Some answers

We went back to our court yesterday to talk to the secretary there again and see if anything had been sent over to the appeals court yet. She had our information out already and was able to explain the situation. The prosecutor had 10 days to pick up an application for an appeal, but she has 20 days to turn it in. Even though our court hearing was on Friday, July 11, the official judgement didn't get turned in until Monday, July 14, so that is when the 10/20 days started. So the prosector has until August 5 to submit her reason for the appeal, which she has not done yet. That is why the appeals court did not have any documentation. The secretary said that the prosecutor did not give a reason for the appeal. She thought that maybe the prosecutor is wanting a bribe, which is what we have suspected from the beginning. The judge told us right from the start not to contact the prosecutor, so maybe he suspects it too. The secretary ended up calling the prosecutor to find out if she really has a reason for the appeal. The prosecutor said that she is preparing her complaint and will try to get it in by Friday. Andrei told us that the judge said the prosecutor can't appeal because she did not participate in the hearing, but the secretary at the court said that she still has a right to appeal even if she wasn't there. We're still hoping that the appeal will be thrown out once it is actually submitted. If it is, then hopefully we can get Vacya next week and get the process finished and come home the following week. If the appeal is accepted, there will be another hearing, which could be scheduled anytime (soon or not for another month). Joe's work has been really great and told him not to worry about his job, so he's going to be staying here with me.

Something's fishy

After a week of no news, Tammy and I decided to take matters into our own hands and go to the court ourselves to get some information. First we went to the court where our hearing was to see if they could tell us anything about the appeal. The secretary there found some paperwork from our case, but I'm not sure exactly what it was. I think it just documented our hearing. She then called three different people at the appeals court to try to find out the status of our case, but nobody could find anything. She suggested that we go to the appeals court to see if they could help us there. At the appeals court, the secretary could not find any record of our case by our name. We called our facilitator to see if he could give us our case number or the name of the judge at the appeals court that was in charge of our case. Andrei said that he didn't have our documents with him, so he did not have the case number and he did not know the name of the appeals court judge. He said that he would call the inspector in Simferopol (in charge of all adoptions in the region) and ask her for it. She could not give it to him, I don't remember the reason he gave me, so I asked him to talk to the secretary at the appeals court to see if he could get any information. He has never actually spoken with anyone at the appeals court yet because he didn't have the phone number. After talking with the lady, he got the number there and said he would call her back tomorrow with our case number to see if she could find out anything else. We just think that it is kind of weird that nobody has any documentation anywhere that an application for an appeal was ever made. Tomorrow, Tammy and I are going to go back to the court to see if we can get the case number ourselves and copies of documents from our case. Then we'll go back to the appeals court again with the additional information to see what we can find out. There is only one appeals court for all of Crimea, so it is possible that they are just backed up and the application for ours hasn't been processed yet, but something still seems fishy. Hopefully we can get some answers tomorrow.

No decision yet

We're still waiting to get a decision from the appeal's court whether or not the prosecutor's application will be thrown out.  First they said we'd know Tuesday, then Thursday, then today, and now they're saying maybe Monday.  We don't know what the problem is or why it's taking so long.  Hopefully we'll be able to get our final paperwork from the court on Monday so we can go get Vacya from camp.  We're going to visit him again tomorrow, but it will be hard to tell him that we still can't take him with us.

We've been in Ukraine now for 14 weeks, not counting the 3 weeks that we were home at the end of May/ beginning of June.  We can't afford for Joe to miss any more work, so he's probably going home next Sunday, August 3rd.  Luckily I have a school schedule and still have a few more weeks left before the new school year starts.  We're hoping that we can get everything done here in Simferopol during the next week so we can all go up to Kiev together before Joe has to fly out.  Then hopefully Vacya and I will be able to follow just a few days later.  Please keep praying for things to move along quickly.  We're really ready to be home!

More delays

Apparently during the 10 day waiting period people can pick up an application to appeal, but the application does not have to be filed for 20 days. As far as we know, the prosecutor did actually already file the application for the appeal. However, in order to appeal, the person has to have been a participant in the original court hearing. The judge never recognized the prosecutor as a participant in our hearing, so her application for the appeal should just be thrown out. Today our judge talked with the appeals court judge and he thinks that it should be thrown out by Thursday and we can move forward. We've been told a lot of things in the last 3 months though that haven't exactly worked out how we thought they would, so we'll just have to keep praying and hoping for the best.

On another note, my stomach has been bothering me almost constantly lately. I can't eat much of anything without being in pain. Since we were only home for 3 weeks back in May/June, and didn't know when we'd have to return to Ukraine, I couldn't have my gall bladder surgery. We also just found out that my brother most likely has Celiac's disease, which is hereditary, so I could have that too, but can't be tested until I get back home. If I do have Celiac's I will have to go on a gluten-free diet, but it's kind of hard to check ingredients when the labels here are all in Russian or Ukrainian. So, I may just be eating fresh fruits and vegetables until I can get home and figure out what's wrong.

Appeal

The prosecutor appealed the judge's approval of our case.  Tomorrow the appeals court is going to decide if there are grounds for the appeal or not.  If not, they will just throw out the appeal, we can still get our paperwork from the court tomorrow, and the waiting period will not be extended.  That's what we're praying for.  I don't want to have to tell Vacya that he can't come with us yet after all.  The poor kid has been though so much already.    

Camp

We went out to the camp to visit Vacya this morning.  He was really excited to see us and asked if he was going to leave with us today.  A few older girls that Tammy was talking to said that some of the boys beat Vacya up all the time because he is being adopted.  He didn't look too bad, but there were some older, yellow bruises on his face.  We told him only a few more days before we can take him with us.  We haven't heard anything about the prosecutor appealing, but Andrei isn't going to call the court until Monday when our 10 days are up.  I don't know if anybody from the appeals court would notify us if there was an appeal or not.  

Possible timeline

After then 10 day waiting period (assuming the prosecutor does not appeal) the adoption will be finalized and Andrei will be able to pick up the paperwork from the court on July 21 or 22. Then we have to go to Vacya's hometown to get his birth certificate changed. Hopefully we can do that on the 22nd, but in Ukraine there are only a few people that do any particular job and they only work certain days, so we'll have to see if the person that does birth certificates in Kerch is working that day. Once we get the new birth certificate, we can apply for Vacya's passport. We can pay extra to have it expedited and get it in 3 days. We're not sure yet if we will stay in Simferopol while we wait for the passport or go up to Kiev. Once we have the passport, Vacya will have a medical exam in Kiev and we will apply for his US Visa at the US Embassy. That should only take a couple of days, so we're hoping to be home by the end of July.

YES!

We have our court approval!!!! Now we just have to wait the 10 days until the adoption is finalized. We were not able to get permission to have Vacya stay with us during the 10 day waiting period, so we took him back out to the camp this evening. He was very happy when we told him that the judge said yes and asked us about it several times just to make sure. He was bummed when we told him that we had to take him back to the camp, but we explained that he would be with us after the 10 days and we will come to visit him in the meantime. There is still a chance that the prosecutor could appeal the judge's decision, but she has no grounds, so it would just be overturned. The only problem is that it could extend the waiting period beyond the 10 days if she does appeal. Please pray that the prosecutor will just let it be so that we can get this process finished as soon as possible.

If there is no picture showing up, click on the little square in the upper left corner to see it :)

Appointment

Sasha has our signed approval from the SDA and we have a court hearing scheduled for 10:00am on Friday. The orphanage director is supposed to be returning from Greece today, so Andrei is going to call him tomorrow to see if we can get permission to pick Vacya up from the camp tomorrow afternoon and have him stay with us overnight. Then if all goes well at the court hearing, hopefully we won't have to take Vacya back out to the camp.

Maybe Friday

When I talked to Andrei this morning, our approval was done and just needed to be signed by the SDA director.  I haven't heard if Sasha was able to pick it up or not.  We should have our court hearing on Friday, but don't have a time assigned yet.  Andrei has to call the judge on Thursday to get an appointment time.  Hopefully it will really  happen.  It's hard not to be skeptical at this point.

New SDA Approval

We're still waiting on the new approval from SDA, which Sasha said we may get tomorrow, but we don't really know. We can't get another court date until we get the new approval, so we're still just waiting...

Happy 4th of July

We went out to the camp to visit Vacya today.  There was a really nice lady who works there that was telling us how much she loves Vacya.  She said he's very kind and likes to help with things around the camp.  It was so nice to have a caregiver be positive and tell us good things about him after all of the negative things we've heard at the orphanage.  Vacya seemed to be in good spirits. We told him that the court hearing had to be changed again and will hopefully happen next week. 

After spending some time at the camp, we drove the rest of the way to Sudak to spend a few hours at the beach.  Tonight we're going to another missionary couple's home to celebrate the 4th.  I think we're even going to have fireworks :)

Happy Birthday to Alec, Micah, and Malachi.  We're bummed that we couldn't be there for your parties.

Shelby, yesterday Uriye told Tammy that they found Sasha (girl) at a village near the orphanage and she will be coming back in time for school to start!

Beki, if you see Diane at work, can you ask her how Rajah is doing?  I always worry about his breathing in the summer when it gets hot and humid.  Thanks.

For other families adopting in Ukraine

Our facilitator just told us about a great deal for traveling within Ukraine. A Hungarian airline is starting to have flights in Ukraine and will be having great promotional rates this summer. Starting July 11, it is less than $20 to fly between Kiev and either Simferopol, Lviv, or Odessa. I think those are the only cities that they are flying to at this time. Check out wizzair.com if this will help with your traveling plans. The rates will gradually increase, but right now it's cheaper than a train.

Another delay

We will not be having our court hearing tomorrow after all. Andrei arrived in Simferopol this morning and found out that we need to have a new approval from the SDA that is just for me, not both of us. I had to sign a new application to the SDA today and have it notarized. Andrei is sending it by train up to Kiev tonight and Sasha should get it tomorrow morning. Then he will take it to the SDA to get the new approval and send that back down here. If all goes well and Sasha is able to get the new approval right away, we should be able to have another court hearing either Friday or Monday. It is frustrating because I asked about that before we left last time we were here and was told that everything was fine. At least we found out now though, and not at the actual hearing. From what the judge has told Andrei, there should be no reason for the prosecutor not to agree with my application to adopt. The judge went to the appeal court to ask about it and was told that if the prosecutor does object again, they can over-ride it because the paperwork is all in order (once we have the new approval from the SDA) and there is no legal reason that we cannot adopt Vacya. So even though we have yet another delay, we can go into the next hearing with a little more confidence in the outcome.

Tammy was out at the camp today and said that Vacya has been beaten-up again. He had some scratches across one of his cheeks. Please pray for his continued safety and for this whole process to be finalized soon so that we can all come home.

Early morning

It looks like we're going to have a really early morning tomorrow. So far we haven't been able to get permission to have Vacya overnight tonight. The orphanage director has to give permission, but he's on vacation in Greece right now. The lawyer from the orphanage who has been coming to our court hearings is trying to find out if there is someone else that can give us permission since the director is not available. However, there isn't anyone at the orphanage right now because the kids are at camp. We'll probably have to leave Simferopol at 6am tomorrow morning to have enough time to get Vacya and get back in time for our 9:00 hearing. If anyone's awake at 2am (eastern time) tomorrow morning, we'd really appreciate your prayers. We have no idea at this point what's going to happen at this next hearing, but are still trying to be hopeful.