Coming home

We bought our plane tickets and will be home Saturday night. We are both really looking forward to being home, although we feel bad that we have to leave Vacya behind for now. We explained to him that we need to go home to work, but we will be back in a few weeks to finish the adoption. Then he will be coming home with us. He seems to be taking it all ok. He will be finished with school on May 31, then his class will go to a camp on June 6 where they will stay for a few weeks. Hopefully the fun activities they have for the kids to do there will help keep him from getting too discouraged while we're gone.

Praise God!!!!

We got some very good news today.  After talking to the lawyer and the judge, Andrei found out that it is possible for Joe to give me power of attorney so that I can apply to adopt Vacya under just my name because the age difference is not a problem with me.  I guess we're setting a precedent in Ukrainian adoption law and the lawyers, court officials, and prosecutors around Simferopol and even some in Kiev have heard about our case.  The judge told Andrei that he had wanted to approve our adoption, but could not because the prosecutor objected and the law actually does state that there can be no less than 15 years age difference between the adoptive parents.

We are planning on coming home this weekend so that we can work for a few weeks before we have the next court hearing.  We don't know yet when it will be, but it should be at least a few weeks before it will happen.

Appeal

Andrei met with a lawyer today who is preparing the application for our appeal, which will be submitted tomorrow.  He as also been talking with the inspector in charge of all adoptions in this area (who had approved our adoption).  The inspector is meeting with the judge tomorrow to see if we can get anywhere that way.  From what I understand of the situation, it might be possible to change our paperwork without actually having another hearing, but the judge would have to agree to change the decision.  Our facilitators are not sure right now what the best option will be, so they are talking with everyone they can to see what should be done.  Joe and I have decided that if we do need to have another hearing, and it won't be scheduled for a few weeks, we are going to come home for a few weeks to work (and keep our sanity).  Hopefully we will find out tomorrow or Thursday whether or not there will be another hearing, and how long it will be before a hearing could take place.

When we went to see Vacya today, I could tell right away that someone had told him something.  His usual bright smile was not there.  Tammy came with us so that we could talk with him.  We asked him what he had heard already, and he said that they told him the judge said no, we can't adopt him.  Apparently the caregivers and kids in his class all know about it. We explained that this is not finished yet and we are working with a lot of people to still be able to adopt him.  He seemed to feel a little better after we talked to him, but I think that now he's finding it hard to believe that this will really happen for him.  He made several comments about the medal that the judge wore around his neck during the hearing, like he was thinking, "that guy is the one who has the power and he said no, so that's it."  We told him that a lot of people are praying about this and God knows what is going on and He can make this happen.  

Vacya

Vacya was at the hearing today, but he left with the orphanage representative before they gave the decision, so he does not know yet.  Tomorrow when we go to visit, we will just tell him that it is taking longer than we thought and we will have to go to another court hearing.  We don't want to tell him that they said no and have him worry about it.  Sasha and Andrei have already contacted several lawyers and prosecutors that they know and are doing everything they can to help resolve the situation.  Sasha said that we have 10 days to appeal the decision and that we should be able to have another court hearing within 20 days.  I'll post more info when I get it.

Joe and I are hanging in there.  He was pretty angry and I'm just shocked.  Joe went to play basketball with Matt this evening to let off some steam and I'm spending some much-needed alone time.  We both believe that God wants Vacya to be a part of our family and He is in control of all of it, so we're just trying to trust that everything will work out in the end.

During the very stressful 4 hours that we were at the court today, I kept reciting my favorite Bible verse to myself, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6,7

Keep praying and petitioning!  We know that God hears even if we don't understand why He's allowing these things to happen.  And we can definitely use some peace right now :)

We love you all.  Thanks for your love and support.

Court Hearing

Well, today's court hearing didn't go so well.  There is a law that the minimum age difference between an adoptive parent and child is 15 years.  Joe is 14 1/2 years older than Vacya.  We were told that that would not be a problem, so we haven't worried about it.  Today the prosecutor at the court hearing protested our application to adopt Vacya because of the age difference between him and Joe, and the judge denied our application.  We can still appeal the decision and request a different judge and prosecutor, but we don't know how long that process will take.  Andrei is contacting a lawyer here in Simferopol and Sasha is contacting the lawyer at the State Dept. of Adoption in Kiev.  The SDA has already approved us, knowing of the age difference, so the facilitators were shocked about what happened today.  They have never heard of a prosecutor protesting in this way before.  Hopefully we will know more tomorrow about what we need to do and how long it may take.  Thanks for your continued prayers.

Clinic

Vacya has been staying in the clinic on the orphanage grounds for the last few days because of his ear.  I'm still not sure if he really has an ear infection or not, but I think they've been putting iodine in his ear.  They use iodine for everything here.  I have children's tylenol and cold medicine here with me, but they wouldn't give him any of it.  They have their own regimen they said.  I'm worried that with him being in the clinic around other sick kids that he's going to catch something else and really be sick.  He's still been acting like he feels fine, though.  We'll see when we go out later today if he's back in with his class or still in the clinic.  I really don't want him to be sick on Monday when we have our court date.  I don't think that they would be able to say that he can't go to court because of an ear infection, but over here you never know. 

Vacya will have to have a medical exam when we go to Kiev before we can get his visa to the US. It is a medical clinic that is approved by the US Embassy here, so it should be fine.  We will still have him seen by a doctor once we get to the States also.  My mom has heard of a doctor down at Michigan State who is from Russia and accepts new patients that have been adopted from Russian speaking countries, so we will probably try to take  him there at first so that Vacya can understand him.

Last night I went to a sleepover/ ladies' night with Tammy that was for the group of missionary women here.  We had a good time eating and talking (in English!!!).  Many of them I had either met before through Shelby or at least heard about from when Shelby lived here.  One of them is from Charlotte, MI and I actually went to church camp with her sister when we were younger.

Our court appointment is at 2:00 on Monday, which is 7:00am at home.  We would appreciate your prayers for everything to go smoothly.

Ear ache

We think that Vacya might have an ear infection or something.  He's had cotton in one of his ears the last 2 days and today he was wearing a winter hat too.  He also sounds a little congested.  We haven't had anyone there to translate for us, though, so we can't ask what's wrong.  He isn't acting like he's feeling sick, though.  

Joe has been going out with Matt to work on their new house.  Today they were working on getting the roof on over the garage.  I'm hoping he doesn't end up falling off or something.  That's all we need, for him to break something.  Hospitals over here are scary.

Tammy knows a lady that does facials and face/neck massages, so I'm going to get one tomorrow. It's only 60 grevan, which is about 12 bucks.  Pretty good for an hour of pampering.  I'm looking forward to it.

Good Grief!

I got to talk to my brother yesterday.  He always makes me smile :)  He asked if we'd be home in 2 weeks (in time for the State summer games for Special Olympics where he'll be playing team handball).  I told him that, no, it is talking longer than we thought and now we probably won't be home until sometime in June.  He responded, "Oh, good grief!"  I agree!!!  At the end of our conversation he said, "Ok,  see you in  June... or maybe May 30."  He's too cute.

We talked to Andrei and he told us  that we do still have our May 19th court date, he's just been trying to get the judge to see us earlier.  So that should be the latest it will be if the judge can't fit us in sometime during this next week.  Even if we do get to have Vacya with us, we will still probably have to wait the 10 days before everything is official and we can go to get his new birth certificate.  We are still going to ask to have the waiting period waived, though.

The last 2 days at the orphanage have been better with the caregivers.  They haven't been particularly friendly, but at least we haven't been yelled at in Russian again.   Vacya's been doing fine.  He has an unbelievable resiliency and just seems to bounce back from whatever is thrown at him.  He always has that big smile on his face :)

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.  Today is exactly six weeks from when we left the states and our original plane tickets had a return date for today.  We had really hoped we'd be home today, in time for Mother's Day tomorrow.  We want to wish our moms and grandmas a Happy Mother's Day now in case we aren't able to get through to you tomorrow.

Meeting with Director

Yesterday Vadim, Tammy, and Matt came to the orphanage with Joe and I to talk to the director about what's been going on with the caregivers. He told us that only he or his assistant would be able to go to the court when we have our appointment, so the caregivers will not be able to go and cause any trouble there for us. He also said that he would talk to the caregiver that was threatening to go to the court and fight against us adopting Vacya. He was not happy about the situation. We also asked if we could get permission to have Vacya with us during the 10-day waiting period after our court appointment and he said that we could. We still hoping that we can get the 10-day waiting period waived, but at least we should be able to have Vacya with us during that time if it isn't waived.

We still don't know anything more about the court date. It won't be this week, because tomorrow is a holiday here.

Nina was being difficult again today when we went to visit Vacya. She was telling us, in front of the whole class, that Vacya gets up at night and hits the other kids and bites them. She kept going on and on about it. There isn't any supervision for the kids at night, so he may or may not actually be doing anything. The other kids might be telling the caregivers that he's doing those things just to get him in trouble. We just can't wait to get him out of there!

Court Date

Well, we were supposed to be having our court hearing today, but some criminal case was scheduled for this morning, so the judge could not see us.  We just found this out yesterday when we called Andrei.  I guess he's known since April 26 that it was possible that we might not actually be able to go to court today, but for some reason he didn't tell us about it.  He said that we should still be able to have it sometime this week, but we don't even know that for sure.  

We also were not able to see Vacya yesterday or today.  His caregivers are saying that he climbed up on the roof or something, which I'm not really sure is even true, so they won't let us see him.  They said he is out of control and needs to calm down.  We called Andrei to see if he could talk to somebody to get things worked out so that we could still see Vacya, but he wasn't able to do anything to help.  He doesn't have authority over the caregivers and has not been able to talk to the director to let him know what's going on.  

Shelby suggested that we request to have the 10 day waiting period waived since the laws changed while we were here and we weren't planning on being in Ukraine this long.  Sometimes they will waive the 10 day waiting period after the court date for medical reasons, but we're not sure if they will in our case.  It can't hurt to try though.

The Circus and Moving Day

Tomorrow Joe, Tammy, and I are taking Vacya's class to the circus. It's right down-town, not far from the apartment where we have been staying. After the circus we might take the kids out for ice cream or to the children's park as well, if the weather is nice. It should be a fun day.

Tomorrow is also moving day for us. We have been staying in the apartment where Shelby, Matt & kids stayed. They had paid rent through tomorrow, so we have been able to stay here rent-free and will just need to cover utilities for the time that we were here. Tomorrow we're moving to Matt & Tammy's house, where we will also be able to stay for free for another 2 weeks. Then, once we get Vacya, we'll be staying at the apartment that we were in originally the first week we were here in Simferopol. It's been a huge blessing to have our accommodations covered for the majority of our stay here, especially since we ended up being here longer than we thought we would be.

I'm not sure if we will have internet access at Matt & Tammy's house, so I may not be able to update the blog as often after today. If we can't get on there, we'll try to get somewhere with wifi at least a few times a week to let everyone know how things are going.