Should Have Known Better

There is not much to report in terms of our adoption of Nastya. We’re a bit sad that we have not heard from her but we are hopeful we will have a phone call with her and receive a letter from her very soon! We will, of course, share this with you!!

Our paperwork is progressing without issue. We have just been "invited" by US Immigrations to be fingerprinted in order to be cleared to adopt children internationally. Notice the word "children", as in "pleural". Yes, as in “more than one”. Our placement assessment approved us for three children – which is NOT (and never has been) the plan! However, it was the plan to adopt two, so I should have known better than to title this blog “Nastya’s Adoption”.

We’ve identified a boy who is 8-years-old who participated in a hosting program just like Nastya did when she stayed with us this summer only he went to Pennsylvania and by God’s design, ended up not being matched with a family. The family that hosted him had LOTS to say about him, but here’s the takehome: “I really just fell in love with him throughout the week and meeting him absolutely changed my outlook on life!  I am sure that you will feel the same if you get to meet him!  He is so full of energy, but there is a real sweetness to him too and his blue eyes can just melt you!” 

We are blessed to have the opportunity to get to know him a little bit through a family that spent significant time with him; but just like when we were faced with hosting Nastya, we had already decided we would adopt him NO MATTER WHAT!

So we need your prayers on this one! We will write to him this week and introduce ourselves. And we will follow up the first letter or two with a phone call to his orphanage (he’s not in the same orphanage as Nastya – more on that in a minute) to talk with him. Adoption to another country is scary for kids. Adoption by someone you don’t know has to be terrifying. The reality is both of our kids got a bad deal thus far in life and we pray that God brings them peace as we become a family!

A few details that might be of interest…

·         His name: We’ll call him “V” for now. As we progress in a relationship with him, know him better, and have more confidence in our adoption of him, we’ll divulge more specifics.

·         Where he is: In an orphanage in Ukraine. He’s not in the same orphanage or even the same region as Nastya. He is about 8-9 hours by car away.

·         How this changes things: Other than the obvious (adding an 8yo boy to our “to adopt” list & to our family), we’ll be in Ukraine a bit longer (we hope no more than two weeks) longer & our time there will be more complicated with travel back and forth to the different regions and Kiev. We think our initial travel to Ukraine to start the "in country" adoption process will only be delayed by a few weeks at the most. Nastya will be available for international adoption “sometime” in February and V is not available for international adoption until early March.

One more thing…we’ve been asked by many people if we will change their names (give them American names). We have no judgment for those who chose to do this but our feeling is that we do not want our children to feel as though *anything* about who they are, where they came from, what they’ve experienced, and, yes, even those they love is not important and perfectly ok with us. We fell in love with them even though they have names we do not relate to & I am have no doubt that you will too!!!