Answered Prayers

Finally after another day of waiting for a update on Friday's events, we have news. GOOD News.
First: The State Duma in Russia has not moved forward on the moratorium and does not plan to at this time. The discussion never made it to the legislature in Russia. YEAH!!

Second: The Home Study Agency issue, should not affect our case. Our home study was accepted and registered prior to Jan 30. As it stands now, if home studies were accepted prior to Jan 30 there should not be a problem. We will, however, continue monitoring to make sure our agency gets their name removed.

Third: There are families who are receiving referrals and traveling to bring home their children. This is a positive sign. ........ Just think, the more families that get referrals, the sooner we will move up on the list.


Thank you for all your prayer this week. Prayer is powerful, as this update shows. Continue to pray that God will watch over the baby he has chosen for us and will provide our baby with loving caretakers until we can get there.

Interesting side note: Ashley's brother joked with us and called our baby Vladimir. Tuesday while at the Christian book store I looked a name book that gives meaning of names and a scripture with the name. As I picked the book up, it opened straight to "V".......Vladimir. Guess what the scripture was..... Jeremiah 29:13 NCV "When you search for me with all your heart, you will find me!"

You may no think anything of that, but it spoke loudly to me. And my prayer is that somehow our baby will rest easy knowing we are searching for him/her. So maybe it was coincidence, but may be Vladimir is nestled somewhere deep in Russia waiting on us to find him.

Today's News

Unfortunately there isn't much to tell. I spoke with our Case Manager and she reassured me that no immediate actions have been taken to stop adoptions at this time. There is, however, always a risk that Russia could close their doors. The proposal I mentioned earlier is just in the discussion stage and hopefully will go no further. There will be another meeting this week and hopefully it will bring good news or at least not bad news.

As far as the the issue with the home study agency, things are looking better. I spoke with our social worker and her agency is working diligently to resolve the matter. They have 1 post placement report that is unaccounted for in Russia. It was done, but somehow either the family's adoption agency did not forward it on, or it was lost in transit. Hopefully within a week or two our home study agency will be able to get their name removed.

Please keep us in your prayers as well as any international adoptions. We have become linked to several families adopting in Russia, and they are facing the same challenges.

Just a little Trivia

Weather Today in Nizhny Novgorod:
High 17.6 degrees Fahrenheit
Low 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit

This is a warm day tomorrow it will be colder.

If you are interested in reading more about Nizhny this is a link to the the city's website.
http://www.admcity.nnov.ru/english/historynn_eng.html

More Information

Tonight, my heart is heavy. Today many times I have thought of the recent news from Russia. I started searching tonight for more information, but have come up short. I did however find a few more couple's blogs. They too need our prayers, as they are facing the same challenges that we are facing.

I am adding a link that you can go to read about the current Russia adoption news.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/world/europe/04adopt.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/A/Adoptions

At this time we are resolving to not give up, not expect the worse, but instead to trust in God.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"

I keep this verse close to me, because it reminds me God is on our side, and he has a plan for us and our future family.

More News Today

Ok... if the news this morning wasn't bad enough, here is more. I just received an email about 30 mins ago form our agency. A Russian official has made a proposal to put a temporary moratorium on the adoption of Russian children with those outside the country. This proposal has been made in an effort to protect the children in light of the recent U.S. cases of Russian Federation adopted children being abused or neglected after adoption. The agency stated that proposals like this one have been made in the past and never made it further than discussion.

I can understand their concern, but any child no matter if they are adopted by U.S. citizens or anybody else can be abused or neglected. There is no magic test to predict what parent will eventually abuse or neglect their child. I am sure there are parents in Russia who abuse or neglect their children.

This news is a little unsettling to us. I just have pray and hope that this proposal will not pass. I know that in my heart we could never hurt a child.

I know we have asked many times, but please keep praying for our adoption. Pray for those persons involved in our case. Prayer is powerful and with GOD on our side anything is possible.

The latest news.....

Well, here is the deal as we understand it. Each adoption is required to have post-adoption reports done as specified by the country you are adopting from. It is up to the home study agency and families to ensure that these are done. The agencies on the list that was released may have delinquent post-adoption reports. This does not mean that the agency is not a good agency, it may not be any fault of the agency at all. After speaking to our case manager she explained that sometimes it is the families who do not comply. The agencies on the list may have one delinquent report or hundreds, the list doesn't specify. Each agency will have to find and submit these reports in order to have their names removed.

What this means for us: I have talked with our social worker who will be in contact with her boss. Hopefully it will only be a few reports or less and they will be able to clear their name. If they do, no problem for us. However, if in a week or so if they have not been able to clear their agency, we will start a new home study with another agency. We will still be registered and waiting. We will just need a new home study before we go before the judge. The judge may not have a problem with our current home study, but if he is strict and followes the letter of their law, he could deny the current one.
So hopefully our current agency can resolve this quickly and there will be no need for a new home study. Home studies can take several months to complete, so I pray this will be resolved with out the need for a new one. I would for this to delay us. The good thing is we are newly registered so that fact buys us a little time to get this resolved.

New release from Russia

I just received an update on Russian Adoptions in general. The Russian Federation just released a list of home study agencies that have to make some corrections or changes in order for the paperwork to be accepted. It is just our luck that our home study agency is on that 7 page list of agencies. Right now, I am unsure how this will ultimately affect us. It is possible that because our documents were submitted prior to this release, that we may not be affected. I have contacted our home study agency this morning and they will be reviewing the new statement, hopefully be able to fix the problem, and be able to be removed from the list. Worst case scenario the home study would have to redone and resubmitted by another agency.

I will admit this is a little discouraging. It seems it is two steps forward then 3 back. The worst part is knowing that our baby could already be born and lying in a crib somewhere with no one to love or hold them. I pray that this technicality will be resolved quickly and we will still be able to receive our referral this year sometime.

I will say I am grateful our adoption agency stays on top of these releases and notifies us immediately. I hope to talk to our case manager today. I will post again when I know more.

And the wait continues

Many have asked if we have received any news. Well, not really. We probably will not get many updates until we receive our referral. Occasionally the facilitator in Russia will update our case manager on how things are flowing in Russia, but who knows when those updates will come.

In trying to keep our spirits up, I am looking at it this way. We almost have one month of waiting behind us. On Valentines it will be one month. So if it takes 6 months, we only have 5 months left. But again, there is no way to know how long it will take.

We are still waiting for immigration approval, and they are very particular. Just this week we received a letter stating it appeared that some of the pages in the home study appeared to be photocopies instead of originals. We are in the process of clearing that up. But again in a effort to keep my spirits up I am choosing to look at this way, at least they are working on our case instead of it sitting on a desk somewhere.

Please continue to pray for our baby and for all those who are working to bring our baby home.