Home

Vacya and I finally arrived home late Tuesday night last week. It's been great to be back home.

We visited Vacya's school last week and he started school today, but just for the afternoon. He seemed excited to be around kids again and had quite the following when I was watching him play at recess. One of his classmates told me, "He's already so popular and it's only his first day." The school found a native Russian speaking women who is going to be translating for Vacya at school 3 afternoons a week, so we're pretty happy about that.

I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

Finally

Went to the American Embassy this morning to apply for Vacya's US visa, were able to have our interview right away (this usually takes place on the second day) and left with Vacya's visa. Yeah!!! We're finally coming home.

We got it!

We ended up getting Vacya's passport yesterday, made it on a train that evening, and arrived in Kiev this morning. We were able to get Vacya's medical exam already, so now we will just have to wait until Monday to apply for his US visa. Then hopefully that will be ready by Tuesday afternoon. Yeah!!! We're finally going to make it home!!!

No passport

Well, we didn't get Vacya's passport today. It was the earliest day we could get it, so it wasn't really a surprise that it wasn't here yet, but we're still disappointed. They told Andrei to call back again tomorrow to see if it's in. Hopefully it will be ready.

More pics

This is one of my favorite pictures... Joe and Vacya playing ball at the orphan camp.

Vacya and I having some pizza.

Recent pics

Playing Nintendo DS with the boys

Saying Goodbye - Last Day at the Orphanage

Gotcha Day

It's official... Vacya is now with us forever. His "Gotcha Day" is October 7, 2008. We weren't able to get him on Monday after all because the director was not at the orphanage that afternoon, so we had to wait until Tuesday morning. It was really hard to tell Vacya that he had to spend one more night at the orphanage after we'd told him that he would not have to. We were still able to go out to the small village to change Vacya's birth certificate on Tuesday though, so it didn't really change our plans too much.

So, Vacya's name is now Vacya James Wager. Joe and I had decided a long time ago that Vacya's middle name would be James, after my dad. I've also been thinking lately that it's pretty appropriate because the book of James talks a lot about trials and perserverance, and we've definately had our share of trials over that past 6 months.

Today we had to go to the tax police to get Vacya's name changed for his tax code, which is similar to our social security numbers in the US. Then we applied for his passport. The ladies at the passport office told us to check back next Wednesday, so hopefully the passport will be ready by then. That would allow us to take a train up to Kiev Wednesday night, get the medical exam completed and the US visa applied for, and hopefully fly home that weekend. Please pray that the passport will be ready on Wednesday so we can get home!

Weekend

We had a great time this past weekend. The circus was pretty cool. The first half had dancers, acrobats, clowns, and animals doing tricks, then the second half was more like a magic show. Vacya loved it. On Sunday we went out for pizza after church, went to see the movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in the afternoon, then had cake and ice cream for Shelby's birthday in the evening. Vacya really liked the movie. It was in Ukrainian, which he doesn't know very well, but it had enough action that we all enjoyed it even though we couldn't understand most of the talking.

Andrei has our paperwork from the court and now we're just waiting for the regional inspector to sign something before we can go back out to the orphanage to get Vacya signed out for good. We had to take him back there this morning, which he wasn't too thrilled about, but should be able to have him again by this afternoon. Andrei has already notified the lawyer for the orphanage that the paperwork is ready, so she is going to begin preparing things on her side to have it ready when we get there with the court documents.

Progress

Yesterday morning, Shelby, Tammy, Lena, and I went to the appeals court to check on the status of my paperwork. When we got there, the girl that Shelby and I had talked to the day before told us to wait, then came back about 10 minutes later with our completed documents. She could not give them to us because the must go to the other court by courier, so we all headed over to our court to send the courier to get them. When we got there, the courier had already left and was at the appeals court. The secretary that has been so helpful in the past called the courier and asked him to go through all of the documents and make sure mine were there before returning. She told us that once she had them, she would prepare the additional court decree that I needed to get Vacya signed out of the orphanage. The papers were ready at the end of the work day Friday, so we didn't have time to officially sign Vacya out, but he's with me for the weekend. On Monday Andrei will come down to get everything taken care of with the orphanage, so other than going back for a few hours Monday morning, Vacya will not have to stay there anymore. Then on Tuesday we will head out to the village where Vacya was born to get his birth certificate changed. It's about a 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive, so it will probably take most of the day to get it done. If we get back early enough on Tuesday, we will apply for his passport; otherwise we'll do that Wednesday morning. I've been told that it should take 5 to 7 days to get the passport, but I know others who've waited much longer. I'm hoping that we don't run into another delay there.

This afternoon Shelby and I are taking the kids to the circus, then tomorrow is Shelby's birthday, so we should have a very fun weekend. Vacya has been asking all day how much longer till we go to the circus. He's so excited.

Neverending story

Vacya and I had a good weekend together. He had a good time hanging out with Shelby's kids in the small 2-bedroom apartment that all 9 of us are staying in. He really loved the Nintendo DS that we brought for him. He likes playing Mariokart with Shelby's boys, who each have a DS also. On Sunday all of the kids from his class at the orphanage came to church, then we had a little good-bye party for Vacya afterwards. The kids had lasagne for the first time and really seemed to like it.

Unfortunately it wasn't really good-bye that day because we still don't have our paperwork from the appeals court so Vacya had to go back to the orphanage Sunday night. The judge at the appeals court told us that the paperwork should be done within 5 days, but it's already been 7 working days and the documents still have not been prepared. It would be really nice if at least one step of this process could go smoothly and quickly, but apparently this particular step is not. Shelby and I went to the appeals court today to ask about our case, but it still has not been prepared. The girl we talked to said to come back tomorrow to check, so hopefully they will have worked on it. Once they finish it, it will still have to be sent by courier to our court so that they can prepare another document which will allow me to go get Vacya from the orphanage for good. Then of course there are still the birth certificate, passport, medical exam, and US visa to get. I'm really hoping to be home within 2 more weeks or so, but at this rate I have no idea how many more delays we're going to have.

Please continue to pray that things will be completed quickly so that we can come home. It's even harder now that Joe's not here with me, but luckily Shelby is still around to try to keep me from going crazy :) They have been having trouble getting their Russian visas, so they're playing a waiting game right now too. I'm sure they would appreciate your prayers as well.