Comment from Jes

I must apologize for my lack of attention to technology.  I thought I was saving drafts of my last post, but it turns out it was publishing my "drafts".  I have deleted two of the drafts so that I only have one post about the appointment.  In the process of deleting the drafts I deleted the comment that Jessica made.  So, Jessica I will answer your questions here. 

First let me say that I really appreciate the prayers and support that everybody is giving us.  The first time we adopted we did not have so much support.  People actually told us we were crazy and they didn't think we should adopt.  Even close friends were opposed to our adoption.  They were praying for us, but all in all, we didn't feel that we had as much love and support and encouragement as we feel that we have this time.  So now, I can't say thank you enough.  It means more to me that you can even imagine to know that so many people are really backing us and praying to our Holy God on our behalf. 

Now, to the questions you asked.  You asked if we are adopting with an agency or independent and if we had been to Ukraine before.  We are adopting independent with the assistance of the translators we used last time.  Our translators are Kostya and Vanya.  Their web site is http://ukraineadoption.org/ if you are interested in checking them out.  They did such a great job and helped us so much that we wanted to use their services again this time.  We had tried to adopt our son back in 2006 with a different translator and our application was rejected.  That translator came down hard on us and made it out to be our fault that our application was turned down and told us we should have done a better job of checking everything.  It was our first time, so we didn't have a clue what would be acceptable in Ukraine or what would be rejected.  We had a US person review our application before we sent it to him and that person had given us the OK.  We thought it was all good.  We felt like, if he was the professional who does this for a living he should have caught anything that would not be accepted when he was doing the translation.  When we found that our application to adopt had been turned down, we were in the middle of a family crisis so we made the decision to wait to resubmit until things were going better at home.  Then, the Ukrainian government halted all international adoptions for a period of time.  We thought that maybe God was throwing some kinks in there to tell us not to adopt.  Our prayer was that if God was not the one leading us to adopt that he would stop the adoption by closing doors that we cannot open.  The Ukrainian government completely closing down international adoptions is obviously a door we can't open.  So we waited for a long time, even after Ukraine re instituted international adoptions, still knowing that we were supposed to do something for him but not knowing what.  In 2008 a friend of mine was going on a trip to Ukraine to meet the son she was working on adopting.  She asked my daughter, who was still in high school at the time, to go with her.  I pretty much said you are not going to Ukraine without me.  So I went to Ukraine with my friend and daughter.  Once I met the kids at the orphanage I fell in love with so many of them.  We stayed with a missionary and visited the orphanage almost every day to just love on the kids.  It was during that visit that I met my son for the first time.  After meeting him, my daughter and I both just knew that we had to begin the adoption process again.  I went home from that visit and told my husband that we had to bring him home, he was supposed to be in our family as our son.  We started the process all over again.  We traveled to Ukraine in June of 2009 and returned at the end of July with our son.  It was an amazing trip, an amazing experience, and all glory goes to an amazing God who walked us through every step. 

You mentioned that you will be hoping to submit your dossier soon, so you have peaked my curiosity.  Are you blogging?  If so, please send me your blog address so I can follow along.  Where in Ukraine are you adopting from?  I would love to hear your story as well.

Thanks for following along.