The adventure at home while were in the air between Germany and Russia

When we decided that we were going to add a child to our family we knew we would need a bigger vehicle.  Our Tahoe was the sport version and it just didn't have any storage space for luggage in the back if we used all the seats.  We began our look for a vehicle and as I'm really more of the "as long as we all fit and it is comfortable and reliable it is fine with me" kind of person, I let Chad take over the look.  He called up the lady he bought his truck from and told her what we wanted.  Within about a day she called and said she had an Expedition which fit the bill for what we wanted.  The problem was we were leaving for Russia that following day and just didn’t have time so go look at it.  After sending pictures and deciding it was indeed just what were looking for she said she would bring it to us along with papers to sign if we wanted to purchase it.  So about 2 hours before we left for the airport we got the Expedition and I drove it about a whole 3 blocks to test drive, we signed the papers, loaded the kid paraphernalia in and handed the keys to our wonderful friend Katie who was staying with the boys.  She would be driving it for the week.  We had thought it worked out great because when the word got out that we were going to sell the Tahoe we had 2 different friends contact us wanting to buy it for their daughter that live out of town.  The next day (a whole 24 hours after be bought the Expedition) Katie had to go get something from her house.  She took the boys in and when they came back out the new Expedition would not start.  Katie being the calm person that she is just called one of the wonderful emergency contacts that we left her.  Kendra came to her rescue and went to our house to get the Tahoe. She soon found out that the Tahoe was not there but there was a car from our local dealership sitting in our driveway.  Chad had told Kendra that we had someone wanting to buy the Tahoe but there was a service light on that we wanted to get fixed.  Kendra works with Chad and had seen many times the dealership bring a loaner when they needed to service one of our vehicles. So naturally Kendra assumed that the Tahoe was in the shop and they had left a loaner.  So she took the “loaner” to Katie.   Actually one of the guys that work at that dealership wanted to buy the Tahoe for his daughter and Chad had left him a key so when she came in town he could show her and test drive it.  When this guy got back from his test drive and his car was gone he thought it had been stolen so he called the police.  Meanwhile when the Expedition wouldn't start Katie had put in a movie to keep the boys occupied while she tried to figure out what to do.  Well rather than make the boys leave in the "loaner car" AKA "stolen car" in the middle of the movie they just stayed at her house until it got over. Meanwhile when the police came and realized there was a "stolen car" they also knew we were out of town and began to get concerned about the wear about of our children.  (One advantage of a small town where we go to church with the police chief).  They proceeded to search our house looking for clues as to where our kids were.  They had spotlights out and were spotlighting our neighborhood.  One of our neighbors came outside and the police even had her come search our house with him to see if she thought anything looked out of place.  Everything looked normal so they apparently began to figure out how to contact Katie.  From what I have been told the police got on my computer and looked up Katie’s Face book account and found her brothers phone number.  They called him and got Katie’s number and called her to see if everything was ok.  Of course she had no idea that all this fuss had gone on.  She simply thought she was going to drive this "loaner car" back to our house when the boys got finished watching their movie.  Anyway the dealership where we bought the Expedition came and towed away our new Expedition and brought her a real loaner.  They found out that somehow the key got deprogrammed and the ignition did not recognize it.  They then deprogrammed the whole vehicle then reprogrammed it and it has been fine ever since.  Luckily the whole incident did not scare Katie away and she is willing to watch our kids for us.   I also learned later that before the new Expedition got towed away Kendra’s husband (our pastor) came to take car seats out.  One of them is installed differently than the ones they have and he had trouble getting it out so he called the police to have them tell him how to get it out.  The police came and took the car seat out of the Expedition which was parked right beside the “stolen car”, but no one noticed.  Who would have thought that the pastor would be trying to put car seats in the “stolen car”? 

We appreciate all that everyone had done for us while we are in our adoption process.  We have great friends and family that are so willing to help out with our kids and take over the office while we are away.  We also appreciate that the police were concerned with the safety and whereabouts of our children.  We also appreciate that all you wonderful friend took control of the situation when we were in the air somewhere between Germany and Russia and handled it.  We learned tiny bits thru our e-mail contact but did not even learn of the whole situation until we returned which was no doubt for the better.  Katie even was able to keep the boys busy so they did not even realize the police came and were searching for the “stolen vehicle”.  What great friends!

When God Winks at You

During our business Christmas Party this year, I met a new friend that had heard about our adoption process.  She wanted to hear all about it because her daughter was also in the process of adopting.  During our visit she asked if I had ever heard of "God Winks" and while I certainly had felt the power of God in my life I had never heard it called that. I later found out that the next day she drove over 3 hours to buy me the book called "When God Winks at You" by Squire Rushness.  It is a book about how God speaks directly to you through the power of coincidence.  God has given us many of these "winks" thru our process, where we just know he is saying that this is what he wants us to be doing.  One such example came just a couple days ago.  Our adoption case got assigned to a new judge in Russia that our agency had not dealt with much.  We had been told that the last family that went before her on Christmas Eve also had their own business and she drilled them for 4 long hours to make sure they were prepared to add child to their family.  This worried us a little and we were given this families e-mail to correspond about what we could expect.  The judge also requested a huge amount of additional paperwork.  We had 1 week to complete everything and have it to the agency to make our court date.  This would not normally put me in panic mode except there documents that had to be prepared by some of the people we deal with the business. One of these important documents had to be written by our CPA.  It happens to be that our CPA is in TX, and with technology it should not be a problem except that the document had to be apostilled (a seal by the secretary of state in the state it was wrote).  The problem is that TX has a 10 day turn around on apostilling.  How was I going to get an original document from TX appostilled and to OH in 7 days?  I prayed about how on earth we could possible get this done and I happened to notice that the family that had gone before the same judge that I had e-mailed once was from TX.  I e-mailed this family and asked if they happened to know of a way to get this paper apostilled in less than 10 days so we could make our court date.  This perfect stranger said "just overnight it to me and I will go hand deliver it and get it done".  Wow! This person that I had corresponded with in one e-mail was willing to go to a governmental agency and wait in line to get this stamp for our family!  This family was busy preparing to leave for Russia in 2 days to bring their new son home.  Normally I would never send our financial information to a complete stranger but I just knew that this kind stranger was an answer to my prayer.  Short of driving to TX myself in a snowstorm I don't really think our document would have made it in time and we would have missed our court date.  I am very happy to say that I found out today that all our newly assigned documents made it and it looks like we will be clear for court on the 26th. Thank you so much Heather.  You were the answer to my prayer that day.  

Our little girls name

Some of you may of noticed that I have been calling our little girl Josie.  That will be her nickname.  We are not allowed to put her legal or pictures on internet until the adoption is final.

Paper Chase

This week has definitely been the most stressful part of the entire adoption process.  Our case was "lucky" enough to be given the new judge that our agency had just dealt with a handful of times.  We had all of our paperwork completed weeks ago but she has since requested so much additional that I can't possibly imagine what else she could possible want.  Having our own business has thrown her for a loop. We have all but one thing in the process of getting Appostilled  (a seal from the Secretary of State).  The last piece WILL be in the Fed-X box tomorrow to make the deadline of being apostilled and in OH by Thur.  I will feel so much better when all this paperwork is complete and we can just focus on our upcoming trip and our boys.  I have heard adoption paperwork called paperwork pregnancy.  I now agree.  I don't mean to complain.  We feel so fortunate to be going thru this process and know that God will help us see it thru.  We could use some prayers for our court that is Jan 26th in Russia.  We are told this judge will give us a run for our money. 

Comments

I did not realize I had it set so you had to be registered to leave a comment.  I have now changed it. 

Our dreams

I had mentioned in an earlier post that Chad and I had been having the same dream about adopting and did not realize it.  I will share a little about that.  I (Kelly) had been having dreams that I was in an orphanage and would meet our child but could never see her face.  I had those dreams for years but knew Chad was not really on the same page about adoption for us so I didn't talk to him about the dreams.  I had begun to pray to God that if adoption was not something that was right for our family that he take it off my heart.  I just did not want to have the same feelings when it was too late in life to do anything about it.  I could not imagine there being a child that God had for us and never finding her.  I bought adoption up to Chad occasionally during our marriage but we always said we would pray about it and if it was what God had for us we would know. Some time ago I finally mentioned the dreams to Chad and as soon as I did his face got white and he got very quiet.  He told me a couple days later that he had been having the same dream but just could not figure out where he was and why he could not understand the language that he heard.  In his dreams he had been walking in a hallway and up a long staircase, but he could never get to the top.  Chad then began to wonder if God really was trying to show us something.  Then one Sunday we sat in Sunday School and our teacher gave us a lesson that was about following God's path and trimming everything else from our lives.  The teacher had brought in a peach tree branch for demonstration and is sure made in impact.  Chad felt as God had put this lesson in his life at this time to help show him what he had planned.  Later that day in church Chad had an overwhelming sense that God had a child he wanted us to go find. He pulled my into our wonderful pastors office and told me what God had been revealing to him and thus our journey began.  Fast forward several months.  While in the orphanage we were going to the room where we would spend our time playing with Josie and on our way we opened a door and there was that hallway from his dream with the long stairway that he could never get to the top of. Only this time he did reach the top, and I got to see our Daughters sweet face.  What a wonderful day that was!

Court Date!!

We got our court date!! It is Dec 26th.  We were told we would not hear a date until after the shut down was over so this was a very nice surprise!  After court we will come back home and then return to St Petersburg about 2 weeks later to pick her up.   This last trip will be about 10 days to 2 weeks long as there are a lot of appointments we will have to take her to such as getting her passport and visa.  We are guessing she will be home by mid Feb.  We are very excited!