Just a reminder that we are having our "help day" tomorrow starting at 2:00. We'll grill out some burgers and hot dogs in the evening and relax with some board games. You can show up anytime, even just for games if that's what works. We are looking forward to a fun day together. Though no one RSVP'ed on the blog, we do have some people who've told us they're coming and we're excited! But there is still room for others who didn't "sign up" so please stop by if you'd like.
ALSO, I forgot to mention in the earlier post that you are welcome to SWIM if you so desire! So bring your suit and hop in!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
can't keep these all to myself...
I said that we were reserving some photos to keep the blog going during our wait. Well, the wait has turned out to be short! So I'd better get posting.
Today's posts focus on Meredith Nadia's strong interest in the new bear that we brought for her.
In this one, it almost looks like she is looking at me. But no, it is the bear!
Today I went with my friend Holli to meet a mom in town who knows lots about baby slings. We will need to work extra hard at bonding well with Meredith (since we're about a year late in her little life!) and so we are planning to keep her very close as much as possible. Hopefully when she's (literally) attached to my body in a baby sling, we can work on eye contact, and then she will eventually become more "attached" in the bonding sense. It may take a while so please don't feel bad if you don't get to hold her right away -- we will want to make sure she understands who her parents are (and that we are specific people who are particularly important for her!) before passing her around.
Leaving in 9 days!!!!! I'd better get back to that work I need to do before we go.
Today's posts focus on Meredith Nadia's strong interest in the new bear that we brought for her.
In this one, it almost looks like she is looking at me. But no, it is the bear!
Today I went with my friend Holli to meet a mom in town who knows lots about baby slings. We will need to work extra hard at bonding well with Meredith (since we're about a year late in her little life!) and so we are planning to keep her very close as much as possible. Hopefully when she's (literally) attached to my body in a baby sling, we can work on eye contact, and then she will eventually become more "attached" in the bonding sense. It may take a while so please don't feel bad if you don't get to hold her right away -- we will want to make sure she understands who her parents are (and that we are specific people who are particularly important for her!) before passing her around.
Leaving in 9 days!!!!! I'd better get back to that work I need to do before we go.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
help wanted
So many people have been offering us help lately. We really appreciate your desire to do something concrete for us...and for those nearby, we are creating such an opportunity! On the one hand, we could manage this stuff on our own if we paced ourselves, but on the other hand, if some of you want to help us we'd sure appreciate it:
When:
Sunday afternoon, June 1, starting around 2 pm
Where:
Hamersma house, 2631 NW 33rd Place (call for directions: 352-214-8655)
What:
a "help day" at the Hamersmas, including such fun tasks as:
- finishing some painting in Meredith's room
- putting sealant on her bedroom window and reinstalling her blinds
- vacuuming carpeted rooms and mopping tile
- installing some new outlets where some are loose or old
- making outlets baby-safe
- finishing our upgrade of kitchen cupboard knobs (not related to Meredith, but if we don't do it now we will always have mismatched knobs!)
- helping with some outdoor stuff (possibly some pressure washing)
- raking leaves (let us know if you can bring an extra rake)
- cooking some freezable meals
- dusting (oh my, have I put this off)
- making up the guest beds for visitors coming to see Meredith
- brainstorming about baby announcements
- washing and putting away clothes that have been given to us for Meredith
- other things as they come to mind!
There really is something for everyone! But I promise we will keep the bathroom cleaning for ourselves for later :) It is the Sabbath after all.
Our plan is to work on these things with whoever would like to come during the afternoon, then get some dinner for everyone (pizza? grilled burgers?) and relax for the evening with some board games. To encourage you to let us know if you're coming, let me give you an incentive -- if you make your presence known by commenting on the blog, and include in your comment your board game preference, it will be prioritized on Sunday night!
I know many of you reading the blog are far away - we appreciate your encouragement and prayers, so please don't feel bad that you can't make it to our house. There will certainly be opportunity for you to help out in other ways as time goes by!
When:
Sunday afternoon, June 1, starting around 2 pm
Where:
Hamersma house, 2631 NW 33rd Place (call for directions: 352-214-8655)
What:
a "help day" at the Hamersmas, including such fun tasks as:
- finishing some painting in Meredith's room
- putting sealant on her bedroom window and reinstalling her blinds
- vacuuming carpeted rooms and mopping tile
- installing some new outlets where some are loose or old
- making outlets baby-safe
- finishing our upgrade of kitchen cupboard knobs (not related to Meredith, but if we don't do it now we will always have mismatched knobs!)
- helping with some outdoor stuff (possibly some pressure washing)
- raking leaves (let us know if you can bring an extra rake)
- cooking some freezable meals
- dusting (oh my, have I put this off)
- making up the guest beds for visitors coming to see Meredith
- brainstorming about baby announcements
- washing and putting away clothes that have been given to us for Meredith
- other things as they come to mind!
There really is something for everyone! But I promise we will keep the bathroom cleaning for ourselves for later :) It is the Sabbath after all.
Our plan is to work on these things with whoever would like to come during the afternoon, then get some dinner for everyone (pizza? grilled burgers?) and relax for the evening with some board games. To encourage you to let us know if you're coming, let me give you an incentive -- if you make your presence known by commenting on the blog, and include in your comment your board game preference, it will be prioritized on Sunday night!
I know many of you reading the blog are far away - we appreciate your encouragement and prayers, so please don't feel bad that you can't make it to our house. There will certainly be opportunity for you to help out in other ways as time goes by!
Friday, May 23, 2008
Prayers Answered! Court is June 11!
After a very stressful couple of days, our caseworker said that the facilitator in our region is sure that the letter from an attorney will be sufficient. She asked for some changes in wording (the judge wasn't available to talk to her today) but it is just to make extra sure that there is no question about it. Our wonderful attorney friend is willing to sign the new one first thing Tuesday morning and we will fax it over, and then bring it to Tallahassee for (you guessed it) apostilles. We need to send the actual document to Russia ahead of us so that it can be translated and given to the judge before we get there.
In the meantime, our caseworker here in the U.S. said that our court date is certain, and we can go ahead and purchase plane tickets. JUNE 11 !!! For those keeping track, this is less than a month after we met Meredith -- truly miraculous turnaround. It is what our facilitator in Russia thought would happen, but we weren't believing her because it seemed too good to be true.
Our plan is to leave on June 8 to arrive in Russia June 9. That way if there are any flight problems, we should still get there on June 10 at the latest. We will go to court June 11 and get to visit Meredith, and then we have a 10-business-day wait without custody. We plan to go to St. Petersburg part of that time. We will get custody of Meredith around June 24 and then head to Moscow on the 25th or 26th for her passport, visa, and immigration documents. We'll fly out July 3 unless there are unforeseen delays or unforeseen smoothness (apparently sometimes people are ready to go a few days before their flight).
I'll give more info as it comes in -- just wanted to share the GREAT news!!
In the meantime, our caseworker here in the U.S. said that our court date is certain, and we can go ahead and purchase plane tickets. JUNE 11 !!! For those keeping track, this is less than a month after we met Meredith -- truly miraculous turnaround. It is what our facilitator in Russia thought would happen, but we weren't believing her because it seemed too good to be true.
Our plan is to leave on June 8 to arrive in Russia June 9. That way if there are any flight problems, we should still get there on June 10 at the latest. We will go to court June 11 and get to visit Meredith, and then we have a 10-business-day wait without custody. We plan to go to St. Petersburg part of that time. We will get custody of Meredith around June 24 and then head to Moscow on the 25th or 26th for her passport, visa, and immigration documents. We'll fly out July 3 unless there are unforeseen delays or unforeseen smoothness (apparently sometimes people are ready to go a few days before their flight).
I'll give more info as it comes in -- just wanted to share the GREAT news!!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
waiting for judge
Our caseworker just got in touch with us. She has taken the forms we faxed her and faxed them along to our facilitator in Russia, who will show them to the judge - hopefully right away tomorrow (and it is almost tomorrow in Russia). He will tell her if our forms are acceptable or whether we need something else.
Also, the judge wants verification that under Canadian law, adopted children have the same rights and status as biological children. Apparently the judge knows that this is true for the U.S. but, seeing Rob's Canadian passport, he has started wondering about Canada. We may need to request a letter from the Canadian Embassy in Moscow as there does not appear to be a specific "law" that says this, per se. We shall see. There will hopefully be more info on that tomorrow too.
Thanks for your prayers. I think I aged about a year today, but without God's upholding me I know it would have been much worse.
I'd also like to send out a special thank you to our attorney friend Brian who signed our form today, and my friend Kevin in D.C. who has offered to do any needed legwork there if it's needed. People like you - and so many of you I've mentioned before or thanked personally - are going to be stars in Meredith's life story.
Also, the judge wants verification that under Canadian law, adopted children have the same rights and status as biological children. Apparently the judge knows that this is true for the U.S. but, seeing Rob's Canadian passport, he has started wondering about Canada. We may need to request a letter from the Canadian Embassy in Moscow as there does not appear to be a specific "law" that says this, per se. We shall see. There will hopefully be more info on that tomorrow too.
Thanks for your prayers. I think I aged about a year today, but without God's upholding me I know it would have been much worse.
I'd also like to send out a special thank you to our attorney friend Brian who signed our form today, and my friend Kevin in D.C. who has offered to do any needed legwork there if it's needed. People like you - and so many of you I've mentioned before or thanked personally - are going to be stars in Meredith's life story.
keep the prayers coming
It has been a rough morning. We have tried 4 places to get the needed document signed and have ended up with one document that *might* work (not quite what we wanted, but what they could give us). We are now getting a copy of the requested document signed by an attorney rather than a law enforcement agency (which they said was "preferred") because neither the local police nor the sheriff's department nor the county clerk could do what we asked. We are praying that this will be sufficient even though it isn't precisely what we were asked for. We hope to hear from our caseworker soon, as we've left voice mails and emails to try to figure out what will resolve this.
Pray
* that the caseworker will call back very soon to let us know whether what we've done is acceptable
* that what we have done is in fact acceptable
* that I will not lose my mind or temper today, any more than I already have (probably it's not good to be snotty to people at the sheriff's department). I am living on my last nerve right now. Ready to break down at any moment. We don't know the consequences if we can't get this form, but they certainly include losing our preliminary court date (which has actually been set for June if we can get this problem fixed). We haven't been able to enjoy even a moment of excitement for the setting of our court date because it was immediately followed by this fiasco putting it in jeopardy. The fact that our caseworker has been inexplicably out of contact since we tried to get a hold of her over 3 hours ago is not helping.
PRAY PRAY PRAY!!!
Pray
* that the caseworker will call back very soon to let us know whether what we've done is acceptable
* that what we have done is in fact acceptable
* that I will not lose my mind or temper today, any more than I already have (probably it's not good to be snotty to people at the sheriff's department). I am living on my last nerve right now. Ready to break down at any moment. We don't know the consequences if we can't get this form, but they certainly include losing our preliminary court date (which has actually been set for June if we can get this problem fixed). We haven't been able to enjoy even a moment of excitement for the setting of our court date because it was immediately followed by this fiasco putting it in jeopardy. The fact that our caseworker has been inexplicably out of contact since we tried to get a hold of her over 3 hours ago is not helping.
PRAY PRAY PRAY!!!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
call for prayer!
As expected, there is more unforeseen paperwork to be done.
It turns out that the judge in Russia is unhappy that Rob is "Robert Hamersma" on his Canadian passport, "Robert A. Hamersma" on his U.S. greencard, and "Robert Allan Hamersma" on our marriage certificate. It is frustrating that Rob's passport is missing his middle name, as we still have a copy of the passport application where he clearly wrote it - they just forgot to put it on. Of course, we didn't realize this would be a big deal.
We are supposed to get a letter from the police verifying that all of these names refer to the same person. I am awaiting further instruction from our caseworker, but I plan to go to the Gainesville Police Department tomorrow and beg for help until someone will sign this letter for us. It probably needs to be notarized and put on letterhead, so this could be a pain for them. We need them to be full of grace and kindness tomorrow.
PRAY PRAY PRAY! We cannot get a court date finalized until this is resolved.
It turns out that the judge in Russia is unhappy that Rob is "Robert Hamersma" on his Canadian passport, "Robert A. Hamersma" on his U.S. greencard, and "Robert Allan Hamersma" on our marriage certificate. It is frustrating that Rob's passport is missing his middle name, as we still have a copy of the passport application where he clearly wrote it - they just forgot to put it on. Of course, we didn't realize this would be a big deal.
We are supposed to get a letter from the police verifying that all of these names refer to the same person. I am awaiting further instruction from our caseworker, but I plan to go to the Gainesville Police Department tomorrow and beg for help until someone will sign this letter for us. It probably needs to be notarized and put on letterhead, so this could be a pain for them. We need them to be full of grace and kindness tomorrow.
PRAY PRAY PRAY! We cannot get a court date finalized until this is resolved.
name that sign
We told you that Cyrillic was pretty hard to read, but there were some things that helped us sort out the pronunciation of the letters. Perhaps you'll enjoy seeing them, and also get the hang of it. I'll start you off with an easy one. We took this picture while in our region (outside Moscow):
From that one you can figure out that the funny-shaped "A" is a "D" and the "C" is an "S" sound, right? If you're adventurous, you can decode the big banner as well, which sounds out exactly like the English version.
How about this one, in Moscow?
You can also figure out what the store next door is selling.
And then there was a place we almost went to eat just to have an English menu:
....and the place I couldn't resist, and thus spent about $7 on the item in the zoomed-in picture below:
And we know you've been waiting patiently for the stories I promised. So this picture tells you what you need to know about hot-dog stands in Russia:
The hot dogs are actually fine, and certainly one of the cheaper things to eat if you are out and about. We had them a couple of times. But we still affectionately refer to them as "crapdogs" :)
I'll leave you with a picture that tells you what movie I am going to see tonight (right behind the statue of Pushkin)!
Here's a close-up:
Hope you've enjoyed your lesson and I'll post again when there is news or when I have thought of another fun post!
From that one you can figure out that the funny-shaped "A" is a "D" and the "C" is an "S" sound, right? If you're adventurous, you can decode the big banner as well, which sounds out exactly like the English version.
How about this one, in Moscow?
You can also figure out what the store next door is selling.
And then there was a place we almost went to eat just to have an English menu:
....and the place I couldn't resist, and thus spent about $7 on the item in the zoomed-in picture below:
And we know you've been waiting patiently for the stories I promised. So this picture tells you what you need to know about hot-dog stands in Russia:
The hot dogs are actually fine, and certainly one of the cheaper things to eat if you are out and about. We had them a couple of times. But we still affectionately refer to them as "crapdogs" :)
I'll leave you with a picture that tells you what movie I am going to see tonight (right behind the statue of Pushkin)!
Here's a close-up:
Hope you've enjoyed your lesson and I'll post again when there is news or when I have thought of another fun post!
Monday, May 19, 2008
home, safe and sound
Our plane flights were wonderfully uneventful and we are now back in Gainesville. Thanks to everyone for offering so many prayers on our behalf. We have made a list of things to do before the second trip - such as getting a mattress for the crib we got secondhand, getting a carseat, and learning something about how to take care of babies (I am only partly kidding).
I thought I'd share a couple more pictures today from our visit with Meredith. (We have checked with our caseworker and she has verified that we are allowed to post these, since we have signed for Meredith even though we haven't been to court yet). You have seen her with her tears, and with her smiling and laughing, but did you know she could do this?
She was not unhappy, just felt like snarling I guess! She is a very expressive little girl - somewhat unusual for a child in an orphanage and a sign that she is developmentally doing well. Can't wait to bring her home! We will post here as soon as we have any news.
I thought I'd share a couple more pictures today from our visit with Meredith. (We have checked with our caseworker and she has verified that we are allowed to post these, since we have signed for Meredith even though we haven't been to court yet). You have seen her with her tears, and with her smiling and laughing, but did you know she could do this?
She was not unhappy, just felt like snarling I guess! She is a very expressive little girl - somewhat unusual for a child in an orphanage and a sign that she is developmentally doing well. Can't wait to bring her home! We will post here as soon as we have any news.
Friday, May 16, 2008
all out of steam and ready to come home!
Hi all!
We had our medical appointment today - there was a bit of a scare because we had no documentation of one of the tests they wanted (it was not specifically listed on the forms we were asked to have our doctor sign) - but things seem to have resolved and they signed the needed paperwork.
We spent the afternoon checking out Moscow. I wish I had time to tell you all about it and post a bunch of pictures, but we are exhausted and we need to pack tonight still because we're getting picked up first thing in the morning. So here's the one photo you knew you'd be seeing from Moscow:
Also, it has been suggested to me that there may be a problem with posting the pictures of Meredith prior to court (i.e. the second trip) when we obtain parental rights. I am checking with my caseworker, as I know most families from our agency have set up similar websites including pictures prior to court - but if my caseworker tells me to take them down, I will be doing so. Just fair warning! Hopefully it is not an issue.
Please pray for a safe and timely 12-hour plane ride from Moscow to Atlanta tomorrow, as well as a short flight from there to Orlando. Big thanks to Nick and Betsy who are going to pick us up, give us to a place to sleep, and then drive us home on Sunday!
Next week I'll plan to post a couple times to give you some of the more travel-related parts of our experience like the food and sights. For now, it's packing and sleep!
We had our medical appointment today - there was a bit of a scare because we had no documentation of one of the tests they wanted (it was not specifically listed on the forms we were asked to have our doctor sign) - but things seem to have resolved and they signed the needed paperwork.
We spent the afternoon checking out Moscow. I wish I had time to tell you all about it and post a bunch of pictures, but we are exhausted and we need to pack tonight still because we're getting picked up first thing in the morning. So here's the one photo you knew you'd be seeing from Moscow:
Also, it has been suggested to me that there may be a problem with posting the pictures of Meredith prior to court (i.e. the second trip) when we obtain parental rights. I am checking with my caseworker, as I know most families from our agency have set up similar websites including pictures prior to court - but if my caseworker tells me to take them down, I will be doing so. Just fair warning! Hopefully it is not an issue.
Please pray for a safe and timely 12-hour plane ride from Moscow to Atlanta tomorrow, as well as a short flight from there to Orlando. Big thanks to Nick and Betsy who are going to pick us up, give us to a place to sleep, and then drive us home on Sunday!
Next week I'll plan to post a couple times to give you some of the more travel-related parts of our experience like the food and sights. For now, it's packing and sleep!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
the amazing race
What a day!
The morning was spent signing some papers and then shopping for souvenirs and then for an outfit for our little Meredith Nadia, in hopes that we would be able to visit her this afternoon and try it on. We succeeded in finding a baby clothing boutique (read: very expensive shop) and shelled out more cash than we ever plan to spend again on two outfits! We would have bought just one, but kids in the orphanage are always bundled up so we needed multiple layers.
(Fun fact: Russian babies and small children always wear hats outside, even when it is very warm like it was here a few days ago. The children also wear layers and layers of clothing.)
At 2:30 we got the disappointing call that the orphanage was not able to let us visit today. We were so sad and disheartened. After all, we didn't know for sure that she was our baby when we saw her yesterday, and we wanted a chance to be Mommy and Daddy for just a little while before saying goodbye. A bit after that, we got the great idea that hey - our train tickets for the next morning could maybe be changed to the afternoon if there was some way we could visit Meredith in the morning instead. We put in a call to our translator and she said she would check. Meanwhile, we took inventory of our souvenir collection and figured out some additional things we needed to get, so Rob headed out while I waited to hear if we might get to visit tomorrow instead.
Rob was gone about 15 minutes when the phone rang. It was our facilitator calling directly "I pick you up 10 minutes, we go orphanage". I said "20 minutes?" - trying to mean "can we have 20 minutes?" - and we got confused so she had the translator call me. "She is picking you up in 10 minutes and you will just have half an hour to visit, and if you don't go today, you do not get to go at all." I said "I need to find Rob, he's shopping, but we will try!". And off I went!
You'd probably have a hard time picturing me booking down the streets of a small city in Russia with a bag of baby stuff, but that's what I had to do. The race against the clock! I prayed that I would remember where the outdoor market was that we went to earlier (that Rob was going back to) and I prayed that Rob would be there. After all, he could have stopped in anywhere, or been wandering around somewhere else, because we had been told we would not be going to the orphanage today. I alternately ran and jogged (note: running down the sidewalks here is not normal!). I remembered the way to the market and there was Rob - just paying for the stuff! "Rob! We have to go! She's picking us up right now to go to the orphanage!!". It had taken me about 8 minutes to run to the market and I was totally beat - I gave him the bag and said "You run ahead and see if you can catch her in time back at the hotel! I'll come as fast as I can behind."
Bless Rob, he asked no questions, he just took off like a shot and I lost sight of him almost immediately. I alternated jogging and walking, feeling that horrible lung-burning sensation. Oh, did I mention it cooled down to about 40 degrees here today and I didn't have my jacket because I'd left in such a rush? So my ears were also killing me by this point. I knew it would be hard for Rob to explain where I was to our facilitator but I hoped he would find a way to make this work somehow. When I was about a block from the hotel, I saw a car driving down the street toward me that looked like it might be them - and it was! I got in the car huffing and puffing, and we all had a good laugh (with Rob and I also doing a lot of coughing for quite a while.) Don't worry, I think we've fully recovered.
The important thing is that we made it! They gave us at least 1/2 hour - probably closer to 45 minutes, it's hard to tell because we're too busy to watch the time :) They had to wake Meredith from her nap so she was a little subdued for part of the time, and a little cranky occasionally, but we still had a good visit. We also got to dress her in her special new outfit (and its matching hat). If things go the usual way, we won't see that outfit again - it becomes common property - so we had to get the pictures while we could :) Our first "family picture" is pretty funny but I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Another family photo does a better job of capturing us I think:
We brought Meredith a new bear from home (and we have another there waiting for her so that we don't have to depend on this one making it back). She loved it!
It was rough having to be awake during naptime, so we had a couple of sad moments - probably involving being too hot (since we were trying the Russia-style of layers). Real tears! Oh my.
Meredith loves being lifted up in the air!
That all the photos we'll be posting for today. We have more but we need to pace ourselves and keep the blog going during the time between visits. We were told today that our court date could be as early as mid-June, but we are trying not to get our hopes up. On the other hand, boy, we can't wait to bring our little Meredith home to stay!
We probably won't be posting more adoption-related stuff during our couple of days in Moscow (not sure about internet access) but if we can, we'll post some more of our travel adventures. Some stories to look forward to:
1) another encounter with the movie crew
2) the story of the "crapdogs"
3) the story of room service (not really a story, just a crazy thing we've never done before)
4) the McDonalds coupons
5) photos of interesting food
Until later, da svedanya
- Posted by Meredith's mommy
The morning was spent signing some papers and then shopping for souvenirs and then for an outfit for our little Meredith Nadia, in hopes that we would be able to visit her this afternoon and try it on. We succeeded in finding a baby clothing boutique (read: very expensive shop) and shelled out more cash than we ever plan to spend again on two outfits! We would have bought just one, but kids in the orphanage are always bundled up so we needed multiple layers.
(Fun fact: Russian babies and small children always wear hats outside, even when it is very warm like it was here a few days ago. The children also wear layers and layers of clothing.)
At 2:30 we got the disappointing call that the orphanage was not able to let us visit today. We were so sad and disheartened. After all, we didn't know for sure that she was our baby when we saw her yesterday, and we wanted a chance to be Mommy and Daddy for just a little while before saying goodbye. A bit after that, we got the great idea that hey - our train tickets for the next morning could maybe be changed to the afternoon if there was some way we could visit Meredith in the morning instead. We put in a call to our translator and she said she would check. Meanwhile, we took inventory of our souvenir collection and figured out some additional things we needed to get, so Rob headed out while I waited to hear if we might get to visit tomorrow instead.
Rob was gone about 15 minutes when the phone rang. It was our facilitator calling directly "I pick you up 10 minutes, we go orphanage". I said "20 minutes?" - trying to mean "can we have 20 minutes?" - and we got confused so she had the translator call me. "She is picking you up in 10 minutes and you will just have half an hour to visit, and if you don't go today, you do not get to go at all." I said "I need to find Rob, he's shopping, but we will try!". And off I went!
You'd probably have a hard time picturing me booking down the streets of a small city in Russia with a bag of baby stuff, but that's what I had to do. The race against the clock! I prayed that I would remember where the outdoor market was that we went to earlier (that Rob was going back to) and I prayed that Rob would be there. After all, he could have stopped in anywhere, or been wandering around somewhere else, because we had been told we would not be going to the orphanage today. I alternately ran and jogged (note: running down the sidewalks here is not normal!). I remembered the way to the market and there was Rob - just paying for the stuff! "Rob! We have to go! She's picking us up right now to go to the orphanage!!". It had taken me about 8 minutes to run to the market and I was totally beat - I gave him the bag and said "You run ahead and see if you can catch her in time back at the hotel! I'll come as fast as I can behind."
Bless Rob, he asked no questions, he just took off like a shot and I lost sight of him almost immediately. I alternated jogging and walking, feeling that horrible lung-burning sensation. Oh, did I mention it cooled down to about 40 degrees here today and I didn't have my jacket because I'd left in such a rush? So my ears were also killing me by this point. I knew it would be hard for Rob to explain where I was to our facilitator but I hoped he would find a way to make this work somehow. When I was about a block from the hotel, I saw a car driving down the street toward me that looked like it might be them - and it was! I got in the car huffing and puffing, and we all had a good laugh (with Rob and I also doing a lot of coughing for quite a while.) Don't worry, I think we've fully recovered.
The important thing is that we made it! They gave us at least 1/2 hour - probably closer to 45 minutes, it's hard to tell because we're too busy to watch the time :) They had to wake Meredith from her nap so she was a little subdued for part of the time, and a little cranky occasionally, but we still had a good visit. We also got to dress her in her special new outfit (and its matching hat). If things go the usual way, we won't see that outfit again - it becomes common property - so we had to get the pictures while we could :) Our first "family picture" is pretty funny but I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Another family photo does a better job of capturing us I think:
We brought Meredith a new bear from home (and we have another there waiting for her so that we don't have to depend on this one making it back). She loved it!
It was rough having to be awake during naptime, so we had a couple of sad moments - probably involving being too hot (since we were trying the Russia-style of layers). Real tears! Oh my.
Meredith loves being lifted up in the air!
That all the photos we'll be posting for today. We have more but we need to pace ourselves and keep the blog going during the time between visits. We were told today that our court date could be as early as mid-June, but we are trying not to get our hopes up. On the other hand, boy, we can't wait to bring our little Meredith home to stay!
We probably won't be posting more adoption-related stuff during our couple of days in Moscow (not sure about internet access) but if we can, we'll post some more of our travel adventures. Some stories to look forward to:
1) another encounter with the movie crew
2) the story of the "crapdogs"
3) the story of room service (not really a story, just a crazy thing we've never done before)
4) the McDonalds coupons
5) photos of interesting food
Until later, da svedanya
- Posted by Meredith's mommy
A late night of naming
Rob and I stayed up until almost 2:30 in the morning - I think running partly on adrenaline - trying to decide on a name for our little girl. The few we had thought of a long time ago did not seem to fit. So off we went, through long lists of baby names online, staring at her picture and seeing what name she "looked" like. It should not be a common name, but also not too obscure or hard to pronounce. It should go well with our last name too. We also wanted to incorporate her Russian name if possible.
In a way, it may be a blessing that we had such a short time to decide, because we didn't ask for anyone's opinions and we chose something we think fits perfectly! And now even those of you who don't like it will have to pretend to like it because we have signed the papers - it is official and cannot be changed :)
So without further ado...welcome little Meredith Nadia Hamersma to our family. Nadia is her Russian name (actually Nadezhda, pronounced Nadi-ezh-da) and we decided to keep it in its short form. Meredith is a name we really like, and we think it suits her...plus my Grandma had a special porcelain baby doll named Meredith that I always loved.
We are still waiting to find out if we get to visit her again today, so there will be more pictures to come if we do.
In a way, it may be a blessing that we had such a short time to decide, because we didn't ask for anyone's opinions and we chose something we think fits perfectly! And now even those of you who don't like it will have to pretend to like it because we have signed the papers - it is official and cannot be changed :)
So without further ado...welcome little Meredith Nadia Hamersma to our family. Nadia is her Russian name (actually Nadezhda, pronounced Nadi-ezh-da) and we decided to keep it in its short form. Meredith is a name we really like, and we think it suits her...plus my Grandma had a special porcelain baby doll named Meredith that I always loved.
We are still waiting to find out if we get to visit her again today, so there will be more pictures to come if we do.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
*** IT'S A GIRL!!! ***
The story is below, but here's the important stuff!
Today was a strange and wonderful day!
Today was a strange and wonderful day!
We were told last night, when we talked to our facilitator here, that she would get in touch with us sometime today, but not before 10am. She was not sure if we would be able to meet another child right away or not. Keeping in mind that she could call right at 10am, I made sure to get up a little before that (hey, I'm jet-lagged, give me a break!) and it’s a good thing I did. The phone rang at 9:55 and it was the front desk calling, saying “We need to give you a message that a woman will be picking you up in 20 minutes.” Wow! OK. So Rob sprung out of bed and got ready, and within 20 minutes we were in the lobby, hoping that the person who would pick us up would be someone familiar J Fortunately, it was indeed our facilitator. She does not speak much English and I guess she thought it would be easier to leave a message at the desk than to call us (or to have her interpreter call us – the interpreter comes with us for all official business).
We got in the car, wondering what might be happening today (you sure do have to go with the flow here). Of course, she couldn’t tell us too much given the language barrier…but what she did say told us what we needed to know: “Today…look…girl.” A girl?! We had been told when we switched to this region the first time that there was absolutely no chance of getting a girl. (This was fine with us, though we hoped someday to have a girl.) For some reason, girls are more likely to be adopted by Russians. A very young girl is particularly unlikely to be referred to an American couple. How old was she? How is it that she is available?
Well, we’d have to wait to find anything out. We first picked up the social worker at the court house (she is called “the inspector”). This woman will be vouching for us in court when we come on the second trip. She met us yesterday and said she was very happy with our interaction, but I guess she needed to come today too. So then there were 4 of us in the car, but Rob and I were still the only English speakers! We headed out toward the interpreter’s apartment to pick her up (yay!) and when she got in the car, our facilitator gave her a document to tell us about the child. It told us only her birth date and her given name. She was born in June 2007. Under a year old! [As for her name – we haven’t decided yet on a name and we need to do that tonight before signing documents tomorrow. We haven’t thought through girl names yet because we were sure it would be a boy! I decided to post this other stuff to the blog even though we won’t post her name until tomorrow because I didn’t want to make you wait for us.]
We arrived at the orphanage and, like yesterday, immediately donned the disposable plastic “socks” (they go over your shoes, to keep the floors clean). We then met with the orphanage director and doctor before meeting the baby. The first information we got really scared us – this little girl was born very, very prematurely (about 2 pounds at birth). However, the remainder of the report suggested that she seemed to be recovering well from her rough start. We were still nervous. They brought her in and we started holding her and playing with her. She was adorable! We got to play with her for about 45 minutes and had a great time. But we were still cautious because we knew we’d need to wait to hear from our U.S. adoption specialist about her health situation.
We got back to our hotel and immediately sent the new information to our doctor via online submission (he is at the University of Minnesota International Adoption Clinic – they are one of the best). Bless him, he wrote back to us within just a couple of hours. His report was positive! He essentially said that given her difficult start, she was doing very well and was on target for a premature baby girl of her age.
We needed a little time to take this all in! In less than a day things had totally turned around. It was a little overwhelming. We talked for a little bit, and then just sat quietly for a little bit, before preparing to call our interpreter (who would then call our facilitator) and say that we wanted to adopt this baby girl. Just as we were about to call, the phone rang – it was our adoption agency caseworker back in the U.S., checking how our day went today (she had called last night as well to check on us). It was great to share the good news with her first! She then went ahead and offered to call our facilitator here directly since she speaks Russian. She asked if we could email her a picture of the baby so she could enjoy the moment too J I had to send her 4 because I couldn’t narrow it down!
So, we hope to visit her again tomorrow – the orphanage has some kind of inspection or official business going on tomorrow so they may or may not be able to have us visit in the afternoon. Please pray we can get over there and see her again! If we do, we will post more pictures tomorrow.
As for the rest of our trip…on Thursday early morning we leave on the train for Moscow (4 hour trip) and will have doctors’ appointments on Friday before leaving Saturday. Time flies! We look forward to getting home and starting the next part of the wait.
One more for those who can't get enough....
Monday, May 12, 2008
a long day
We had a long day today, but I will describe it briefly because that's all I can really do right now.
We met our referral this morning and he was adorable. But he was very, very small for his age. After taking photos and video and forwarding them to an international adoption specialist in the U.S., we learned that the situation was extremely severe and likely permanent. After communicating with the specialist, we needed to decline this referral. We are so sad to be doing this, it is hard to describe.
Our facilitator here will be inquiring about the possibility of us meeting another child as soon as possible. It may be tomorrow, it may be later in the week - there is some chance we would need to extend our visit a bit depending what happens.
What can I say? It's what I always say...please pray.
(Also, please know that we have email access but not phone access for the time being.)
We met our referral this morning and he was adorable. But he was very, very small for his age. After taking photos and video and forwarding them to an international adoption specialist in the U.S., we learned that the situation was extremely severe and likely permanent. After communicating with the specialist, we needed to decline this referral. We are so sad to be doing this, it is hard to describe.
Our facilitator here will be inquiring about the possibility of us meeting another child as soon as possible. It may be tomorrow, it may be later in the week - there is some chance we would need to extend our visit a bit depending what happens.
What can I say? It's what I always say...please pray.
(Also, please know that we have email access but not phone access for the time being.)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
The Accidental "Extras"
Day 3 of the trip:
Fair warning – nothing adoption-related happened today (that will be tomorrow) so only read this if you want to read our account of hanging around a small city in Russia. (If you want to know the actual city, I can't post it here because it is public, but you can email me for more info as long as I actually know you).
Rob and I had a fun day today just wandering around town. We planned to hit some museums and churches and to try some Russian food, and we only partially succeeded, but it was a day to remember. It was the day we realized it is really hard to get around here without being able to read Russian. The Cyrillic alphabet is tricky, though knowing the Greek letters helps us a bit to sound things out (which, of course, is only useful when the Russian word sounds like the English word, but that does happen occasionally).
We figured out that “RESTAURANT” looks like “PECTOPAH” and that opened some doors to us. The key is to realize that a Russian “P” sounds like “R”, a “C” sounds like “S”, and an “H” sounds like “N”. We got brave and sat down at an outdoor café to try to get some lunch (with Russian dictionary in hand). They kindly gave us a menu and we looked though it for a while before figuring out that this was only a drink menu. We looked around and realized – no one out here is eating. It is just an outdoor bar. Luckily, we had seen another place called “Mario Café-Pizza” – it had a picture of Super Mario on the sign!
We saw people actually EATING outside there, so we gave it a shot. When we got our menu, Rob told the waiter “5 minutes please” in Russian to let him know we’d need time to look at the menu (as I held up my little dictionary to show him why). The server immediately reappeared with an English menu. How nice! Though the food was mediocre at best, it is a backup option now if we’re having trouble finding someplace to go. After that, we saw lots of street carts and stuff, so we have that option for the future too (we are here for 3.5 more days so we can’t be eating fancy every meal). And thankfully, Michelle (who was here last year) told us where to find the little grocery store. We got some juice boxes and chocolate for snacks later :)
Our museum plan was to go to the History Museum and then the “Music and Time” museum today. On our way to the History Museum, we saw a crowd gathered and a fire hose spraying into the air. My thought – I hope the museum’s not on fire! But no, it was not on fire. In fact, nothing was. The street corner was being used to film a scene in a movie that involved two children in raincoats walking away from a bus in the rain! The sky was clear, so the fire hose was generating the rain. We stopped and stared for a bit with the crowd, took some photos, and then were on our way...but then we couldn’t find the museum, and we realized that we must have missed it. We headed back and found that the movie scene was still going on – we stopped and tried to get our bearings and figure out where the museum entrance was because it seemed it should be nearby. Then we hear the director saying loudly:
" (unfamiliar Russian words) puhjalste (unfamiliar Russian words) "
The word we recognized means “please” and we realized he was looking at us and gesturing his arm. We were in the background of the shot he was trying to get! Sure, we weren’t really extras in the movie, since the director shooed us away, but it was still pretty cool. Amazingly, we were back that way later in the day and almost got in the way again (they were doing a shot in a different direction, so the previously safe area was now off limits).
We ended up giving up on that museum, since the movie filming was happening right in front of it and we couldn’t figure out where the entrance was. We will probably try again in the next few days depending on our schedule (over which we have no control). Instead, we went to the “Music and Time” museum, which is a private collection of clocks, gramophones, music boxes, etc. The collector is apparently an actor from around here and he conducts the tours himself. The guidebooks all say that his tours are fantastic, and we think it probably was, though we didn’t understand more than a word here and there :) One of the words he said fairly often was “slozhichy” which means “listen”. They say that on our Russian language learning CDs at the beginning of each lesson :) The man was very animated and the others in the tour (about a dozen people) were cracking up a lot of the time. He did some audience participation and we managed to hide for almost the whole tour (we were the only non-Russian speakers). At the end he was getting a couple to come demonstrate something and he tried to talk to us, so we - apparently adequately - said “ya nee puneemyo pa-russkya” (I don’t understand Russian). He didn’t speak much English, but he asked where we were from and we said “we’re American, from Florida” and several people nodded and said “Florida” so they knew where it was I guess (or at least they’d heard of it). Our apologies to our Canadian family – the language learning CDs only taught us how to say “American” (Amerikanyits) and we don’t know how to say “Canadian” for Rob yet.
The other thing we did today was to see a couple of amazing Orthodox churches - one we went inside, and the others we just saw from outside for now. They are the cool onion-domed style, and the one we went inside (Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker) was covered in bright frescoes inside with lots of Bible stories along with other stories we didn’t recognize (it looked like some were probably St. Nicholas working miracles). We didn’t get to take photos inside – the lady may have been telling us “no flash” or “no photos” but since we couldn’t figure it out, our photos are from outside. She did sell us a postcard that has an inside picture so at least we have that.
We’re back in our room for the evening now. Our agency’s translator is going to call us tonight to finalize the meeting time for tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will be able to post in the next day or two again, once we have more news about the adoption. We’ve been trying not to think too much about it today, to keep the nerves down. Please keep praying that all goes well!
Fair warning – nothing adoption-related happened today (that will be tomorrow) so only read this if you want to read our account of hanging around a small city in Russia. (If you want to know the actual city, I can't post it here because it is public, but you can email me for more info as long as I actually know you).
Rob and I had a fun day today just wandering around town. We planned to hit some museums and churches and to try some Russian food, and we only partially succeeded, but it was a day to remember. It was the day we realized it is really hard to get around here without being able to read Russian. The Cyrillic alphabet is tricky, though knowing the Greek letters helps us a bit to sound things out (which, of course, is only useful when the Russian word sounds like the English word, but that does happen occasionally).
We figured out that “RESTAURANT” looks like “PECTOPAH” and that opened some doors to us. The key is to realize that a Russian “P” sounds like “R”, a “C” sounds like “S”, and an “H” sounds like “N”. We got brave and sat down at an outdoor café to try to get some lunch (with Russian dictionary in hand). They kindly gave us a menu and we looked though it for a while before figuring out that this was only a drink menu. We looked around and realized – no one out here is eating. It is just an outdoor bar. Luckily, we had seen another place called “Mario Café-Pizza” – it had a picture of Super Mario on the sign!
We saw people actually EATING outside there, so we gave it a shot. When we got our menu, Rob told the waiter “5 minutes please” in Russian to let him know we’d need time to look at the menu (as I held up my little dictionary to show him why). The server immediately reappeared with an English menu. How nice! Though the food was mediocre at best, it is a backup option now if we’re having trouble finding someplace to go. After that, we saw lots of street carts and stuff, so we have that option for the future too (we are here for 3.5 more days so we can’t be eating fancy every meal). And thankfully, Michelle (who was here last year) told us where to find the little grocery store. We got some juice boxes and chocolate for snacks later :)
Our museum plan was to go to the History Museum and then the “Music and Time” museum today. On our way to the History Museum, we saw a crowd gathered and a fire hose spraying into the air. My thought – I hope the museum’s not on fire! But no, it was not on fire. In fact, nothing was. The street corner was being used to film a scene in a movie that involved two children in raincoats walking away from a bus in the rain! The sky was clear, so the fire hose was generating the rain. We stopped and stared for a bit with the crowd, took some photos, and then were on our way...but then we couldn’t find the museum, and we realized that we must have missed it. We headed back and found that the movie scene was still going on – we stopped and tried to get our bearings and figure out where the museum entrance was because it seemed it should be nearby. Then we hear the director saying loudly:
" (unfamiliar Russian words) puhjalste (unfamiliar Russian words) "
The word we recognized means “please” and we realized he was looking at us and gesturing his arm. We were in the background of the shot he was trying to get! Sure, we weren’t really extras in the movie, since the director shooed us away, but it was still pretty cool. Amazingly, we were back that way later in the day and almost got in the way again (they were doing a shot in a different direction, so the previously safe area was now off limits).
We ended up giving up on that museum, since the movie filming was happening right in front of it and we couldn’t figure out where the entrance was. We will probably try again in the next few days depending on our schedule (over which we have no control). Instead, we went to the “Music and Time” museum, which is a private collection of clocks, gramophones, music boxes, etc. The collector is apparently an actor from around here and he conducts the tours himself. The guidebooks all say that his tours are fantastic, and we think it probably was, though we didn’t understand more than a word here and there :) One of the words he said fairly often was “slozhichy” which means “listen”. They say that on our Russian language learning CDs at the beginning of each lesson :) The man was very animated and the others in the tour (about a dozen people) were cracking up a lot of the time. He did some audience participation and we managed to hide for almost the whole tour (we were the only non-Russian speakers). At the end he was getting a couple to come demonstrate something and he tried to talk to us, so we - apparently adequately - said “ya nee puneemyo pa-russkya” (I don’t understand Russian). He didn’t speak much English, but he asked where we were from and we said “we’re American, from Florida” and several people nodded and said “Florida” so they knew where it was I guess (or at least they’d heard of it). Our apologies to our Canadian family – the language learning CDs only taught us how to say “American” (Amerikanyits) and we don’t know how to say “Canadian” for Rob yet.
The other thing we did today was to see a couple of amazing Orthodox churches - one we went inside, and the others we just saw from outside for now. They are the cool onion-domed style, and the one we went inside (Church of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker) was covered in bright frescoes inside with lots of Bible stories along with other stories we didn’t recognize (it looked like some were probably St. Nicholas working miracles). We didn’t get to take photos inside – the lady may have been telling us “no flash” or “no photos” but since we couldn’t figure it out, our photos are from outside. She did sell us a postcard that has an inside picture so at least we have that.
We’re back in our room for the evening now. Our agency’s translator is going to call us tonight to finalize the meeting time for tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will be able to post in the next day or two again, once we have more news about the adoption. We’ve been trying not to think too much about it today, to keep the nerves down. Please keep praying that all goes well!
Saturday, May 10, 2008
So far so good!
Day 1 of the trip (Friday, May 9):
I’m writing this as we sit in the New York airport waiting for our flight to Moscow. Amazingly, there is no wireless internet, so I’m typing this and planning to post it when we get to Russia (so if you’re reading this now, it means we made it!) So far in this airport we’ve found two pigeons and a mouse who make their homes here. It is really something. The flight here was on time and we were glad we had come down to Orlando the night before (thanks Nate!) so that we had no worries of getting to the airport on time in the morning (had to be there by 5:30).
While we have been here in the NY airport, I have read the section of the “Lonely Planet” guide to Russia that covers the area where we are going (a 4-5 hour drive from Moscow) and it looks like a really interesting place to visit. Lots of old churches and stuff. Our hotel – which was organized by our agency – is listed as the premier business hotel in that area! So we know they have wireless, and thus that we will be able to post this eventually.
We are trying not to get too nervous about meeting our referral on Monday. We know that God is in control and that things will go the way they are supposed to go. It may be wonderful, it may be awkward, it may be both, but we are doing our best to stay calm. We have been praying for the baby boy we will meet and asking God to let things go smoothly for all of us. After meeting him on Monday we will send some additional medical info to a U.S. international adoption doctor who has already examined the photo and medical info we have been given – he can then let us know if there are any serious medical issues that we wouldn’t be prepared to handle. If all is well, we will likely be asked to confirm – on Tuesday – our desire to adopt him.
Of course, we will keep you updated!
We will post pictures only when we’re certain that everything is going well, so please be patient. I know the future grandparents are dying here – hang in there!
Day 2 (Saturday, May 10):
We made it to Russia! Our plane arrived in Moscow a little late (less than an hour late though) and the flight was dull but not too bad. Basically, we got on the plane at 4:30pm Friday, ate dinner on the plane probably around 6:30, and then they fed us breakfast around 9:30 a.m. Moscow time…but the time between dinner and breakfast was only about 7 hours (we’re 8 hours ahead here). Basically, the middle of our night was taken from us in the time change! We slept some on the flight (I more than Rob, since it’s harder for him to get comfortable in those tight spots). We were extremely blessed to have a 3-seat section (middle of the plane) where no one showed up for the third seat, so we could spread out a bit.
After we got off the plane in Moscow and went through immigration and customs (blessedly uneventful) we saw the driver holding up our name! I don’t think I’ve even been cool enough to have a driver holding up my name before! Anyway, he is very nice and he helped us exchange some money and we stopped for bottled water/pop on the way out of town. (By the way, it will probably be Monday before we get the special SIM card that will work in the cell phone we brought, so the blog will have to be sufficient for now.) The drive took about 4 hours and here we are at our fancy hotel! We are going to receive a call from our translator tonight to arrange the plans for Monday morning when we will go to the Baby Home (that’s what they call the orphanage – I think it’s a nicer name too). We basically have all day tomorrow to explore and adjust from our jetlag. So far we have only gone a few blocks from our hotel – just far enough to see a sign that looked like an Italian restaurant, and did in fact turn out to be a pizza place! Try to picture a nice restaurant – with slightly dimmed lights, nice tablecloths – combined with a line for ordering food that resembled Sbarro. It was great – we just pointed and used our few words, like “one” “two” “please” and “thank you” That was our dinner tonight. We also got some kind of stuffed pastry thing that was delicious! We plan to go to a real Russian restaurant tomorrow when we have more time and are less tired and gross. For now, it’s time for showers and some sleep!
I’ll try to post again on Monday night if possible. Until then, we are doing great and appreciate your continuing prayers on our behalf!
(And by the way, a late Happy Birthday to Becky and also Happy Anniversary to Laura and Mike!)
I’m writing this as we sit in the New York airport waiting for our flight to Moscow. Amazingly, there is no wireless internet, so I’m typing this and planning to post it when we get to Russia (so if you’re reading this now, it means we made it!) So far in this airport we’ve found two pigeons and a mouse who make their homes here. It is really something. The flight here was on time and we were glad we had come down to Orlando the night before (thanks Nate!) so that we had no worries of getting to the airport on time in the morning (had to be there by 5:30).
While we have been here in the NY airport, I have read the section of the “Lonely Planet” guide to Russia that covers the area where we are going (a 4-5 hour drive from Moscow) and it looks like a really interesting place to visit. Lots of old churches and stuff. Our hotel – which was organized by our agency – is listed as the premier business hotel in that area! So we know they have wireless, and thus that we will be able to post this eventually.
We are trying not to get too nervous about meeting our referral on Monday. We know that God is in control and that things will go the way they are supposed to go. It may be wonderful, it may be awkward, it may be both, but we are doing our best to stay calm. We have been praying for the baby boy we will meet and asking God to let things go smoothly for all of us. After meeting him on Monday we will send some additional medical info to a U.S. international adoption doctor who has already examined the photo and medical info we have been given – he can then let us know if there are any serious medical issues that we wouldn’t be prepared to handle. If all is well, we will likely be asked to confirm – on Tuesday – our desire to adopt him.
Of course, we will keep you updated!
We will post pictures only when we’re certain that everything is going well, so please be patient. I know the future grandparents are dying here – hang in there!
Day 2 (Saturday, May 10):
We made it to Russia! Our plane arrived in Moscow a little late (less than an hour late though) and the flight was dull but not too bad. Basically, we got on the plane at 4:30pm Friday, ate dinner on the plane probably around 6:30, and then they fed us breakfast around 9:30 a.m. Moscow time…but the time between dinner and breakfast was only about 7 hours (we’re 8 hours ahead here). Basically, the middle of our night was taken from us in the time change! We slept some on the flight (I more than Rob, since it’s harder for him to get comfortable in those tight spots). We were extremely blessed to have a 3-seat section (middle of the plane) where no one showed up for the third seat, so we could spread out a bit.
After we got off the plane in Moscow and went through immigration and customs (blessedly uneventful) we saw the driver holding up our name! I don’t think I’ve even been cool enough to have a driver holding up my name before! Anyway, he is very nice and he helped us exchange some money and we stopped for bottled water/pop on the way out of town. (By the way, it will probably be Monday before we get the special SIM card that will work in the cell phone we brought, so the blog will have to be sufficient for now.) The drive took about 4 hours and here we are at our fancy hotel! We are going to receive a call from our translator tonight to arrange the plans for Monday morning when we will go to the Baby Home (that’s what they call the orphanage – I think it’s a nicer name too). We basically have all day tomorrow to explore and adjust from our jetlag. So far we have only gone a few blocks from our hotel – just far enough to see a sign that looked like an Italian restaurant, and did in fact turn out to be a pizza place! Try to picture a nice restaurant – with slightly dimmed lights, nice tablecloths – combined with a line for ordering food that resembled Sbarro. It was great – we just pointed and used our few words, like “one” “two” “please” and “thank you” That was our dinner tonight. We also got some kind of stuffed pastry thing that was delicious! We plan to go to a real Russian restaurant tomorrow when we have more time and are less tired and gross. For now, it’s time for showers and some sleep!
I’ll try to post again on Monday night if possible. Until then, we are doing great and appreciate your continuing prayers on our behalf!
(And by the way, a late Happy Birthday to Becky and also Happy Anniversary to Laura and Mike!)
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
God's orchestrating hand
The last several days have been a whirlwind of activity - finishing the semester, saying goodbye to friends who have graduated and are leaving, and of course getting ready for our trip. Somehow God is making it possible for us to get all of this done and still sleep at night. Tonight we will start packing so that we can see what we still need and get it tomorrow!
We got confirmation today from Russia that they received the packet of documents that we had sent to them and everything was approved -- they had already approved it based on an emailed copy of the document, but this was still a relief.
I have some special people to thank God for today. Our caseworker Geralyn pulled together all of the supplemental homestudy documents within less than a week - quite a feat (there are 5 different things, all requiring specific types of notarizations, etc.). And then there is my tireless office manager Laura who is never surprised to see me with yet another document in my hand for her to notarize. Today it was something she had already done on two sheets, that we needed to do on front and back of one sheet instead. And our department secretary Martha provides prayer and encouragement, along with handling some of the administrative stuff for my job that I would usually do myself but have had less time for lately. And my department chair has loaned us his European cell phone so that we can be in touch from abroad. And then there are the nice people at the bank who have let us trade in beat-up currency for nicer looking bills that are more likely to be exchangeable in Russia (as you might suspect, each bill is supposed to be in ideal condition to get the full exchange rate there).
Finally, a big shout-out to Donna Lutz, our real estate agent at Coldwell Banker. Why, you might ask, was our real-estate agent relevant at this point, when we bought our house 4 years ago? Well, we have a form called the "residence verification" form. It is usually filled out by the property appraiser's office (and we have one from them, in fact). However, for our new region of Russia, the form must be signed by someone who is "licensed". The property appraiser's office does not have a licensing procedure, so my caseworker said I could ask our real estate agent to verify our residence and give us a copy of her license to be notarized/apostilled. Our dear real estate agent was so happy to help us, even at a moment's notice! What a sweetie. Her only requirement was that we stop by and visit when the baby is home - which we're more than happy to do!
I am about to look through all the documents once more, but I am quite confident that we have everything that we need to be able to turn in our "court packet" in Russia. This is important because it will get us immediately into the line to wait for a court date. If we didn't bring it with us, we would have to send it from here after we get back -- which would lose precious time that our paperwork could be "standing in line" in Russia. However, our caseworker has warned me that there WILL be something wrong with the paperwork, or something else needed - there ALWAYS is something. I have tried so hard to make it perfect, but she has warned me that the rules constantly change and we just need to be flexible. Lord help me be flexible!!
We hope to get online a few times while we are traveling, so we will be posting updates if we can. I may post one more pre-travel note, but then again we may be rushing until the last minute...in any case, please pray for everything to go smoothly! We depart at 7:25 am Friday from Orlando and we will meet the baby who has been referred to us on Monday!
We got confirmation today from Russia that they received the packet of documents that we had sent to them and everything was approved -- they had already approved it based on an emailed copy of the document, but this was still a relief.
I have some special people to thank God for today. Our caseworker Geralyn pulled together all of the supplemental homestudy documents within less than a week - quite a feat (there are 5 different things, all requiring specific types of notarizations, etc.). And then there is my tireless office manager Laura who is never surprised to see me with yet another document in my hand for her to notarize. Today it was something she had already done on two sheets, that we needed to do on front and back of one sheet instead. And our department secretary Martha provides prayer and encouragement, along with handling some of the administrative stuff for my job that I would usually do myself but have had less time for lately. And my department chair has loaned us his European cell phone so that we can be in touch from abroad. And then there are the nice people at the bank who have let us trade in beat-up currency for nicer looking bills that are more likely to be exchangeable in Russia (as you might suspect, each bill is supposed to be in ideal condition to get the full exchange rate there).
Finally, a big shout-out to Donna Lutz, our real estate agent at Coldwell Banker. Why, you might ask, was our real-estate agent relevant at this point, when we bought our house 4 years ago? Well, we have a form called the "residence verification" form. It is usually filled out by the property appraiser's office (and we have one from them, in fact). However, for our new region of Russia, the form must be signed by someone who is "licensed". The property appraiser's office does not have a licensing procedure, so my caseworker said I could ask our real estate agent to verify our residence and give us a copy of her license to be notarized/apostilled. Our dear real estate agent was so happy to help us, even at a moment's notice! What a sweetie. Her only requirement was that we stop by and visit when the baby is home - which we're more than happy to do!
I am about to look through all the documents once more, but I am quite confident that we have everything that we need to be able to turn in our "court packet" in Russia. This is important because it will get us immediately into the line to wait for a court date. If we didn't bring it with us, we would have to send it from here after we get back -- which would lose precious time that our paperwork could be "standing in line" in Russia. However, our caseworker has warned me that there WILL be something wrong with the paperwork, or something else needed - there ALWAYS is something. I have tried so hard to make it perfect, but she has warned me that the rules constantly change and we just need to be flexible. Lord help me be flexible!!
We hope to get online a few times while we are traveling, so we will be posting updates if we can. I may post one more pre-travel note, but then again we may be rushing until the last minute...in any case, please pray for everything to go smoothly! We depart at 7:25 am Friday from Orlando and we will meet the baby who has been referred to us on Monday!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
bought the tickets!
We were given the go-ahead to get our plane tickets! They are now officially in our hands (as much as e-tickets can be, I guess).
We leave next Friday, May 9, early in the morning from Orlando. Our local friends can fight over who wants to drive us there :) From there, we fly to JFK in New York and wait for part of the day until our direct flight to Moscow, which arrives there Saturday morning. Then we'll be in the car (don't worry, someone else will be driving) for 4-5 hours to get to the region where we will be staying. We'll have Sunday to recover/explore and on Monday, May 12, we will meet the baby boy who is waiting for us! If all goes well, we will sign off and submit paperwork so that the wait between trips will be as short as possible - it will be so hard to leave without him.
We'll be arriving back in town on Saturday night, May 17, around 10 pm in Orlando. Our local friends can fight over who gets to pick us up :)
Please pray for our planning details - lots to do and a week to do it!
We leave next Friday, May 9, early in the morning from Orlando. Our local friends can fight over who wants to drive us there :) From there, we fly to JFK in New York and wait for part of the day until our direct flight to Moscow, which arrives there Saturday morning. Then we'll be in the car (don't worry, someone else will be driving) for 4-5 hours to get to the region where we will be staying. We'll have Sunday to recover/explore and on Monday, May 12, we will meet the baby boy who is waiting for us! If all goes well, we will sign off and submit paperwork so that the wait between trips will be as short as possible - it will be so hard to leave without him.
We'll be arriving back in town on Saturday night, May 17, around 10 pm in Orlando. Our local friends can fight over who gets to pick us up :)
Please pray for our planning details - lots to do and a week to do it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)