Ahhh......Computer time

If any of you reading this are a computer dependent family as we are, you will understand when I say I wish we all had our own laptop! I am having rare computer time right now (everyone else is asleep) so I thought I would play catch up on blogging.



I know some of you are interested in the adoption process itself so I thought I'd share a bit about what has transpired so far. However, I must warn you, it has been so smooth and trouble free, it is not at all interesting. But for you nuts and bolts folks, here it is in a nutshell. We had our SDA appointment on June 3rd. We arrived about 30 minutes before our scheduled appointment and were called in right on time. Our facilitator went in with us and translated. The young lady we met with was very polite and helpful. She said she had seen our homestudy but would like us to tell her a little more about ourselves. So my husband gave her a summary of our lives: our children, our jobs, etc. Then she shared what information was available from each of the children's files and we asked a few questions. Then she said "So if you still want to adopt these children, I will have referrals ready tomorrow." IF we still want to adopt these chldren?!! I restrained myself and politely said "yes, we definitley still want to adopt them" then we said our good-byes. We may have been in there 15 minutes.



Wednesday our facilitator picked up our referrals. Thursday we met with the Inspector in Kyiv at about 10:30. That, too, lasted maybe 15 minutes. She asked how we met V and how we knew he was the one we wanted to adopt. So I got to tell my story of how God birthed V into my heart back on that infamous night in July 2007. I showed her some pictures of our family with V and she remarked how much he and I looked alike. She then said soemthing about having confidence everything would work out since it was coming from the heart. We waited while she typed her referral for the orphanage then went to meet with the Director of V's orphanage.

This meeting lasted much longer, maybe 2 hours. We know the Director and already have a realtionship with her so there were no surprises here. She gave us a lot of helpful information about V's background then called V in to write up his petition. He was so excited! While he worked on his affidavit, the Director did all of her required paperwork. All of this was taken back to the Inspector who had to then issue an approval to be returned back to the SDA. I think she completed it on the following Wednesday morning and our facilitator submtitted it to the SDA on Thursday. It takes a week for the SDA to complete their final paperwork that has to be taken to court.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, we drove 10 hours to Lugansk. We met with the Inspector there on Monday. Our facilitator said that this was the longest meeting he had ever had with an Inspector. Actually, we met with the social worker in the Inspector's office in charge of R's file. He went through our homestudy and asked us a lot of follow-up questions. He wanted to know how we would educate R and what sort of opportunities would be available to him. He asked what our hopes were for R's future. He asked if we liked sports and what our involvment with sports has been. Lots and lots of questions along those lines. He knows R very well and said he cared very deeply about what happened to him. He showed us a newspaper article he had saved that had R's picture and a story about a sports event he had been involved in.



After this long meeting, the Inspector herself went with us to meet with R and the Director of his orphanage. Once again, we know the Director well and this meeting held no surprises. I presume because of age, R did not have to write an affidavit but instead gave his oral consent to the Inspector. She apparently had her approval ready by the next day (Tuesday) then on Wednesday the facilitator was meeting with the judge to get a court date. Late Wednesday afternoon, we heard the date was Monday, June 23rd. We could have gotten it as early as Friday the 20th but had to consider that the SDA needed a week to process their paperwork. The paperwork was put on the train Wednesday night and our facilitator in Kyiv was able to submit it to the SDA at the same time as our Kyiv paperwork.

On Thursday and Friday our Kyiv facilitator met with the court and called Friday to let us know our hearing would be Wednesday, June 25th. This court requires a preliminary hearing but he will try to get them both on the same day.

So that has been our expereince so far with the Ukrainian adoption system. So far, it gets rave reviews from our family! As do our facilitators.

We are currently back in Kyiv but will headed back out to Lugansk Thursday night (by train this time) to spend some time with R before court. We are also looking forward to seing some of our friends from the States who are volunteers at the camp where R is this week.

If I am allowed any more computer time today I will report on some of the fun things we have been doing in between official business. We shall see!