or two.

US Embassy Email

Just thought our friends might be interested in the type of information that the US Embassy provides prospective adoptive parents. This one includes some of the most specific information about the kids available for international adoption that I've seen.

Notice on SDAPRC Unused Quotas October 23, 2008 Ukraine: Unused Quotas On October 14, 2008 the Ministry for Family, Youth and Sports published official Order #3899 approving revised procedures for submission of new adoption dossiers from foreign citizens in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The annual adoption dossiers quota for 2008 previously had been set at 1,453. Although all of these were booked within the first months of this year, not all of these families actually submitted dossiers. As a result, the SDAPRC (State Department for Adoptions and Protection of the Rights of the Child) has now opened the unused slots for new adoption dossiers. These slots are not an increase in the annual quota; rather they still fall under the annual limit of 1,453 dossiers. This number is not subdivided by country or by specific categories of children.

The SDAPRC resumed acceptance of new dossiers on October 14th, 2008 and will continue accepting dossiers for 2008 until November 27th, 2008. Order #3899 includes two attachments, one of them presenting the number of children available for intercountry adoptions, sorted by age and health condition, as of September 1, 2008. Please note that these statistics are independent of annual quota set by the Ministry (noted above), but provide a useful overview of ages and health condition of children available for adoption. The second attachment is the schedule for submission of adoption dossiers from foreign adoptive parents. Both documents are below.


Attachment 1

Analysis of the numbers of children available for intercountry adoptions according to their age and health condition(based on the information from the central databank as of September 1, 2008)

Under 3 Year olds
Healthy 0
Serious 551
Total 551

3-5 Year Olds
Healthy 109
Serious 1,215
Total 1,324

6-11 Year Olds
Healthy 3,011
Serious 2,397
Total 5,408

12-17 Year Olds
Healthy 11,337
Serious 3,081
Total 14,408

All children
Healthy 14,457
Serious 7,244
Total 21,701

Healthy=Healthy/Correctible medical conditions
Serious=Serious probably not correctible medical conditions

Ludmyla Volynets, Director of the SDAPRC


Attachment 2

Schedule for submission of the dossiers from foreign adoptive parents in the IV-th quarter of 2008
Day of the week Recommendation for the child’s age from the competent authority of the country of residence of adoptive parents*

Monday: Dossiers for children under 6 years old and those that have no specific limits for the child’s age

Tuesday: Dossiers for children 6-11 years old

Wednesday:

Thursday: Dossiers for children 12 years and older

Ludmyla Volynets,Director of the SDAPRC

*For U.S. citizens this is the recommendation of the social worker in the homestudy


Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any additional questions. Sincerely, Adoption Unit/Immigrant Visa Section Consular Section American Embassy Kyiv, Ukraine
Tel: 38-044-490-4422
Fax:38-044-490-4570
Kyivadoptions@state.gov
http://kyiv.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_eng.html

In accordance with E.O. 12958 this message is not classified.

Parents Visit

My folks (Jim's) are here for a long weekend visit. Part of the reason that I took a job in Colorado was so that we could be closer. Now they are only a five hour drive away. However I am still unforgiven from the in-laws in Maryland. Just kidding we get along well however Teresa is no longer close enough to pick up mail and check on the house during vacations. It's good to have family, part of what we want to provide for the kids.

Ukrainian Politics Again (We want to be Italians)

Okay this post might get me in trouble.

Since I've had several years to follow Ukrainian politics I've reached the conclusion that they really want to be Italians. Italy has had a change in which coalition is ruling the country nearly every year or two since World War II. Now Ukraine's President has set their third election since the Orange Revolution brought democratic rule to Ukraine in December 2004.

Ukraine's President Yushenko disolved parliment (Rada) and has set snap elections for December 7, 2008. Prime Minister Tymoshenko has appealed to a court in Kyiv which has ruled the President does not have the constitutional authority to call the elections. The President responds that the judge that made the ruling had already been fired.

What does this mean for the adoption. Probably nothing. Even if the elections take place on December 7, it is unlikely that any party will be able to quickly form a ruling coalition. We are hopeful that we will have the kids home in early January and can follow the politics from a safe distance.

http://www.wwitv.com has a good English language channel under the Russian section. Also there is often either a channel in English or English subtitles running under one of the news channels in the Ukrainian section. I also enjoy http://www.kyivpost.com for newpaper coverage as well.

We have our plane Tickets

It was much more frustrating than I had planned on but we are ticketed. We checked online web sites a couple of brick and mortar travel agencies and airline web sites. No one wanted to give us in writing what the actual change fees on an international flight would be. We looked at more flexible tickets and their costs. In the end we found a flight that was shorter more direct (only one stop) less expensive and who would give us the actual change fee in writing.

Kudos to Kayak.com for doing the best job in showing comparisons. I do like the fact that we fly non-stop from JFK in NY to Kyiv.

The flight will still be shorter than the LAX to Auckland, New Zealand, flight I took a few years ago.

Happy, Happy, Happy Dance...

We are going to get our kids.

Я НЕ ПОНИМАЮ

Доброй Ночи, (Do-brey no-chee, Good Night)

Well I've been playing around with the computer for a few months and have been pleasantly surprised to learn that Microsoft includes other languages, alphabets and keyboards. I have reached the conclusion that my learning Russian or Ukrainian is much slower than most of the kids we've met. They pick up English in a matter of months.

The title of this post is a phrase I'll probably use alot. Ya nye pa-nyi-mai-yu means "I don't understand."

Being a little on the cheap side I printed out the Cyrillic alphabet on sticky paper and pasted them on the keyboard. Here's a picture of part of the keyboard. Sorry the lighting is on the poor side.

До Свидания (da sveeyi-dan-ya, Goodbye)

Jim

A Softie

Well I guess it's official, I'm a softie with requests from kids. We've made it a habit not to buy anything from someone doing door to door sales unless it is kids from our neighborhood.

A week or two ago some of the kids came by selling frozen pop sticks. I got one for Teresa and one for me. (she was too slow so I eventually ate hers too) Listening to them talk as they left I realized that they had raided the family refridgerator and were collecting money to buy a video game that their parents didn't want them to get.

I guess I've been too good of a customer because today they wanted to sell me a fifty cent pie for $10.00. I declined and they'll have to figure out another way to buy their games.

I'm not planning to toughen up too soon after the adoption but I know I'll have to draw the line at some point.

Planes, automobiles and hopefully no trains

Well we're working on our plane tickets and it's been more challenging than we were planning on. Because we will not know about our return trip until a few days beforehand we will probably go with tickets that we can change rather than the lowest available fare.

We have found a discount airline in Ukraine called Wizz Air that does really cheap fares between about five cities in Ukraine. Just the name gives me interesting thoughts and as long as we are on the topic Teresa is hopeful that this will help her to avoid the infamous train rides with their bathrooms.

We are planning to arrive a couple of days early to get our bodies readjusted from jetlag. Teresa is threatening to give a female perspective soon.

Paper Pregnancy

Well Teresa has been acting kind of strange the last few days. Using my superb male logic I figured it out. We are pregnant. No not that kind everyone please calm down. In adoption we've learned the term paper pregnancy, anyway I decided that we were and that was the problem.

Sooooo a couple of nights ago when she went to bed I ran down to the kitchen and prepared.....


yes a bowl of ice cream with some dill pickles on top.

At least she was smiling and laughing. No she didn't take a bite, said it looked and smelled gross.

Talk with our employers

All went well in our talks with our employers. I celebrated with donuts, hopefully slightly more healthful than cigars. Okay I've always loved donuts.

Teresa had her talk with her bosses and they are supportative.

You may notice that we have been very careful not to give out too much personal information. That is intentional. If you have interest in more detailed discussions please email us. We are not trying to exclude our friends and family, we just don't want to give too much information out on the web or that can be picked up by the robotic crawlers that search websites.

We have our Appointment! YES!!!

Well after nearly 2 1/2 years we have an invitation. We will be at the Ukraine State Department for Adoption (SDA) on November 20 at 10 AM.

Does this mean we really have much more information? No. Ukraine handles adoptions differently than most other countries. At our appointment we will be interviewed and then shown pictures of kids who are close to our request in the dossier.

The SDA will then give us a letter of invitation to an orphanage and we will travel to meet the kids. You do not get to look at all the kids at the orphanage only those you pre-selected at the SDA. After meeting with the kids, the orphanage director, and reading the kids files at the orphanage we will need to make a decision as to whether we want to adopt the kids.

I can't picture Teresa doing anything other than holding them and claiming them forever.

Then we will schedule a date with the court. That usually takes another 7-10 days. At court we hope to be named the kids parents. Usually there is a 10 day waiting period at this time to allow for an appeal. At the end of the waiting period we will be the kids legal parents. At that point it usually takes another 10 days to get the kids new birth certificates and their US embassy appoved medical physical checkup and their Ukrainian and American Visa and Passport.

Many families have been able to give their Facilitator/Translator power of attorney to carry documents around during this time. We may also fly home and catch up on some of our work during the two waiting periods.

Every family seems to have had a different schedule and there are no guarantees but, from November 20, the most common time frame seems to be about 6-7 weeks until we will have the kids home.

It looks like Teresa will miss out on the coldest part of winter and those squat pit toilets she was so looking forward to.

Why Ukraine

I'm not going to copy everything from a prior blog but here are a couple of sections that might fill in some gaps.

The Journey So Far

I really should have started this blog at the beginning but thought at the time that the interesting part would be our actual travel time. As many of you know the paper chase part of adoption and the wait time probably have more twists and turns than the travel time. At least that is what we hope.


We have been married for nearly ten years and were pregnant for a few short weeks three years ago before losing a baby. Teresa's doctor was extra rude and said we were getting too old for that.


In March of 2006 we decided to try adoption. Both of us love kids and have been involved with children's activities at church for years. We were listening to our local christian radio station and there was a group putting on an adoption seminar at one of the churches in the Denver area.


We liked much of what we heard at the seminar. The organization was really pushing adoptions from China but also worked in a few other countries. We decided that we wanted to adopt more than one child and that we would like to adopt siblings with at least one boy and one girl. At that point it became clear that China would not be an option as nearly 98% of all children being adopted from China are girls.


Just as we felt that we had a good start on the process Ukraine decided to shut down international adoptions while they reorganized the various cabinet ministries for the new government. This was in 2006 and they remained closed for eight months. The adoption agency that was handling the international part of things called our home about six weeks after the US embassy had emailed us to let us know this was going on. I would recommend that PAP (prospective adoptive parents) sign up for the embassy's email to PAP. http://kyiv.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_eng.html


Out of the countries that our original agency worked in we chose to start working toward adopting kids from Ukraine. Ukraine is a country in eastern europe that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It lies between Russia to the east and Belarus and Poland to the north and Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the west. It also has a large southern coast on the Black Sea.


Ukraine still had communist leaders until the Orange Revolution in December of 2004. So it's journey toward democracy started much later than many other eastern European countries.


Part of the reason I liked the idea of adopting from Ukraine is that my family on both sides comes from the midwestern US, Nebraska and Illinois. Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of eastern europe and that seemed comfortably familiar.

New Friends

We believe that God does bring the right people into our lives at the right time. The last couple of weeks have been like that. A team arrived at my (Jim's) office to complete a financial audit. One of the auditors was working a similar job in Moscow four years ago. They decided to adopt and found it easier to adopt from Ukraine instead of Russia. They adopted three boys and gave lots of good advice. One of the things that we had not given any thought to was the fact that multiple kids from the same family often end up in different orphanages. This may require seperate court cases for each of the kids.

During the second week of the audit we had an additional auditor who grew up in Moldova, a country that borders Ukraine and also was part of the former Soviet Union. He tipped us off to a great web site for online videos in Russian. Here's a couple of our favorite sites: http://etvnet.ca/ and http://www.wwitv.com/.

Teresa continues to collect alot of things for the trip. I'll supply a picture soon. I keep repeating a couple of lines we've learned from other blogs. "When packing less is more" and "Remember you are going to take your children to America, not taking America to your kids" I don't think she hears me. She just bought one of those hand held things that you can weigh your luggage with.

If you have advice for things to take on an international trip we'd love to hear from you.

Dossier Submitted

Well after nearly two years of working and waiting we have updated all of our dossier documents and it has been submitted and accepted. We have a registration number and should hear about our appointment date within four weeks.