A little more good news from Ukraine - December 9th,2008

Paula and arrived in Kiev the day before yesterday to a snow storm. It was quite beautiful and reminded us of Cleveland:) Stayed in an apartment very close to Independence Square right down the street from McDonalds ( great expresso!)

Yesterday we met with the SDA and we feel that step 2 of 10 was successful. We met Dima who Paula said was the best looking guy she has seen in Ukraine ( except for me - she did not say that part). The women in the SDA office shuffled us right into our meeting, pulled out the pictures of Albina and Nadya, and asked us why were there, and why these 2 girls. For those of you who know, it is against the law to meet any children without hosting them so this was awkward but not unexpected. 

I said " we have friends that have adopted from this orphanage and told us about them" She then says "have you met the girls"  - This was a loaded question because if I answered "no" she might know about our previous attempts to adopt the girls. Anyway you get the picture. So I said " We met them briefly at the orphanage". Dima smiled, she smiled... no more questions.

She looked at her computer and told us " they have siblings. a brother in a mentally handicapped orphanage and a sister in college. We will give you referrals for all 4!" 

Now the next step is to convince the siblings to write refusal letters so we can get the 2 girls.

On and On it goes until God decides if we are to have them or not. 

At any rate - yesterday was a good day... they gave us referrals for the girls, we met Dima, and I had some Nemof pepper vodka...

More to come  - Michael and Paula

Good news - at least a little from Ukraine

Paula and I leave in a couple of days to start the process again and yesterday we received news that the Director was able to finally get the passports for the girls to visit here over the holidays. We still have a long road before they can have a new home but this was a bright spot for us. Originally we were told that it could probably happen in 10 days  - that was 6 weeks ago....so it is a good day. 

For those of you who are interested I have started writing a book about this experience and a survival guide that will be done in the spring I hope:)MR

Ukraine Adoption Attempt #2

It has been a few weeks since my last entry but just wanted to let you know that we are headed back to Ukraine this coming Sunday to try again!... Yes , I know what you are thinking.We cannot get enough and  have too much money to spend but the reality is we really want to help these children and are not about to give up without a fight!  So stay tuned for the next couple of weeks as it should be another adventure.

New SDA meeting approval

Here we go again - We received a new SDA approval and meeting today! Let's see... that was year for the first one and 4 weeks for the second. Goes to show that working directly without ANY agency is the way to go. Our appointment is in 2.5 weeks...that means missing christmas with our daughter, and lots of other stuff, not to mention that we still have hurdles once we get there because one of the girls has a 16 yr old sibling that refuses to allow her to be adopted. 

I get a headache just thinking about this whole process. Please Please Pray for a good outcome. 

As always stay tuned

Michael

Sorry no pictures

HI All,

Lets see - it is mid November and Paula and I are still at it. At this point we are waiting to see if we can get the passports for Nadya and Albina to come to Cleveland for a holiday hosting. Our dossier has been resubmitted and we are expecting to hear in a couple of weeks if they will approve our petition for the 2 girls. So much detail that I wont bore you. ---IT'S UKRAINE--- as they (everybody) says.  The director has promised we will have the passports next week . He says they ran out of blank ones!!...

Thanks for tuning in,

 Michael

Its not Over

Well as they say - its not over till its over!

Paula and I found a great hosting organization Frontier Horizons who have been very helpful and we are trying to host Albina and Nadia for the Xmas holiday!  We also accomplished a feat the is  unheard of in the world of adoption. We completed a whole new dossier in 8 days, complete with a home-study update and USCIS, Fbi checks  - the whole set of docs. We are re-submitting to the SDA next week  with a petition for Albina and Nadia. 

We also have a new facilitator who is more in touch, honest and straight with us. His name is Dima, an experienced young man who seems to be on top of everything and understands the process.

Keep your prayers coming ! I'll let you know what happens...

Michael

Home and Thinking

Paula and I are slowly getting used to the fact that nothing good came from our efforts. For those of you who are thinking of adoption from Ukraine , or who are in the process I will be writing a detailed account of what happened to us, what we learned about corruption, and hopefully a helpful list of what to watch out for and possibly avoid our outcome, We know God is watching over the children. They will be ok, and so will we.

PS if there is anybody following this Blog that knows of a xmas hosting program please let us know. 

:)Michael