After waiting 3 years, it seems incredible to think that we might actually be getting close! With our home study behind us, we have been working on our dossier for court in Russia. It should be filed soon. Our agency said that no one in the last year has taken longer than 6 months to be matched with a child from this point. The kids are ecstatic to think that we might have their little sister this summer.
Oh, and by the way, the adoption agency is ready for their next 8 grand.
I spent the day researching adoption grants online. Unfortunately, most of them say that you must have exhausted all other resources FIRST. I never sent out tht letter that I posted in October, because right before Christmas did not seem like a good time to ask people for financial assistance. Now, the time has come to put it out there.
Apparently, if it takes too long to send your money in now, it looks suspicious to the court. I can say with absolute certainty that I am not the least worried about this. I have PLENTY of experience knowing that what God calls you to do, He will equip you to do. There will be people who are called to help us whether financially or prayerfully or both. Please join me in prayer that the funds to bring this dear child home will come soon.
Welcome!
Welcome to my little private corner of the world wide web.
In this forum, friends and family may share our journey to follow the Lord's calling to adopt a little girl from Russia whom we like to call, Glory.
Our story begins in January 2007. I naively ask a friend of mine who had an adopted daughter from China, "what's the deal with all these people adopting Chinese baby girls?" Yes, I know. You are shaking your head right now. You have probably watched the news more times this week than I have in a decade. I make no excuse other than that I am already the mother of 3 children under 8, and I was already pretty busy before they came along.
My friend graciously replied that she had a book for me to read. That weekend I read The Lost Daughters of China and scoured the internet for any information about orphans in China and Russia. Why Russia?
I have always loved Russian literature, culture and history. Even the fiction I read as a teenager was set in Russia. During the summer that I was 12, I started a Bible study for my friends for the purpose of praying for Russia and raising money to support Brother Andrew smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.
I have actually read War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Because I wanted to.
So, after those first days of weeping at what I had read, my immediate reaction was to say, "Me, Lord, I'll take one." I proceeded to read everything I could get my hands on about the plight of the orphan and God's plan for them. As I did, I was humbled and amazed at the answers God has already provided for questions I was just beginning to ask. The Holy Spirit was faithful to eloquently weave together verse after verse that I had known since childhood with my newfound concern for Russian orphans.
I will try to set this information out for you here, not to convince you that you, too, should adopt, but to convince you to ask the questions.
You can find much more reliable information by doing the research for yourself, but if you want to rely on my memory...
• there are 143 million orphans in the world today, the United Nations
• there are approximately 700,000 orphans in 2000 orphanages and another 2 to 4 million orphans living on the street in Russia, the Russian Department of Education
• 95% of those Russian children have at least one living relative who is either unwilling or unable to care for them
• of the ones who are not adopted and age out of the system between 16 and 18 years old,
50% of the girls end up in prostitution,
40% end up addicted to drugs and/or alcohol,
40% end up in crime,
10% commit suicide,
10% become functional members of society
Family Life and Focus on the Family are two Christian organizations that have teamed up with others to create a campaign called Hope for the Orphan. One of the main emphasis for this campaign is the role that the body of Christ should take in caring for the "least of these," as Jesus would say. And remember, "whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me."
In the book, Fields of the Fatherless, we are reminded that the three protected groups mentioned by God repeatedly in Scripture are the orphans, widows and aliens or strangers. So, if you're keeping count, that's a double whammy for international orphans.
Proverbs 23:10-11 "Do not move an ancient boundary stone, or encroach on the fields of the fatherless, for their Defender is strong; He will take up their case against you."
James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Adoption is a picture the Lord Himself gave us for depict His relationship with us.
Ephesians 1:4b-5 "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will...."
Psalm 82:3 "Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute."
Psalm 41:1 "How blessed is he who considers the Helpless..."
Matthew 18:5 "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me."
Matthew 25:40 "The King will reply, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
I could go on and on, and the Lord willing, I will on another day.
Since we are currently pursuing a Russian adoption, we must write this blog anonymously. Please do not jeopardize our adoption by putting anything on the internet with our names or personal information. Thanks.
Please pray for us... for Glory... and for the children waiting for families.
In this forum, friends and family may share our journey to follow the Lord's calling to adopt a little girl from Russia whom we like to call, Glory.
Our story begins in January 2007. I naively ask a friend of mine who had an adopted daughter from China, "what's the deal with all these people adopting Chinese baby girls?" Yes, I know. You are shaking your head right now. You have probably watched the news more times this week than I have in a decade. I make no excuse other than that I am already the mother of 3 children under 8, and I was already pretty busy before they came along.
My friend graciously replied that she had a book for me to read. That weekend I read The Lost Daughters of China and scoured the internet for any information about orphans in China and Russia. Why Russia?
I have always loved Russian literature, culture and history. Even the fiction I read as a teenager was set in Russia. During the summer that I was 12, I started a Bible study for my friends for the purpose of praying for Russia and raising money to support Brother Andrew smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain.
I have actually read War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Because I wanted to.
So, after those first days of weeping at what I had read, my immediate reaction was to say, "Me, Lord, I'll take one." I proceeded to read everything I could get my hands on about the plight of the orphan and God's plan for them. As I did, I was humbled and amazed at the answers God has already provided for questions I was just beginning to ask. The Holy Spirit was faithful to eloquently weave together verse after verse that I had known since childhood with my newfound concern for Russian orphans.
I will try to set this information out for you here, not to convince you that you, too, should adopt, but to convince you to ask the questions.
You can find much more reliable information by doing the research for yourself, but if you want to rely on my memory...
• there are 143 million orphans in the world today, the United Nations
• there are approximately 700,000 orphans in 2000 orphanages and another 2 to 4 million orphans living on the street in Russia, the Russian Department of Education
• 95% of those Russian children have at least one living relative who is either unwilling or unable to care for them
• of the ones who are not adopted and age out of the system between 16 and 18 years old,
50% of the girls end up in prostitution,
40% end up addicted to drugs and/or alcohol,
40% end up in crime,
10% commit suicide,
10% become functional members of society
Family Life and Focus on the Family are two Christian organizations that have teamed up with others to create a campaign called Hope for the Orphan. One of the main emphasis for this campaign is the role that the body of Christ should take in caring for the "least of these," as Jesus would say. And remember, "whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me."
In the book, Fields of the Fatherless, we are reminded that the three protected groups mentioned by God repeatedly in Scripture are the orphans, widows and aliens or strangers. So, if you're keeping count, that's a double whammy for international orphans.
Proverbs 23:10-11 "Do not move an ancient boundary stone, or encroach on the fields of the fatherless, for their Defender is strong; He will take up their case against you."
James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Adoption is a picture the Lord Himself gave us for depict His relationship with us.
Ephesians 1:4b-5 "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will...."
Psalm 82:3 "Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute."
Psalm 41:1 "How blessed is he who considers the Helpless..."
Matthew 18:5 "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me."
Matthew 25:40 "The King will reply, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
I could go on and on, and the Lord willing, I will on another day.
Since we are currently pursuing a Russian adoption, we must write this blog anonymously. Please do not jeopardize our adoption by putting anything on the internet with our names or personal information. Thanks.
Please pray for us... for Glory... and for the children waiting for families.
Welcome, part 2
So anyway, to complete the thought in "Welcome," God selected our family to adopt a girl from Russia. He first told me about it in January of 2007. We prayed about it for a year before my husband said it was time to start. We researched adoption agencies in Jan-Feb, applied and were accepted. In March, we selected a homestudy agency and attended their orientation and education meetings.
It will take 8-12 weeks for the homestudy to be done from the day we turn in our paperwork and our check. During that time, they will be checking the validity of our forms, checking with references, interviewing us and our children separately and together, inspecting our home, etc. We will simultaneously apply to immigration for the advance approval to bring our adopted child into the U.S. That takes a few months, an FBI fingerprint check and another large sum of money.
Then it will be time to complete our dossier for Russia which I am already working on now. Dossier is code for "another large stack of paperwork separate and distinct from the other two you have already compiled and notarized."
We'll talk about what happens after that another time.
It will take 8-12 weeks for the homestudy to be done from the day we turn in our paperwork and our check. During that time, they will be checking the validity of our forms, checking with references, interviewing us and our children separately and together, inspecting our home, etc. We will simultaneously apply to immigration for the advance approval to bring our adopted child into the U.S. That takes a few months, an FBI fingerprint check and another large sum of money.
Then it will be time to complete our dossier for Russia which I am already working on now. Dossier is code for "another large stack of paperwork separate and distinct from the other two you have already compiled and notarized."
We'll talk about what happens after that another time.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Counting the Cost
Did you know that Russia charges nothing for adoptions, but it takes about $45,000 to pay all the agency fees, hotel stays and plane tickets for 2 separate trips and donations to the children's home, etc.
I read somewhere that it is also important to understand that words like “prices” and “fees” are related to goods and services. However, when the Bible speaks of the redemption of a person, it speaks of paying a ransom: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If your child was being held for ransom, you would come up with that $45,000!
Since God has called us to adopt, there is a child out there that He has ordained as our child. In order to bring her home where she belongs, we will have to pay the ransom.
Every prudent man acts out of knowledge ...Proverbs13:16a
There are 143 Million orphans in the world today languishing, hungry, alone...waiting for a family! After learning this information today, ask the Lord whether He wants you to share the resources He has entrusted to you to help bring one small girl from darkness to light.
You can donate money by clicking the link to the side. American Airlines miles or hotel chain points can help, too. Most of all, we ask for your continued prayers.
Are you ready for how God wants to use you?
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