Eating Cheese at the Wall

It's Neil's turn to use the blog as a stress remedy...

We are into our 7^th week in Ukraine since first leaving on April  7^th.  Today is exactly three months from our first appointment with the SDA.  We have accomplished a lot and have just a couple things left to complete so we can bring Anya and Sasha home, but those tasks are still evading us.  We are so blessed by what we have, are able to do, and our freedoms and liberties.  I sit here struggling with feeling irritated that I am not on my way home today as planned.  It gives perspective to the uncertainty that people in Ukraine live with every day.  It seems like some rule, guideline, law, or standard is changing every day.  People here never know what to expect when it comes to dealing with medical or governmental needs.  They just show up, ask questions, muddle through it, and hope they get what they came for.  I guess if this is all you know, maybe it doesn’t seem strange. 

Here is my confession for the day.  I am frustrated.  I have hit my wall, am stressed out and am struggling to give it over to God.  After waiting 12 days now for passports, and after having to change our airplane tickets to a week later than our already conservative departure date, I have hit my wall with delays, issues, and changes.   Thank God for providing the McDuff’s and the other great families we have met here in Kiev, and our prayer warriors back home.  If it wasn’t for them I think my wall would have come, been climbed over and “Berlined” at least a week ago.   I’m in that place where anything can irritate me. 

A short list of items that have stressed us out over the last two weeks:  Passport delays; positive skin reaction to TB tests (both kids); false information, no information, and continually changing information with no good guidance on how to plan; missing Sophie and Claire; and Claire losing a tooth while we are gone.  Yes, somehow not being there when she lost her first top front tooth (not her first tooth even) pushed us over the wall. 

So I’m at my wall this morning, already working on this blog entry, and I get my email with my daily bible verse... and it is this:  I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. — Philippians 4:11.

I could take this two ways.  One as a slap in the face for not being compliant with his plan (although I think I’ve been a good sport so far), or that he is meeting me where I am and giving me guidance.  I think it may be a little bit of both, so I will humble myself, refocus, and continue to bond with my family.  We have had so many great moments over the past week and a half.  I’ll return my focus to nurturing them and praying for guidance on how to show them God’s love and message through acts, words, and a language barrier. 

As the saying goes… “When stuck in a mouse trap, you might as well eat the cheese.”

Dependence Day

Happy July 4th to everyone!  As you all celebrate at home, it is just another day in Ukraine.  But not for the Stinsons.  This is perhaps the most poignant Independence Day we will ever celebrate.  Not only because we appreciate our home country more than ever, but also because we are waiting for our own Independence Day, for the freedom to move forward as a family. 

 

Yesterday we went to the US Embassy in Kiev.  As we drove up and I caught sight of the American flag flying in front of the building, I was overcome with emotion.  After spending so many weeks outside the country, everything that flag represents means so much more to us.  I can hardly wrap my head around the freedoms that we enjoy as Americans.  We like to gripe about politics and media and the price of gas... but most of the time we pay no attention to just how good we have it, in all areas of life! 

 

The most amazing gift that we have been blessed with as Americans is freedom.  We are free to go where we want, when we want.  We are free to pursue any vocation that we want.  We are free to have relationships with anyone, regardless of their class or status.  And most importantly to me, we have the freedom to worship however and whenever and wherever we want. 

We can appreciate our freedom more than ever, given that we are now experiencing what it feels like to NOT be free to come and go as we please.  We are not free to leave Ukraine, and we have absolutely no control over when we WILL be able to leave.  It's out of our hands and all we can do is wait for things to turn around.  If we have learned nothing else through this process, we've learned that God's timing is perfect even when it makes no sense to us!  So we trust him that he has a reason for us to be delayed, and our eyes are wide open to seeing what that might be. 

 

While America is celebrating its independence today, the Stinsons are instead celebrating our dependence, on a God who is bigger than all of these circumstances. 

 

But His word also says, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. - Matthew 7:7-8  So I've been asking away, and I won't be shy about asking you to pray for us too!  I may be unhappy about being delayed, but I can handle almost everything about it.  The one thing that is breaking my heart however is being separated from Sophia and Claire, with no definite end in sight (and this separation has given me a whole new appreciation for military families).  Even though the girls have been handling it better than I could have ever hoped, I know it is very hard for them to have both their parents away for so many weeks.  It's because of them that I pray incessantly for God to clear the path and allow us to bring Sasha and Anya home soon.  It's time for all the Stinsons to be under one roof!

Toddlerhood 2.0

God knew what he was doing when he put it on my heart to adopt.  He knows that I lack patience for some areas of parenting but find more joy in others.  While I know some mothers who LOVED pregnancy, I was not one of them; I think they must have been slipped something in their epidural to alter their memory.  The ONLY part of being pregnant that I enjoyed was the knowledge that our family was being blessed with a baby.  I could say the same thing about the infant stages.  I adore other people’s babies, but if I’m being honest, I’m just as happy to give them back after a while. 

But TODDLERHOOD… now there’s a different story.  Give me an 18-month-old, or a 2-year-old, or a 3-year-old any day!   I loved this stage of parenting.  While I sometimes heard other moms express frustrations about their child’s budding tantrums or stubbornness (and I’m sure I did on occasion too), I don’t remember a day of toddlerhood that I didn’t absolutely love.  I called it the “age of discovery”… where everything is new and exciting, and children can’t wait to try new things.  Yes, it often meant difficulties and temper tantrums.  But I loved every minute of it. 

In toddlerhood, you start to truly parent your child and have a different relationship with them.  You talk to them constantly, labeling everything you see and do so that they can learn the language.  You are constantly redirecting behaviors, doing so with lots of motions and short sentences that they can understand, like “Ouch!  Biting hurts Mommy!”  Toddlers speak to you with language you often can’t understand, but you’d better figure it out any way you can – sink or swim!  As their parent, you can interpret a toddler’s needs better than anyone… and let’s be honest, a toddler shows her appreciation for all your hard work more than an infant does, and that’s just nice.  Toddlers need toilet training.  You have to watch a toddler every moment because you just never know what they are going to do.  But their unpredictability can also make them hilarious; a toddler will make you laugh about things you’ve never laughed about before.  If I could have had my wish, we would have adopted a toddler. 

Guess what having an child who doesn’t speak the same language as me reminds me of???  After 4 days alone with our kids, I've decided that it reminds me of parenting a toddler. 

 

All those parenting skills you use with your toddler to improve their language, their social skills, their habits?  They are the same ones we are currently digging out of the long-forgotten corners of our parenting bag of tricks.   My kids and I can’t understand each other – it is now our 24/7 job to figure out their needs anyway.  Having less than ideal parenting early in life, and having lived in an institution for the past 2 years, I can’t just assume that they know anything that a 7-year-old and 9-year-old might normally know!  They need to be watched every second because they’re so unpredictable to us.  I can’t assume, for example, that my 7-year-old has the common sense to not touch the stove or run out into the street.  We use lots of gestures and repeat very short phrases to teach them not to do these things, just like you would with a toddler.  We find ourselves once again monitoring bathroom habits to make sure that everyone has indeed used toilet paper, flushed, and washed their hands with soap, and takes off their underwear when they shower!  There's a lot of old habits to undo, whenever the time is right.

I won't pretend that it isn't exhausting and sometimes frustrating... a toddler is at least smaller!  You can wrangle up and confine a toddler if you really need to.  And a toddler has usually been hearing you speak a common language for a while, and they usually understand much more of what we say than we give them credit for!  We don't have that advantage with Anya and Sasha.  I think we must spend 1/2 our day with our noses in a Russian dictionary.  And they are much bigger and stronger than toddlers - it's amazing the things they can get into. 
 

But OH MY GOODNESS, can they make us laugh!  I could write a whole separate blog entry about all the unpredictable and funny things that they have done that have, just like a toddler would do.  My most memorable in these past 4 days was when Anya figured out how to turn on the bidet in the bathroom.  Thank goodness I was in the room – I looked over to find her bending over, hair hanging into it, as if she was going to take a drink.  In my wildest parenting dreams, this is not a sentence I would have anticipated having to use in my parenting: “ANYA, NYET, THAT’S NOT A DRINKING FOUNTAIN, IT’S FOR WASHING YOUR BUTT!!!!!!!” 

 

Thank you God for you sense of humor, and for crafting me into the kind of parent who was made to find joy in this new, more intense version of “toddlerhood” that we are experiencing now!

 

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV)

 

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.