Where's the Pomp & Circumstance???

We left on Sunday 6/23, just one week after returning home from our 2^nd trip... needless to say, after so much traveling, we are exhausted!  We had a few minor flight delays but we made all our connections and got to Kiev on Monday morning with time to shower, nap, eat, and call the credit card company who put a hold on my card.  Uneventful compared to the possibilities that can happen during international travel - praise God for traveling mercies!  After our 6 hour “layover” in Kiev, we caught a train that night and traveled all night to Melitopol, and then our driver took us the additional 2 hours to Berdyans’k.  It took us 40+ hours from the time we left Raleigh to get to the kids!

We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening running a few errands and hanging out with the kids.  Each time we visit the staff is more comfortable with us and we get to explore and see new areas of the orphanage while we spend time with the kids.  The kids all are truly blessed to have such a dedicated and loving staff. 

Wednesday – the day the court waiting period was over, the day the kids are officially ours, the day we have been waiting for since September! – was actually a little anti-climactic.   The excitement got lost in translation and in the rush.  The day started out at the local court house where we got the official court decree granting us guardianship of sweet Anya and Sasha.  There was a minor delay, but nothing our feisty adoption coordinator couldn’t get fixed in about 90 minutes.  She is truly blessed with the gift of being detail-oriented and not being afraid to ruffle some feathers to get this work done.  As soon as the court decision was given to her she put it in her bag and we ran for the car.  No time for pomp and circumstance!

Three hours later we arrive in Zaporozhe at the birth certificate office.  We did the paper work to get their new birth certificates issued.  Their names are now officially Anna Lynn Stinson and Sasha Thomas Stinson, and we are listed on their official birth certificate as their parents.  But once again, the papers went directly into the folder and into the bag.  No time for pomp and circumstances! 

From the birth certificate office, we went to the tax ID office where they assign the kids ID number to their new name.  This will be needed for the passport process.  Our coordinator completed this with her usual swiftness.  Then we found a notary and got a passport petition made for Anya and Sasha.  The papers with the new ID numbers and the passport petition went directly into the bag.  No time for pomp and circumstance! 

By then it was 4:00 and we hadn’t even had time to eat anything all day, much less see the kids.  We made the long drive back to Berdyans’k to see them for a few minutes before bed.  It had been a busy day for them too.  Sasha went to the doctor to get a follow-up check and X-ray done while we were gone.  The children had been taken for passport photos.  But by the time we got back to the orphanage, it was too late to take the birth certificates and ID numbers to the appropriate offices so that we could officially get them out of the orphanage.  It was not how we imagined our first official day as their legal Mama & Papa would go.  We only had a few minutes with them , and we were hot and sticky and drained from our day of running around in the heat.  No time OR energy for pomp and circumstance. 

On Thursday morning, our coordinator spent the morning running around delivering official copies of the court decree and birth certificates to everyone who needed them.  She also went to pick up the passport photos, and then promptly picked up the children to take them to have new photos taken.  The kids were washed and scrubbed by their caregivers.  They gathered up their few belongings, all of which were things that we have given them, and they were very casually delivered to us.  Still no pomp and circumstance!  We had them change into clothes and shoes that we brought for them so that they could leave the orphanage’s clothes and shoes.  We had them leave a couple big toys we had brought for their friends, trying to explain that they would be too big to carry on the train or plane.  They did this with no arguments at all.  We got to the car to leave and – FINALLY – a little pomp and circumstance:  Hugs for the director, and some pictures. 

We (the 4 of us, plus our coordinator and the driver) squeezed into the small car and drove the 3 hours back to Zaporozhe.  We applied for their new passports, but one of the ID numbers wasn’t set-up in the system correctly, so Alla had to run back to the ID office and get this fixed before we could finish the passport application.

And now we wait for the passports to be printed before we can do anything with the US embassy.  But we got some disappointing news about that… there are some delays with printing passports right now and we can’t predict exactly when they will be ready.  We are waiting until next Tuesday (the next business day because there is a 4-day holiday weekend right now) to hopefully get an update about this.  We are praying that everything will be resolved by then and there will be no delays! 

We had our first dinner together, at a cafeteria where they could choose what they wanted to eat.  They both picked tomato & cucumber salad (It’s summer… Cucumbers are the new cabbage!), potatoes and kielbasa, and strawberry pierogies.  And unfortunately we forgot to take pictures.   After dinner, we went to the train station to wait for our overnight train to Kiev, where we would unfortunately spend our first night together split up in two different train compartments.  As we waited though, we finally remembered to take a few pictures of the kids as we gave them each a gift for our "Gotcha Day"!

 

The past several days have been so lacking in that “pomp and circumstance” that we’re not really expecting it now!  We just transitioned very casually into a family.  I don’t know what we were expecting.  Something grand and ceremonial ?  When you have a new baby, there are so many little milestones and statistics that you pause to savor and document… time of birth, weight, footprints, pictures of every family member holding the baby, that moment when you leave the hospital as a family, the homecoming, first bath, baptism… I could go on and on, because I was one of those sentimental moms that photographed and mentally catalogued EVERYTHING!  We’ve missed all of this with Anya and Sasha.  As I watched Sasha sleep (for the first time) on the train, I cried at everything that we have missed.  Over nine years’ worth of memories and milestones that I will never have and never be able to share with them.  Not one picture or story.  It will overwhelm me with sorrow if I let it, and I have to repeatedly remind myself not to let that happen.  We have RIGHT NOW, and we’re ready to live it and love it. 

Where Church and State Collided

Today we arrived home from our 2nd trip to Ukraine.  We were gone for one week, all for a 2 hour court hearing on Wednesday, June 12th.  This is probably old news for you, but our petition to adopt Anya and Sasha was approved by the judge at our hearing! 

Our coordinator - who believes less is more when it comes to sharing details about what happens in Ukraine - cautioned us to keep the details of our court hearing private, just like she has cautioned us to keep many other things private.  There are a lot of valid reasons for her recommendation, most importantly that what happens in one courtroom in Ukraine can be extremely different from what happens in another courtroom in Ukraine.  And as we've been cautioned many times, it's never a good idea to compare adoptions! 

But there are just some things about going to court this week that we just can't be expected to keep to ourselves!  In retrospect, we could not have expected our court hearing to be any more successful.  We experienced so many blessings in that room, and we could feel the prayers of everyone who has been praying for this day.  There were three of us going to court to petition for Anya and Sasha - the two of us and God. 

A court hearing in a foreign country is stressful.  Your life and motivations are put under a microscope, and you have no idea what the prosecutor or witnesses will ask.  They might be cooperative and your court hearing could be as short as 20 minutes.  The witnesses have the right to ask questions, so alternatively your court hearing could last many hours and include some pretty outrageous questions, depending on the position of the witnesses.  Our hearing felt stressful at the time, but the questions were predictable, and the time that it took was very reasonable considering the fact that we were talking about the futures of two young children! 

We were very blessed that they allowed the kids to stay outside the courtroom for the hearing except for when they needed to come in and answer questions.  This meant that they did not need to be present to hear in detail about how they came to be in the orphanage, or how relatives that they may not even remember have never come forward to take care of them or even visit them.  The kids did a great job of answering questions.  When the judge asked if anyone had any additional questions for them, Anya said "No" and then realized that it wasn't a question for her.  Everyone got a chuckle.  After that, the mood lightened as we finished up.  We have great stories about how everyone reacted to us once the official proceedings were over, but the best is... as she congratulated us, the prosecutor remarked how much the kids look like us and said it must be "from God." 

The bonus of being in town for 4 days for a 2-hour court hearing was seeing and playing with Anya and Sasha for several hours each day.  Since the kids are done with school for the summer, we were able to spend 5 or 6 hours with them each day.  There is a bond there that can only be from God.  Each minute with them is precious and we are starting to understand their personalities more and more.  It is going to be a fun, scary, crazy, exciting, and wild adventure once we get them home!  We can't wait to blog about their growth and transition, in just a few weeks! 

We have been so blessed by all the great people we have met at the orphanage.  They are all great examples of people who are spiritually gifted with children.  We can't understand them, but their passion for these kids is clear to see by the way the children respond to them.  I hope their lives are as blessed by the kids as the kids are blessed by them.

   

James 1:27

Today another stepping stone in our path to adoption was cemented: We got news that Ukraine's SDA has issued their approval to proceed with our court hearing, along with 2 other main documents that we need for court.  These documents are now in the hands of our "team" in Ukraine.  Moments like this lift our spirits and encourage us.  It makes us wonder if these people - most of whom we have never met - realize how much they matter to us and our adoption.  More importantly, we wonder if they know how much they mean to God and His plan.  These people live James 1:27 every day, whether they know it or not: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
 

We thank and pray for those who are serving us in this adoption, who are definitely warriors for Christ.  On this day after Memorial Day, I wonder how many of Christ’s warriors are being remembered, honored, and prayed for?  Without warriors like the ones on our team, our stepping stones would be boulders.  God would still help us move them because He is God and His will still would be done, but these servants strap on their faith as their armor daily and serve us so our burden can be made easier.
 

It is so easy to forget about everything people are doing on our behalf while entrenched in daily activities and preparing to bring our kids home.  In the last few weeks, we have redecorated a bedroom for Anya and Claire, moved Claire into it, painted Claire's old room for Sasha, received lots of clothing and toys for Sasha thanks to many donations from family and friends, purchased a dresser and two twin bed frames from Craig's List, and now I am painting the bed frames.  Michelle has continued to make preparations for our next two trips, as well as plans for Sophia and Claire for the summer.  We've both made sad attempts to learn a little Russian.  We still have a long list of things we want to do before we return to Ukraine next week, but none are critical.  In reality none of what we have accomplished the last several weeks means anything compared to what other people have been doing for us during this time.  From praying to paperwork, it is all more meaningful than the worldly preparations that have kept us busy on the homefront.

We leave to go back to Ukraine on June 8th, and we are scheduled to be in court on June 12th - it was scheduled so far in advance out of an abundance of caution, to be sure that the required paperwork would be processed in Kiev and forwarded to Berdyan'sk.  Now that we know the paperwork is ready, we are relieved but now impatient to go back.  Just two more weeks until we are with the kids again, ready to take the next step in bringing home our son and daughter! 

 

God is Always on Time

I've heard it said before that it takes 21 days to break an old habit, or to create a new habit.  I've never tested this theory, but after our first trip to Ukraine, I've decided it must be accurate. 

We spent exactly 3 weeks in Ukraine, arriving on April 8th and leaving April 29th.  When we arrived, it would be a major understatement to say that this new country felt very strange.  We've traveled several places throughout Europe, so we didn't think much of the idea of being in another country for an extended visit.  We were too wrapped up in our reason for going there to worry about what it would be like to "live" there for a bit.   

It was intimidating.  We could not understand anything, despite the fact that I actually tried to learn a tiny bit of Ukrainian.  My efforts were actually pretty useless because, as it turns out, everyone speaks Russian - or a hybrid of the two.  We did not hear anyone speaking English, anywhere.  We could not even find street signs in order to attempt to read a map.  Our apartment was, well... different than what we're used to.  Everything seemed to have cabbage in it, and we couldn't read the labels in the grocery store.  Of course, there was the adoption process itself, which made us feel a bit like pawns in a big game... and it felt like no one else was concerned about the outcome of this game except for us (although I know that's not true).  It took us about 5 minutes to realize just how grossly unprepared we were for our time there. 

For the first half of our trip, we just felt lost all the time.  Not just physically, but also spiritually!  We spent 7 months following this path to Ukraine, 100% certain that we were following God's will for our family.  And then... nothing.  The path veared, and we were scrambling.  We felt abandoned, disappointed, and grieving for two girls that were never really ours in a way that we will never be able to make anyone else understand.  We were homesick.  We were doubting ourselves and wondering if maybe we had misinterpreted everything.  And we honestly got tired of hearing that "God's timing is perfect" because that was no longer a comfort.  We seriously considered coming home, and we didn't think anyone at home would fault us if that's what we did.  

We were lost, but these four things we knew:

1. Sophia and Claire were doing just fine and didn't need us to come home, even if that's what we all wanted.
2. Our marriage was definitely strong enough to handle this, and if anything, would only get stronger.  
3. Our family had an ARMY of prayer warriors behind us at home.
4. We KNEW that God brought us to this place, at this time, for a purpose.  It wasn't the purpose we thought it was, but He doesn't make mistakes.  We knew we were supposed to be there, and finally we realized that going home felt like disobedience.   

And so we stayed and requested our 2nd SDA appointment.  We can clearly see how God answered our specific prayers during that time, as well as the prayers of others.  We prayed for God to start speaking to us in English, and He did.  Many people were praying for us to receive clarity, and it came.  We know now that God had been leading us to Berdyans'k, to meet two incredible kids who had been waiting for us. 

As for God's "perfect" timing?  We understand now just how precise and perfect it was, and always will be.  Anya and Sasha became eligible for international adoption days before our 2nd SDA appointment.  We had to be precisely where we were in this process that started 7 months ago in order to be referred to them.  Every time I had decided to overnight a document instead of sending it through regular mail, it affected the outcome.  The timing of every person who wrote a letter or filled out a form on our behalf affected the outcome.  Every form that had a mistake, every form that needed to be done over again, affected the outcome.  Every annoying little delay affected the outcome. 

A million little pieces fell together perfectly to bring us to Anya and Sasha.  We will never doubt God's timing again.

Neil and I will never be the same after this experience.  As hard as it was to be in Ukraine at first, by the end of our 3 weeks, we were reluctant to go home.  Not only for the obvious reasons, but we'd also grown accustomed to being there.  All the parts that felt strange and intimidating at first, no longer felt quite so foreign to us.  Coming home, as wonderful as it was to see our girls, felt weird.  I stood in my kitchen at 1:00 AM after getting home from the airport, looking at our granite counters... and thinking how ridiculous they seem.  The contents of my children's closets - ridiculous.  The clothes dryer - ridiculous.  The fact that there's much more than just cabbage and salami in our refrigerator - ridiculous.  Even the fact that I can brush my teeth with the tap water feels like a luxury after just 3 weeks. 

I think these altered perspectives are a good thing.  I just hope that 21 days is enough to make them stick for a lifetime.  But for good measure we'll go back a few more times. 

Mama, Papa... Telephone?

What an incredible, pivotal week for the Stinsons!  The only thing that would have made it better would be if Sophia and Claire could have been a part of it too.  We think it would have been good for them to meet Anya and Sasha on their turf.  But without Sophia and Claire here, we were able to spend a lot of one-on-one time with the kids and start the bonding process.  This was critical for everything that had to happen throughout the week. 

We met the kids on Monday, and we were able to visit them twice that day.  We found out quickly that they are playful, happy, curious, and loving children.  The kids seemed unsure of us at first... until they discovered Neil’s cell phone.  We bonded over Angry Birds – of all things! – before they moved on to listening to music and taking photos of random things.  By the end of the first day, they were sitting in our laps and even called us Mama and Papa a couple of times.  Everyone was happy to see the fast connection we had with each other.  It led to an amazing week for us… and an amazingly busy week for our regional coordinator, who accomplished SO much for us this week.  She’s an angel and SO MUCH of this week would not have been possible without her!

Tuesday started with a huge hug from Sasha.  He came in and hugged Michelle for a solid, long minute or two before finally letting go.  It was like he was relieved that we really did come back!  Go ahead, picture how much this Mama was melting, because she was.  Almost-9-year-old Anya joined a few minutes later with a quick hug for each of us and then she started to explore to see what we brought with us.   She figured out on day one that Mama’s purse was full of interesting stuff.  We spent a couple hours with our kids working on puzzles, coloring, listening to music, and playing games.  We didn’t understand each other most of the time, and we only recognize a few Russian words, so lots of gesturing was required. 

Some practical advice: Don’t challenge anyone who has adopted internationally to a game of charades.  

And this is how the rest of our week progressed.  Every day we were able to visit the children for a few hours when they were done with their school lessons.  We watched them come out of their shells a little more every day, trying harder and harder to communicate with us.  We could easily see the bond between the two of them, and we could only imagine all the circumstances they’ve been through that led to their bond being what it is! 

 

Every day we brought small gifts and candy for them, which helped us break the ice.  We learned how focused and task-oriented Sasha is – he loves to build and figure things out.  Can't wait to buy that boy some Legos.  We also learned that he’s goofy and incredibly lovable; we think he and Claire are going to be partners in crime.  We learned that Anya is a typical tween, more interested in painting nails, braiding hair, or drawing than she is interested in games or toys.  Two "tween" girls almost the same age in our house???  It will be interesting to see how Anya and Sophia get along.  Anya really likes getting her way and can be a little bossy with Sasha, but is also protective and generous with him – we watched her give Sasha her juice because he drank all of his quickly, and she made sure that he got exactly the same amount any candy that we brought for them. 

Watching the two of them together, each of them knowing that the other is the only blood relative that they can count on… THIS was why we felt SO strongly about adopting siblings!  They need to stay together, but they each deserve to be kids, knowing they have a family who loves them unconditionally and will take care of them.   

The hardest part was seeing all the other children that aren't coming home with us when all this is over.  They deserve the unconditional love of a family every bit as much as Sasha and Anya.  Every day we also brought snacks for the kids to take back to their class for the other kids… sadly, you can think of it as a peace offering, because the inevitable question that all these sweet, healthy, beautiful children will have for Sasha and Anya is, “Why you and not me?” 

On Thursday we arrived and were ushered to a small auditorium, where the children can have performances and watch movies.  Completely unbeknownst to us, they were doing a sort of variety show, with songs and readings and dancing.  Sasha came to us and hopped up on Papa’s lap to watch, but Anya was nowhere to be found.  Turns out she was dancing in the show!  It was priceless that her family could be there to watch her and take pictures. 

Needless to say, goodbye wasn’t easy.  Watching realization dawn on their faces as it was explained to them that we have to go home now… that was terrible.  Unbelievably, Mama and Papa held it together so that the kids wouldn’t get too upset.  But the look on Sasha's face when he heard this news... we will not be able to get that expression out of our heads until we can get back to him again.   

So now we are back in Kiev again.  Unfortunately, we couldn't get a flight home until Monday.  We can't wait to see Sophia and Claire and our friends and family again... but it's going to be so strange to get back to our former routines at home.  But this is what we will have to do for quite a few weeks, until we can come back for our court date. 

 

Please pray with us that their hearts will be held, encouraged, and comforted by their heavenly Father until their Mama and Papa can get back to them.  They are blessed to be with loving caregivers who want the best for them, and they are blessed to have eachother.  And please also pray with us that the Lord would give guidance and wisdom to everyone that has a part in preparing our family for the next several stages of our journey.  Getting our family ready to encounter Ukraine was a lengthy process, and it feels like we've been here forever... but really our family's journey is just beginning! 

There Are No Words For This!

We don’t understand how God works.  It may take walking through the gates of Heaven for that to happen, and even then we probably won't be able to comprehend it.  But this we DO understand; it doesn’t matter how He works.  Only that you have a personal relationship with Him enough that you can trust Him.  It is through that relationship that He changes us so that miracles can happen. 

The past 7 months have been filled with praying, planning, PAPERWORK, waiting, traveling, grieving, more praying, more waiting, freaking out (Neil says this was mostly Michelle), more prayers, giving it to God, wanting to take it back from God, and praying.  It’s been a difficult road, especially once we arrived in Ukraine exactly 2 weeks ago.  But today we’re certain that road brought us to our destination, and today we met the kids that we feel God has had in mind for us all the time. 

This journey, which has been worth the trials that have stretched our faith along the way, has yielded God’s promise – a promise of blessings for those who are faithful to Him through the trials. 

We can’t wait to be able to share pictures and stories, and introduce you to these spunky kids who seem to have been crafted to be Stinsons!  For now, while we are still in the beginning, we just ask for your prayers.  There is SO much to accomplish this week.  Please pray for us that we can continue bonding with the kids, and pray that our regional coordinator can make miracles happen this week so that we might be able to come back home next Monday.  Everything that happened today just made us miss Sophia and Claire so much more!  Just one more week, girls! 

Stay Calm and Kiev On - Act II

Drinking our flaming coffee with Jill and Kevin

On Monday, we returned to Kiev from Chernihiv.  Or Chernigov, if you prefer Russian.  It’s impossible to know which language is being used, so we’re never sure which one of our go-to memorized phrases to use. 


“Ya ne rozumiyu” or “Ya ne ponimayu”?  “Dyakuyu” or “Spacibo”?  Who knows, so we usually cover our bases and say both. 

We completed all the paperwork to decline our first referral, and after spending hours sitting in various offices, we were finally able to turn in said paperwork to the Ministry of Social Policies and settle into our new apartment in Kiev on Monday.  It seemed like a lot of "red tape" just to say, No thank you.  But it was comforting to get back to the city, where everything is walking distance and we can fend for ourselves without the help of a translator.  We’re here for the whole week (we were told it could be about a week until our 2^nd SDA appointment), so Neil has been able to get quite a lot of work done.  We’re so blessed that his employer is letting him work a little from here, so he won’t have to use so much vacation time during this unexpected delay.


This time has actually been a blessing in disguise.  It has given us pause to reflect on everything that has happened in our first week of Ukraine.  Where at first we saw heartache and disappointment, now we can see purpose.  Where at first we saw missed opportunities, now we see new opportunities.  In the absence of everyone we love and all familiar things that might comfort us, we were blessed to meet another couple from Florida who were able to witness to us and provide biblical encouragement.  We will forever be grateful to them for helping us to lift our chins and refocus.  Because of their guidance and company, this week had new purpose!



We were pleasantly surprised to find out yesterday that our SDA appointment was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. this morning!  Now that we knew what to expect, we arrived with our game faces on, ready to play.  We were told that there were no new sibling referrals that met the criteria in our home study, which was disheartening but we were prepared for this.  So we got down to business, starting with 9 & 10 year old girls.

 

 

After choosing a few to review, we were still not feeling great about our choices.  We prayed for God to give us clarity - the heavens opening and a choir singing when we happened upon the profiles we're meant to choose, perhaps?  Of course we wanted it to feel that right, that obvious, to us!  Suddenly the siblings binder appears on the table again.  Behold, there was just one sibling group to show us that we had not seen before!  Whether it was truly new, or perhaps withheld at our first SDA meeting because these were healthier children, we’re not sure.  It doesn’t matter – either way, His timing is perfect and worthy of our trust.   

 

After a few phone calls to make sure these children were in fact still in the orphanage with no known obstacles, we officially chose them.  It is a 7 year old boy and 8 (almost 9) year old girl.  Very first thing we did after walking out of the SDA office?  Neil bought a soccer ball in Ukrainian colors for the boy.  :)  Tomorrow we will pick up the referral papers, and on Sunday we will make the looooong journey south to the town of Berdyans'k, on the coast of the Black Sea.  Hopefully by Monday, we will be meeting the children meant to come home with us! 

 

Ukrainian, Russian, English.... won't really matter.  Hopefully we won't need words to express the things we really need to tell them. 







There is no shortage of parks for kids in Kiev, but this one? 

It's exactly what it looks like.  Seriously???

 

Oh happy day!