We are still waiting to hear from our home study agency. Hopefully our social worker will be able to work out a deal with another agency to be able to redo our home study.
While we are waiting, we are working on another part of our adoption education credits. Wow, there is so much to read. Most of the reading content is not new to us at this point. We have read the content in other resources, but we have to read the articles (some 55 pages long) selected by Hugae, sign off that we read it, and answer questions. I guess this is good to do now. It helps to distract us a little while we are waiting to find out about our home study and, oh yeah, while we are waiting for our Referral. I can't wait for that phone call.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Just when we think all is ok......
OK, so last week we said we had answered prayers. After reading this, one may not think prayers were answered, but we have faith that God is answering our prayers, it just may not always be in the way we think.
We received an update Monday that cancelled out our good news last week. We chose to wait a few days to pass this on, as we had hoped to get better news. The JCSIS (Joint Council on International Children's Services) and NCFA (National Council for Adoption) put out an official statement that if a family has used an agency on the "black list" the region will not receive a clearance letter to finalize an adoption. This overrides the news we received last week that our region would not delay us based on our home study provider since our case was registered prior to the release of the "black list."
I have been in frequent contact with our home study agency. They are trying very hard to have their name removed. The owner has made multiple trips to the Russian Consulate in Houston, and refiled all necessary paperwork. All this paperwork has been sent on to the MOE in Russia, however, there is no guarantee as to when the MOE will review it or update the list. This fact is what leaves us in limbo.
Our Social Worker is working with another more local adoption placement service to be able to redo our home study under their name. This agency provides a great service to our area's children. Hopefully they will find in their hearts to be able to extend a helping hand to us. There are many logistics to this that has to be worked out. Many "T's" have to be crossed and "I's" have to be dotted in order for this to work for us and for the other agency.
As you can see, we continue to need prayer. We appreciate each of you reading along on this roller coaster ride to bring our precious baby home. Someone said to me yesterday that it didn't seem that we have let this get us down. It does hurt and is discouraging, but we chose to have faith in God and to not be defeated by this challenge. With God on our side we know that we will bring our baby home.
We received an update Monday that cancelled out our good news last week. We chose to wait a few days to pass this on, as we had hoped to get better news. The JCSIS (Joint Council on International Children's Services) and NCFA (National Council for Adoption) put out an official statement that if a family has used an agency on the "black list" the region will not receive a clearance letter to finalize an adoption. This overrides the news we received last week that our region would not delay us based on our home study provider since our case was registered prior to the release of the "black list."
I have been in frequent contact with our home study agency. They are trying very hard to have their name removed. The owner has made multiple trips to the Russian Consulate in Houston, and refiled all necessary paperwork. All this paperwork has been sent on to the MOE in Russia, however, there is no guarantee as to when the MOE will review it or update the list. This fact is what leaves us in limbo.
Our Social Worker is working with another more local adoption placement service to be able to redo our home study under their name. This agency provides a great service to our area's children. Hopefully they will find in their hearts to be able to extend a helping hand to us. There are many logistics to this that has to be worked out. Many "T's" have to be crossed and "I's" have to be dotted in order for this to work for us and for the other agency.
As you can see, we continue to need prayer. We appreciate each of you reading along on this roller coaster ride to bring our precious baby home. Someone said to me yesterday that it didn't seem that we have let this get us down. It does hurt and is discouraging, but we chose to have faith in God and to not be defeated by this challenge. With God on our side we know that we will bring our baby home.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Prayers of Thanksgiving
Today's prayer, is one of Thanksgiving. We did receive good news today, as Ashley wrote in earlier.
The past few early mornings, as I have drove to work, I have prayed and talked to God. I asked God to be with those in control of our paperwork, for our baby's safety, and that most importantly his will to be done. I knew with each prayer that we had done all that we could do therefore we had to leave it in God's hands.
This morning we received emails and phone calls from our case manager stating the MOE (minister of education) in Russia stated that cases in our region registered before Jan 30th would no be effected by the "blacklist." Furthermore, we shouldn't have any problems with the judges either. I am not sure what changed in Russia or Nizhney in the past few days, but I know that God was in control.
So for now, we are still officially on the wait list. I know in my heart we aren't "just on a list", because my faith in God tells me that he has our baby chosen for us. He just has not sent word to us yet.
Thank you for your recent prayers, and keep them going. We aren't near finished with this journey. We still have funds to gather, many hours of travel, paperwork to finish and most important bringing our baby home. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
The past few early mornings, as I have drove to work, I have prayed and talked to God. I asked God to be with those in control of our paperwork, for our baby's safety, and that most importantly his will to be done. I knew with each prayer that we had done all that we could do therefore we had to leave it in God's hands.
This morning we received emails and phone calls from our case manager stating the MOE (minister of education) in Russia stated that cases in our region registered before Jan 30th would no be effected by the "blacklist." Furthermore, we shouldn't have any problems with the judges either. I am not sure what changed in Russia or Nizhney in the past few days, but I know that God was in control.
So for now, we are still officially on the wait list. I know in my heart we aren't "just on a list", because my faith in God tells me that he has our baby chosen for us. He just has not sent word to us yet.
Thank you for your recent prayers, and keep them going. We aren't near finished with this journey. We still have funds to gather, many hours of travel, paperwork to finish and most important bringing our baby home. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
"When Love Takes You In"
This song is beautiful and speaks so tenderly to me. I tear up each time I read the words. I actually found this song on another couple's blog. I thought that those of you reading our blog might better understand our journey and all our emotions a little better after reading these lyrics. I lie in bed at night wishing I could hold our baby, sing him/her a song, or read them a bed-time story. I pray and long for the day our baby is no longer alone to cry their self to sleep, but instead is home with Ashley and I. The singer/writer of this song can write such a wonderful song that adopting parents can relate to, because he has adopted as well.
Steven Curtis Chapman \ When Love Takes You In
I know you’ve heard the story
But they all sound too good to be true
You’ve heard about a place called home
But there doesn’t seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream
Where love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in
And somewhere while you’re sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been is lost in what will be
When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever cause this love to lose its hold
When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in it takes you in for good
When love takes you in
Steven Curtis Chapman \ When Love Takes You In
I know you’ve heard the story
But they all sound too good to be true
You’ve heard about a place called home
But there doesn’t seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream
Where love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in
And somewhere while you’re sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been is lost in what will be
When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever cause this love to lose its hold
When love takes you in everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in it takes you in for good
When love takes you in
Great News
I just received some very good news in an email a few minutes ago. according to the latest news, we will not have to redo our homestudy because of our agency being on the "blacklist." Our case facilitator in Nizhniy Novgorod explained that since we were already registered in the country, we have nothing to worry about with regards to our homstudy agency and we will not have to do our homestudy again.
Amy will update more tonight when she gets time, but i wanted to post this news and thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers.
ashley
Amy will update more tonight when she gets time, but i wanted to post this news and thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers.
ashley
Sunday, March 8, 2009
A little good news.
No new news on the home study agency getting their name off the "list," but we are still optimistic that it will happen soon. I have emailed our case manager to see how much longer we should wait before we start a new home study. I pray that the agency's name is quickly removed, as starting a new home study will cost us precious time and funds.
But on the flip side, we did receive good news this weekend. We received our advance approval for the the petition of adopting an orphan from immigration. This may not sound like much, but it is because without it we couldn't bring our baby home. We were a little surprised to get it this soon. The estimated time was 3-6 months and seeing as we had to resubmit a second copy of our home study and had to have our fingerprinting done at separate times; we figured it would take longer. As it turned out it only took about 3 months.
All this said............We are another step closer to bringing "Vladimir" home. Who knows, this mostly will not be our baby's Russian name, but for now it has stuck.
But on the flip side, we did receive good news this weekend. We received our advance approval for the the petition of adopting an orphan from immigration. This may not sound like much, but it is because without it we couldn't bring our baby home. We were a little surprised to get it this soon. The estimated time was 3-6 months and seeing as we had to resubmit a second copy of our home study and had to have our fingerprinting done at separate times; we figured it would take longer. As it turned out it only took about 3 months.
All this said............We are another step closer to bringing "Vladimir" home. Who knows, this mostly will not be our baby's Russian name, but for now it has stuck.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Keep the Prayers going....
Please keep the prayers going for us. I know we keep asking for prayers, but our journey will not be possible without all of our prayers.
Last week we were given the impression that our home study would be ok. That isn't entirely the situation. As it turns out our Adoption agency is still a little leery of the situation. What we really need to happen is for the home study agency to get their name off the list. They are really trying to get this done. They have resubmitted the delinquent report and written the Minster of Education in Russia via the Russian Consulate in Houston to get their name removed. I just pray the MOE will see that our agency has done what they were required and see that they are great agency.
It seems so crazy that our baby is lying somewhere in Russia waiting for us to come and get him/her while we are here shuffling papers. I want so badly to hold and rock our baby. Oh, how I pray that our baby has loving caretakers. You can hear so many bad stories regarding orphanages, and it upsets me when I think our baby could in one of those orphanages.
Last week we were given the impression that our home study would be ok. That isn't entirely the situation. As it turns out our Adoption agency is still a little leery of the situation. What we really need to happen is for the home study agency to get their name off the list. They are really trying to get this done. They have resubmitted the delinquent report and written the Minster of Education in Russia via the Russian Consulate in Houston to get their name removed. I just pray the MOE will see that our agency has done what they were required and see that they are great agency.
It seems so crazy that our baby is lying somewhere in Russia waiting for us to come and get him/her while we are here shuffling papers. I want so badly to hold and rock our baby. Oh, how I pray that our baby has loving caretakers. You can hear so many bad stories regarding orphanages, and it upsets me when I think our baby could in one of those orphanages.
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