Market Day

Today is our last day in Odessa. Tonight we will get on the overnight train and head back to Kiev. Our paperwork arrived in Paris last night, and this morning, showed it was in transit – meaning, on its way to Kiev!

Our overnight train will arrive at 7:39 AM Sunday morning in Kiev. Kostya’s train arrives at 8 AM from his hometown, Gorlovka. We will go to our apartment, shower and then head out to church. We are excited to attend church here, even though it will be entirely in Russian! After church we’ll have the rest of the afternoon to enjoy Kiev, and then Monday morning we will hopefully be able to pick up our paperwork, attach Kostya’s translations, get it notarized and bring it to the NAC. With any luck, we’ll leave the NAC with our permission to visit the children, get train tickets for that night, and head to Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. This town of about 30,000 is a 2-hour bus ride from Odessa. If all of that goes as planned (which we are about batting 0 for luck thus far!), we’ll be able to visit the kids on Tuesday!

First thing this morning we headed out to the largest market in Ukraine, which is on the outskirts of Odessa. It is called 7-Kilometer market. We were there for about 3 hours and barely saw 10% of the market. While our Ukrainian friends say they much prefer our local mall for shopping, John and I would have to disagree. It was busy, hectic & crazy – but the selection, spirit and environment there was something to enjoy! Around the outside of the market, there are stalls to purchase fruit, vegetables, cheese and smoked fish and chicken. The interior of the market is really something to see.

There are rows upon rows of goods for sale – clothing, shoes, tools, curtains, household goods, children’s items, lighting, undergarments, furniture, rugs and more. There was even an aisle complete with wedding supplies – suits, wedding dresses, flowergirl and bridesmaid dresses, and accessories! The aisles are made from shipping containers placed side-by-side, open to the aisle. Each container is decorated as individual stores, complete with wood or linoleum flooring, lights, ceiling fans, and covered awnings. The containers are actually stacked two deep and two high, and many of the fancier “container stores” have, in the back of the container, ladder steps to the top container for employee access.

I took several pictures of the market – it was very difficult to capture the market accurately, but hopefully you can get an idea through these pictures.


This picture was taken while walking down one of the many rows of the market. The walkway is narrow, filled with vendors/distributors walking up and down with large handcarts full of merchandise, shoppers, and also individual salespeople selling drinks, homemade goods, and when it began raining - one-time raincovers!


A shop for the "unmentionables".


A shop just for women's shirts. The displays show each style they have at that particular shop and you ask for your particular size. Actually, usually the salespeople "size you up" and pull out the appropriate one for you.


This was one of many wedding shops. It offered wedding dresses, as well as various accessories for hair, and church decoration.


A traditional Ukrainian wedding accessory. The parents of the bride and groom bring bread and salt (the two words on the towel) to respresent prosperity and health. It is placed on this special towel displayed at the church during the wedding.


We found these traditional Ukrainian scarves at the market and bought some to bring home to friends (we were more thinking for table decorations). Lena and Nina decided to dress me up as a Ukrainian girl.


The back of the beautiful scarf.

So, that's it for today! Hope you enjoy the pictures! Have a great day and God bless!

Picture Day!

I have decided today to figure out how to post pictures on the web. On our computer at home, I have downloaded a fancy little program that does it for me. Without that program, I am a little lost. However, I figured I have an entire day, with nothing else to do, and I am a reasonably intelligent human being, I should be able to figure this out! So, with any luck, there will be only a few words, but lots of pictures today!


Quite some time ago, I talked about shopping at the outdoor market in Odessa. This picture was taken in the fish market section. All the hanging fish were smoked. John and Vladimir bravely purchased and tasted one of these fish, but were quickly turned off by the blue blood in it! Our favorite memory of the fish market is seeing one lady manning her little stand full of smoked fish, with a fly swatter in hand to keep the bugs off her produce! If I could have taken a picture, I would have, believe me! Also at the market are fresh fish - seeing all the fresh fish laying out on the stands in the hot weather, might just convince you to steer clear of eating fish in Odessa!


This picture was taken in the fruit and vegetable part of the market. Everywhere you look there are people (and this was a weekday!). It was hard to capture the size, busyness and character of the market, so you'll just have to take our word for it!


This is the infamous building that houses the National Adoption Center. I'm not sure what else is found inside this building, but the NAC offices were on the top floor.


I took this picture after we left the NAC for the second time, after requesting a referral to the sibling group we chose (and are still waiting to visit!). John's goofy smile reflects the joy and happiness that were in our hearts after that monumental decision. This archway is the entrance to the NAC door off of the main street.


And here we are at the front door of the NAC. You enter through this door, climb about 4 flights of stairs, and then you see...


This picture/sculpture is on the wall (it is huge) as you come up the steps to the NAC office.

So, we'll see how this works! Off to publish....

Ok, back again. It seems with a little tweaking, I managed to figure it out! So, I will add more pictures. I know all these pictures will make your pages slower to load, but I hope you enjoy them. From now on, now that I know how to post pictures, I'll try to post them with the appropriate journal entry, rather than all at once!


A favorite summer activity for Ukrainians is to head to the beach. Last Sunday we went to Ilechovsk with Lena and Vladimir. The Black Sea was beautiful, the sand beaches were filled with people and the sun was hot! Since John and I had both gotten a lot of sun during the previous two days, we decided to just watch, and not swim.


In downtown Kiev there is a beautiful area called "Independence Square". It has a statue and these beautiful water fountains. Kostya and his son enjoyed the cool water fountains after our appointment at the NAC. This Independence Square was built after Ukraine's independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.


So far, we have ridden on the overnight trains twice. There are little compartments on the train cars. Each compartment holds four people. There are two bottom bunks, and two top bunks. Ideally, Kostya has explained to us, you buy out the entire compartment, so you have it just to yourself. However, in the summer, you are just quite happy when you get tickets! John, Lena and Vladimir in our train compartment on the overnight train from Odessa to Kiev.


John and I in our train compartment, ready to head to Kiev for our NAC appointment.




The children in Ukraine have really caught our attention because they are so cute! I took these two pictures on the Black Sea boat cruise.


As you know from our journal, our hosts have been pleading with us "to rest, to relax, to enjoy!" Honestly, we are relaxed, rested and enjoyed out! Last night, after John asked to please help with dinner, and was told once again "to rest - you have many children very soon and no time to rest, you must rest!" he dramatically plopped himself on the living room floor, claiming he felt like a jellyfish, he was so rested out!


"Resting, relaxing and enjoying" in front of a boring (is there any other kind?!) soccer match on TV!

So, that ends the photo album for the day. Our digital camera has an email picture format which, at the same time it creates a 5 megapixel picture, it creates these small-size email-version pictures for posting. They aren't the best quality, but hopefully they give you a general idea. We forgot to "turn on" the email format until after being in Ukraine for awhile, so some early pictures we can't post because they are too big.

However, from here on out, until we run out of room on our server, we will try to consistently post pictures for you to enjoy.

On one more note, our FedEx is getting close to Paris, so hopefully we will see it here in Kiev on Monday!

Rambling Thoughts and Observations

With time to spare, and only soccer to watch on TV, I thought I would take some time to write a journal entry that gathers together some thoughts, observations and ideas we’ve gathered from Ukraine thus far.

Clothes and DressIt appears most Ukrainians have two sets of clothes; those they wear around the house, and those they wear out in public. When you are out and about in town, regardless of the day or time, you will notice that people are generally quite dressed up. Women have skirts and blouses, or dresses, with sandals or often heels. Men wear slacks and dress shirts. Even young children are typically dressed up – girls have bows and ribbons in their hair and they are almost always in dresses, and boys also have “nice clothes” on. It doesn’t matter if you are going to church, to the local market to buy tomatoes, or just for a stroll through the park, it seems most Ukrainians put on their nice clothes when they go out in public.

As soon as they get home, however, they immediately change out of their nice clothes, and put on their house clothes. It seems that “house clothes” typically consist of one or two outfits that are worn consistently, everyday.

If you are going to be traveling soon to Ukraine, I would suggest that you take this into consideration, and pack accordingly. I packed several shirts that I could mix and match with pants, capris, skirt, skorts, and jumper I brought with me. Even though the shirts are nicer t-shirts, they are definitely too casual in comparison to most Ukrainians. A while ago, we were able to go shopping, and I purchased a skirt, two blouses and a dress, which have greatly complimented what I brought with me. At the apartment here in Ukraine, I wear a t-shirt and shorts. When we go out, I will wear that same t-shirt, or a blouse, along with a skirt. I haven’t even taken my khaki pants out of the suitcase after being here 2 ½ weeks! I rarely wear the skorts because they are too casual feeling. In actuality, wearing skirts is the coolest thing you can wear – so find a comfortable, cool skirt or two, some matching blouses, a comfy pair of shorts and you should be good!

A note about shoes. We only brought one pair of shoes with us – the ones on our feet. John has sandals, which work well with pants and shorts, and I have black slip-on sandals. Just be sure to bring something comfortable because you will walk a lot! When you are in the house, you will probably go barefoot, or wear slippers, if you choose to bring some. It is warm enough now, I can’t imagine putting hot slippers on my feet during the day, and am quite happy to go barefoot.

Another thought about dress. Even though at times I have felt underdressed, we have never been picked out to be foreigners. In fact, we have had to give many puzzled looks and “I don’t speak Russian” comments to people that have tried to engage us in conversation. Dress is not so much the key to fitting in, as is being quiet, observing and doing as the Ukrainians do!


Water IssuesI remember a lot of grumbling and talk about water issues in Ukraine. This is a little of what we have learned and observed. Hot water is produced in a central location in the town/city, and distributed accordingly. Therefore, when the city decides to not have hot water, you don’t have hot water. It is possible to purchase individual wall-mount water heaters. Our friends, and the apartment we stayed at in Kiev, both had individual hot water heaters. You turn them on before your shower, and have hot water. If your apartment doesn’t have that, you are at the mercy of the city policy on providing hot water.

There have been a few nights here in Odessa when the city has turned off all water in the evenings. This is a water-conservation method. Apparently, when the water level gets to a certain point, water is turned off in the night to build up the quantity again. Here in Odessa, water shortage is an issue. Many of the city fountains and pools (not swimming pools – just decorative pools in the parks) are empty because of the water shortage.


UtilitiesMany, if not most, people in Ukraine, live in 5,6,7-story apartment buildings – many of which were built during Soviet times. Our friends shared with us that sometimes their utilities are turned off because someone else in the apartment building didn’t pay their bill! There are times when you still note the “collective” mentality, for lack of a better phrase.

Bathing
While I’m sure they exist, we haven’t yet seen showers in Ukrainian homes. It seems most have bathtubs with a handheld shower wand. So, in order to bathe, you sit in the tub, and use the shower wand, as there is no wall mount for the wand, nor is there a curtain around the bathtub.

Security
So far, we haven’t had any issues with feeling unsafe in Ukraine. We have been out walking late in the evening, and haven’t even felt unsure about our surroundings. There have been places that we have been extra careful about pick pocketing, but that has been the extent of our concerns. We clearly feel safer here, even on our own, unable to read signs or understand people’s speech, than we do in parts of Spokane or Seattle. Just a note about packing issues again – John didn’t even bring his wallet with him, as we thought that might be a sure target for pickpockets. We brought our money belts and a neck travel wallet that holds our passports, tickets, and small amounts of money.

Something to DoIf you have been following our journey so far, you know we have had a lot of time on our hands. With any luck, you won’t choose a sibling group bigger than your INS approval, and you won’t have quite so much time on your hands! However, be sure to bring something to do. We brought a card game, Yatzhee and Scrabble. We also brought several books to read. Well, our books are read, are games are played, and we are making great headway in reading through the Bible in a month (instead of a year!) and we are wishing we had brought more to do. Start thinking now about what you never have time for at home. Even if it takes up more room in your suitcase, the little extra work to carry it around will be worth it for your sanity’s sake! As we have finished reading our books, we have simply given them to our Ukrainian friends, so we don’t have to carry them home again.

Another thought – if you belong to a church, check with the denomination’s missionary board before you leave to see if there are local missionaries in Ukraine. They would likely love a visit from fellow countrymen, and it would be something else enjoyable to fill your time with.


Getting OrganizedOne of the best things we brought was a spiral bound notebook. Before we left, I wrote all the contact information for our Ukrainian friends and our translator. I also noted our FedEx account number (which we’ve used!), friends’ email addresses, and work phone numbers for John. If anything is important, it is written in our book. This has been extremely handy, particularly as we have made numerous trips to the “international call center” to make arrangements for our paperwork changes. It is just a simple idea, but one that has been very practical.

When you are preparing your little notebook, be sure to include all the contact information for your social worker and/or homestudy agency, local BCIS office, notary, Secretary of State’s office that does the apostilles, and FedEx (or whatever international shipping business you use). We didn’t have these items with us, and while we were able to track them down, it would have been quicker and easier to be able to just look in our notebook.

One more thought, and many of you adoptive parents who are reading this are beyond this point, but when you are doing your homestudy, get approved for the maximum number of children you could ever see yourself accepting. When we did our homestudy, we had heard the recommendation to get approved for one more than what we were thinking. I’m not sure if we would have had our homestudy written for the number it now states, but had we done that, it would have saved us a 8-10 days of boredom, frustration and heartache.

Packing
We would highly recommend using the Packmates bags (or something similar). We bought them through their 800-phone number and just bought their “adoptive parent special” – 15 medium bags for $30. We probably only used half of the bags, so could have easily shared the package with another family.

Using the Packmates, we were able to pack all of our clothes in a small carry-on bag. We checked two large suitcases that were completely filled with donations we were bringing with us. So, on our way home, we will only have a small carry-on, plus two empty suitcases for souvenirs, gifts and items for the children.
In addition, I would hazard a guess that you could find pretty much anything you might need here. While we haven’t seen contact lens solution, we could easily purchase a wide variety of shampoo, conditioner, hair styling items, makeup, lotions (Avon is very popular here!), toothpaste, etc. This isn’t to say – don’t pack any of that stuff. But, maybe just pack a travel size, and when you run out, it will give you something to go do that day!

Well, I just moved over onto the fourth page, so I will close. I realize this wasn’t very exciting for our friends and family to read, but I hope it gave some of you parents waiting to travel to Ukraine some good ideas to think about.

I’m off to post this journal entry, and then check on the status of our FedEx package.

Have a great day!

Still in Ukraine, and Still Waiting

Is Carbohydrate-Overdose a Suitable Cause of Death???!!
(John’s suggested title for today’s entry)

Yes, we are still here in Ukraine. We tried desperately to fly home for a week, but couldn’t find any tickets. There was only one ticket to be found that was in first/business class for $5000! So, since we couldn’t leave the country, we took it as a pretty good sign that we were supposed to stay here.

We also looked at flying to St. Petersburg to visit for the weekend. It would have been only $45 roundtrip for each of us. But, as it turns out, we need a visa to visit Russia. So, that too was out.

While we were spending time online searching for airline tickets, my mother-in-law was spending her day in Big Sky, Montana desperately trying to find a faster way for our documents to be sent to us. We had arranged to use FedEx, but kept thinking that surely there must be a faster way…we tried to use air cargo with NWA (they don’t accept new shippers after 9/11 terrorist attacks), UPS, send them as government documents….Joanne even was thinking about buying a ticket for Patrick, my brother-in-law, to bring them over himself (no tickets!)!

We ended up using FedEx, and so are now tracking the shipments. They missed the cut-off time in Boise last night, so won’t be sent out until today. The FedEx European office assures us our documents will be delivered the day after they arrive in Europe. And, so now we wait!

And while we wait, our gracious Ukrainians hosts have trouble understanding why we do not enjoy our time of resting and relaxing. They won’t even let us help prepare or clean up from meals, and keep instructing us “You must to relax, to rest, to enjoy”. We have watched more sports in the last few days then we’ve probably seen in a year. It seems sporting events are the one thing that we don’t need to understand the language for on TV. You would know it’s bad if you saw us watching soccer matches like we did yesterday!

That too, brings us to John’s proposed title for today’s entry. If we don’t die of boredom or too much resting and relaxing, then it might well be from Carbohydrate-overdose! We have really enjoyed Ukrainian food, but keep laughing that it would never fit well in today’s low-carb diets at home. Last night for dinner, for example, we had baked potatoes (plain), rolls with butter and cucumber/tomato salad (a staple – we’ve had it every night we’ve been here).

Our plans for this weekend are to go back to Kiev, if we can get tickets. The trains seem to be constantly sold-out, and so we might have to fly (aw shucks!). A hot 10-hour train ride vs. an enjoyable 1-hour flight!! No question!

Thank you so much for your prayers. They have been getting us through. The nights are the worst, as the day of sitting, waiting, resting, relaxing, missing kids, feeling “stuck” compounds on itself. But, we pray the end is in sight, and soon we will be able to visit our children.

We have begun talking about plans for the children again, as it seems like it might really happen. The last few days when we were in such limbo, we haven’t dared to utter the kids’ names, because we didn’t know if it would ever work out to visit them! So, in between soccer matches, games of Scrabble and Yatzhee, and our high-carb meals, we have begun planning bedroom configurations, vehicle needs, schooling ideas, and more!

Bad News from the NAC

Just when we thought things were looking up, the NAC has now decided to not grant us permission to visit the children until our notarized, apostilled copies arrive from the US. Kostya was at the NAC for over an hour trying to convince them otherwise, with our approval from immigration for the increased number of kids, as well as documentation from the Embassy indicating the increase was based on receiving an appropriate addendum. Apparently, the NAC officers who issue permission to visit children showed him another family’s documents that were in a similar situation as us. They had been approved for 2 children, chosen 3, and were first granted permission to visit their children after all documents had arrived from the US.

So, now we have to wait for FedEx to arrive. It won’t likely be here until Monday or Tuesday, meaning we won’t be able to see the kids until Wednesday or Thursday. Over a week of just waiting, with nothing to do.

We have two thoughts – one – if anyone happens to be flying from Boise to Kiev, they could hand carry the documents – that would save us a couple of days. Or two, that we actually fly home for the week. We could see the kids, celebrate Anabella’s 2nd birthday, get work done on the house and prepare for bringing home the children, and fly back when all the paperwork is done and finally accepted.

We talked to John’s mom tonight, and she suggested we come home as well. Before she suggested it, we had discussed it, but there are several concerns we have…First of all there is the cost involved. Secondly, we will be flying a total of 4 days, with 4 days at home. There is also the challenge of making plane reservations from here in Ukraine – all of the online ticketing sites we typically search won’t issue tickets outside the US. But, maybe it would be worth it.

We don’t know what to do. We have about gone out of our minds over the last 4 days with nothing to do. Looking forward to another 8 days like that hardly seems doable. Kostya has invited us to his home, and while that would be very nice, it still would likely be a very long 8 days.

Please pray that we will know what direction to take. I am leaning towards coming home, but I know a lot of that right now is because I miss my kids and would love to see them….

Unsure how to proceed,

Kristen

Answered Prayers

Our adoption journey already has been a long litany of answered prayers. It has been a faith-building journey, where we have been forced to come face to face with what we really believe, and what we just say we believe.

We all say God is in control. That God will take care of us. That God will work everything out. That God is trustworthy and faithful. But, for us, we haven’t had to rely on only Him. Sure, there have been times when we turned to Him, but there was still a part we could play. These last couple of days, we have come to the end of ourselves, and forced to make our faith more active and real then ever before. There have been times when there was nothing we could do ourselves – it had to be all God.

And you know what? He is indeed faithful and trustworthy. He has taken care of us. He is working everything out. He is ultimately in control.

When I was crying and missing my kids terribly Saturday night, my in-laws called and we were able to talk to Lillia. When we shared our struggles with paperwork and asked for some volunteers to handle the running around, we not only got volunteers, but also had 3 churches in Moscow, 2 in Kiev, 1 in Georgia and 1 in Florida (that we know about!) praying for us. When we prayed for our social worker, away on vacation, to somehow check messages, she not only checked her email, but immediately sent a wonderful note of encouragement and our homestudy addendum. When we prayed for our local immigration office to process our paperwork quickly, they handled it in one business day, and the cable was waiting this morning at the Embassy.

That is the type of God we serve. That is the type of God that loves us all dearly and draws us near to Him

God Bless you all. Thank you for continued prayers. God truly answers prayers and we are so blessed that you have joined us on this journey. If you haven’t already, please take the time to sign our guestbook (click on guestbook link above). Everytime we get on the internet, the first place we go is the guestbook to see if there are any new entries.

Things are Looking up in Odessa....

God is indeed faithful. As you know, we had a wonderful response of volunteers, and more importantly, many prayers, from our last journal entry. They have indeed made a difference.

As you know, we had people lined up to handle all the paperwork, but no paperwork to handle! But, when we checked messages this morning, our social worker, away on vacation had checked her email, and immediately written an addendum!

So, now two things need to happen with this paperwork: Immigration needs to revise their official form (I-171H) which states how many children we are allowed to bring into the country, and cable it to the US Embassy in Kiev. We have faxed it, called and left messages, and are praying that it happens quickly! Our prayers are that tomorrow morning when we wake up (it is currently 11 PM Monday night in Odessa), the Embassy will have the cable, as immigration will have processed it today.

The second thing that needs to happen is to have it apostilled in Boise, and FedExed to us in Ukraine. All the details for this happening have been taken care of, and should happen. Thank you so much to Jennifer Hoogsteen who will do all the Moscow running around, and Ron and Susan Seaman who will hand-carry our papers to Boise Wednesday morning.

And so, things are looking up. We know that you are all dying of curiousity about this mysterious sibling group we have only generally been referring to. We will fill you all in on the details after we meet the children, and decide whether to proceed with the adoption. According to their paperwork, it appears they are healthy both emotionally and physically, but we want to meet them and interact with them before making a final decision.

For now, I will share with you that they are in an orphanage in the Odessa region (Odessa is a "Oblast" (state), as well as a city), in a small town of about 30,000 people. Sounds like Moscow! They have been in the orphanage for a relatively short amount of time. They are a strong family unit, as they refuse to be split apart.

Until a later time, that is all we will choose to share. As soon as we feel comfortable, we will share more. If for some reason we have to turn down this referral, it will be very difficult for us emotionally. And for that reason, we have chosen to just keep the specific details about the children private.

As we have in the past, we will conclude with specific prayer requests. I know we have said it before, but you have no idea how much your prayers mean to us. They are literally what are getting us through each day, as we sit around, unable to do anything more than pray and wait and wonder. Please know that God is answering your faithful prayers, as already this journal can attest to. We have no doubts that we will continue to see amazing answered prayers throughout the remainder of our journey here in Ukraine, and when we arrive home with our expanded family.

Our prayer requests are:
* That BCIS immigration office in Yakima quicky processes our paperwork and cables our new I-171H to Kiev today. We have specifically contacted Robert Lyon who was very helpful in getting paperwork quickly processed in the past. Please pray for him specifically.
* That the National Adoption Center allows us to visit the children with just the new I-171H, rather than forcing us to wait for the apostilled addendum.
* Time, patience, clarity and blessings for Jennifer as she completes all the Moscow-paperwork steps on Tuesday.
* Traveling mercies and blessings for Ron and Susan Seaman as they drive to Boise Wednesday AM, and hand-process the paperwork at the Secretary of State's office.
* Speedy travel for our apostilled docments as they are mailed via FedEx to Ukraine!
* Prayers for our translator Kostya, as he interacts with the Embassy and the National Adoption Center on our behalf. He has been a wonderful cheerleader and supportive prayer partner with us throughout each step thus far! Prayers of blessing to for his wife Olga and son Nikita who we had the opportunity to get to know while in Kiev.
* Finally, prayers of blessing on our friends Vladimir and Lena Anderson, who have so wonderfully opened their homes to us. They have allowed us to use their computers, email access, telephone and home as we have tried to deal with all of these challenges.

God Bless!

Love, Kristen and John

Our Kids (An email we received from Joanne about Lillia and Anabella)

Greetings to all our faithful readers! We have been really missing our kids these last couple of days. As long as we are progressing in our adoption, and feeling like each day is one day closer to coming home, we have been ok. But, since Friday, we have been sitting around, making no progress on the adoption. And so it has made missing Lillia and Anabella that much harder. So, for a change of pace, we decided to include here an email we received today from Joanne (John's mom) about our girls. They seem to be doing just fine (much better than us!).

From Joanne....
Good Morning, at least it is here in Big Sky:

Just read your last posting, how discouraging. As you wrote only God can work things out the way they are intended to be.

We went to Lillia’s favorite store yesterday, Costco, however she did tell us that Home Depot was also her favorite store. We were privileged to have Anabella throw a temper tantrum. It was actually quite hilarious, however it did not get her what she wanted, which was to be carried. She only wanted me to carry her and I can only do that for a short period of time, she is rather heavy. Gramps eventually took her to the truck. She is quite the little character. She is getting a little bit of a cold and is really sleeping a lot.

Nate Bartlett stopped here overnight and Lillia was totally thrilled. She jabbered away to him and he just nodded his head from time to time, as he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. We are doing fine with her speech, most of the time we can both understand her. Lillia helped me bake a BD cake for gramps this morning and now she is outside helping him put the posts on the front porch.

Anabella has discovered a great fun thing to do, feed Nika her food piece by piece. Last night I thought she had done so well with dinner, her plate was totally clean. I was on the phone to my parents and Gramps was watching her, however she had fed what she didn’t want to the dog. She thinks it is quite fun. This morning she started to feed her the cornflakes one by one. From now on Nika will be outside when we eat. Both girls are being really good with the dog and she is being super good with the girls.

John, Dad would like to know what is supposed to be happening on your house, who should be there, etc. We may go over in a couple of weeks and check up on things. We are kind of waiting to see what your plans end up like. Lord willing you will know by the end of the week what is happening and how much longer you will have to be over there.

Well must run and get a few more things done before Anabella wakes up. Have a great day. Love M & D, Lillia and Anabella

Stuck in Odessa (aka A Big Thank You!)

Thanks to everyone who read and responded to our last journal entry. We so appreciate the prayers and offers to help. We have several people who have volunteered to help, and even someone driving down to Boise Wednesday!

So, God has put all of these people into place, and we are just waiting (not so patiently) for God to work out our homestudy portion of the paperwork problems. The agency director currently is in charge of a large group of Japanese exchange students this week, and is busy with them, and therefore, unable to write our addendum as we originally thought. We are still holding out the hope of getting ahold of our original social worker, although her answering machine indicates she will be unavailable until August 3rd.

So for now, we are hopelessly stuck in Odessa – tired of being tourists, missing our kids, and unsure how to proceed forward. We keep thinking that since God put all the other pieces into place within one day of our asking, that surely the homestudy portion will be forthcoming. At this point, it would definitely have to be a God-thing, because we have done all we can do.

Thank you for your prayers. We ask for specific prayers that either our homestudy addendum gets written so that it will be hand-carried down to Boise as we have arranged, or that our hearts are turned away from this sibling group, and we are emotionally prepared to go back to the National Adoption Center for another appointment to choose other children.

Signing off, bored and extremely frustrated,

Kristen and John

Calling all Moscow and Boise ID Readers!

Ok guys – we know you are out there! Many of you have chimed on and signed our guestbook (thanks by the way, we love reading your notes you leave for us there!) that you enjoy reading the updates.

We need a Moscow (or Pullman) person and a Boise area person, or better yet, someone flying/driving to Boise this Wednesday.

If you are regular reader of our online journal, you recall that we have “paperwork problems”. We think we are making progress in processing this important paperwork but have some Moscow-based and Boise-based running around that needs to happen. We thought of contacting many of you individually, but know everyone is busy and don’t know what everyone’s summer schedules are this week. If you have time this week for doing some running around, please contact us ASAP!

In general, this is what will need to happen. We should be receiving in our mail, at our house in Moscow, two letters (the addendums to our homestudy). They should be mailed first thing Monday morning from Caldwell up to Moscow, therefore arriving Tuesday afternoon (we’re guessing). So, the Moscow person would need to pick those letters up and get them notarized that same day. Steve Busch at Moscow Title has been extremely helpful in getting all of our items notarized up till now. While the Moscow person is waiting for the mail to arrive, they would need to go to Kinkos, pick up a FedEx envelope and international airbill and address it (we will direct you exactly how to do that). They will also have to get a money order for $20 made out to the Secretary of State (we’ll pay you back when we get home!). And finally, get an envelope ready to mail the notarized letters and FedEx envelope to Boise Secretary of State office.

This is where a Boise person comes into play. At best, we would have someone able to personally bring the notarized letters into the Idaho Secretary of State’s office Wednesday AM. The letters need to have an “apostille” attached to them, and they process walk-in paperwork when you are there. (An “apostille” is basically like a state-level notary – it is something required by international countries.) If no one contacts us about flying or driving to Boise, with time to spend going to the Secretary of State’s office, then we will just have to use the mail….

So, if that is indeed the case, the Moscow person will mail everything to the Secretary of State’s office, and your work is done!

So, in a nutshell, that is it. It shouldn’t take too long, but it will involve some running around, and needs to for sure be done immediately when the letters arrive. If the letters are getting mailed back down to Boise (instead of hand carried), they need to go out in Tuesday afternoon’s mail.

We are trusting in the Internet to bring forth a wonderful volunteer for us (or two!). If you want to help, but can’t dedicate your Tuesday afternoon to doing so, we completely understand. We trust that someone out there can. But, if you can do this, please email me directly, and immediately, at marblefamily@idahovandals.com. I am writing this journal entry at 3:40 PM, Sunday afternoon in Odessa. It is 5:40 AM Sunday morning in Moscow, and 6:40 AM in Boise. As soon as I get a volunteer to help us out, I will post a new journal entry indicating as such.

Thank you so much for your help! With love, thanks and a lot of hope we’ll hearing from someone soon,

Kristen and John

P.S. Not to issue any sort of bribe (!!), but anyone who helps will be the kids' honorary Godparents!!!