Letter from Lera :o)

We just received an email including this letter from Lera.  She wrote it herself in English!

As we have begun learning the characters and sounds of the Russian (Ceryllic) Alphabet, I have found the characters quite confusing.  Beginning to learn the cursive versions of each letter has so far seemed outrageously unrealistic.  I'm really impressed at her work here!  I suppose young minds really are superior to older ones (like mine!) at learning new things!!

What a treat to see this early writing sample from our new (and very bright) daughter!  :o)

Adoption Status Update - US Govt, check!

Last week we received a letter from US immigration granting us permission to bring adopted children into the country!  This was the last step in our process on this side of the ocean.  After having that letter certified and authenticated in various ways (I won't bore you with the details) we have shipped it to our adoption agency in Ukraine, where it will be added to a mountain of important papers we sent in mid-September.  This collection of papers (called our dossier) will be checked, translated, and submitted to the Ukrainian government in the next week or two.  They will have 20 days or so to respond with an invitation to visit Ukraine. 

We expect that in 2-3 months, Eugene and I will be traveling to Ukraine.  We will be there for approx 3-4 weeks, going through the administrative process, and awaiting our court date.  During the time there, we will have drivers and translators who tell us what to do and help us navigate the process.  There will be many days of waiting, and we'll get to visit with the kids in the orphanage.  We really look forward to these visits, of course!  The hard part of this trip will be that our three boys will be home without us.  Our current plan is for my sister, Tracy, and Eugene's mom will move into our home and jointly take care of everything while we are away.  Obviously, we are very thankful that they are willing to help in such a big way!

After we have our court date in Ukraine, there will be a 10 day waiting period, before the adoption will be official.  During this time, we will return home.  After resting a little, working a little, and becoming reacquainted with the boys, Eugene will return to Ukraine to retrieve Lera and Vitalik.  He will stay in Ukraine with them for a couple of weeks, obtaining new birth certificates, new passports, and new visas (all with their new Cline-family names!) and then they will come home for good.

Sounds complicated doesn't it!  So that's the process as we understand it.  Needless to say, we will all be happy when it is behind us.  Still, we are trying to enjoy each step in this amazing journey.  Someday soon, it will all be just a memory - a part of our family history.  I hope that we'll be telling this happy story for generations to come! 

Letters from the Brothers 10.18.2010

Today I received the wonderful news that the translator plans to visit the kids every Sunday unless something comes up.  What a gift!

Lera and Vitalik have been including notes to the brothers, and the boys were even able to see a picture Vitalik had colored for them (shared via the translator's facebook page).  Here are the first letters from the Cline boys to their new siblings:

Dear Vitalik,

Awesome coloring pokemon picture!

I wish you could come home right now!

Love Mason

 

Dear Vitalik,

I am learning to read this year.  I could read your letter.  I wish that you were here right now.  Your bedroom looks cool.  I had a soccer game and scored a goal!  I wish you could see my game.

Love, Heath

 

Dear Vitalik,

Your room is going to look really cool once it is painted.  It has sport pillows and a green/blue/tan quilt.  It also has a green sheet.

Yes, I am in 2nd grade.  I've always been the big brother, but now I am going to be the middle kid. 

Yesterday, I had a soccer game.  I had a breakaway, but I missed the goal.  We won 8-1.

I wish you could come to our house so we could beat you at soccer.  :-)  ha ha ha!

Love, Spencer

-----------------------------------------

Dear Lera,

You are cute. :o)

Love Mason

 

Dear Lera,

I wish you could come to us right now.  I wish you were here.  Your new room is really pretty.  I hope you will like it.

Love, Heath

 

Dear Lera,

We have always had no sister, but now we are finally going to have one!!!

I've always been the big brother, but now I am going to be the middle kid.

Love, Spencer

James 1:27 and a 3rd Grade Project

During the amazing few days when our lives were forever changed by the clear knowledge that Lera and Vitalik were meant to be part of our family, there were so many sparks flying.  I have already included several of these in an earlier post, and remembered a couple more that I wanted to record here.  It's not that any of these things made up our minds to adopt, but rather all of these things just helped us feel so affirmed and at peace with this crazy idea of Movin' to Marz.  :o) 

James 1:27
On August 18, after sharing with Eleni (host family) our decision to adopt Lera and Vitalik, I was looking at her Facebook photo album of the kids' wonderful time in the U.S.  The photo album's title was "James 1.27". 

This picture was my very favorite from Eleni's "James 1.27" Photo Album.
I believe it was their first night in America.  Aren't they just gorgeous?!


Not being great at memorizing scriptures, I thought I should look this one up.  As I flipped through my Bible, I thought, "I already know what this is going to be..." and when I got there, sure enough, it was the passage I had underlined back in March - and one of very few things underlined in the entire Bible.  It reads:

" Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the  Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

I remembered that back in March, I had really been touched by this passage during a Bible Study among leaders in our new church.  My reaction to this passage had been so strong that I had come home and written a big passionate email to one of our church leaders.  The email subject read, "Widows and Orphans".   An excerpt from that email explored what this passage might mean to our church today:

"...i think our challenge is to also be sure to serve those who are marginalized in a worldly sense - the ACTUAL poor ... the least, the last, the lost.  ...those whom nobody else sees or wants to see.  this is an easy thing for me to say, and sounds great, but it makes my stomach hurt to think about actually doing it!  in many of our daily walks, we have extremely limited visibility to the poor among us, and of course, this is a quite comfortable place for us to remain.   

in short, i feel it's time for us (our church) to identify our widows and orphans, and i seek your help."

After digging up this old email and doing a few "oohs and ahhs", I sent this person a photo of Lera and Vitalik with a note saying, "I think I have found my orphans."  That night, as Eugene and the boys played with Lera and Vitalik at Eleni and Adam's pool, I shared the scripture coinsidence with Eleni.  She told me that back in March, when I had been so moved by the passage, their group had been in Ukraine working with the orphans - no doubt, conceiving plans for the summer program that brought Lera and Vitalik into our lives.  WOW!  :o)

A 3rd Grade Project
The day after we met Lera and Vitalik, I went to my mom's house to drop the bombshell that we were adopting two kids from Ukraine.  She listened patiently to my quite shocking story, and when I had finished, she said, "I can't argue with anything you have said."  She stepped out of the room and returned holding a blue and yellow rectangle of fabric. 
"What's that?" I asked. 
"The Ukrainian flag," she answered with a smile.
"Where did that come from?"
"Don't you remember, Krystin did her research project last year on Ukraine?"

Amazing!  I did remember!  Last year, my neice Krystin had chosen to do her 3rd grade research project on Ukraine.  I will never forget my mom saying, "Of all the countries in the world, would you have ever guessed that she would choose to do her project on Ukraine?"  

After Lera and Vitalik had flown back to Ukraine, the exciting (and very surprising) news of our upcoming adoption was sweeping through our family.  That weekend, we had a family gathering, and after dinner, Krystin presented all of her research, complete with maps, history, customs, holidays, and pictures to the whole gang.  It went very well, but she did have to repeatedly call down her Uncle Eugene, who kept asking questions out of turn!

Letters Via Translator

There are translators who visit the kids at the orphanages every few weeks.  We are able to send brief notes via email, which are translated and taken to Lera and Vitalik.  What a ministry these translators provide!  The notes are such a lifeline during this interesting period of waiting.  I am finally beginning to settle in and try to enjoy this phase.  As with most things in life, it is not going to last forever, so I guess we'll do well to enjoy it. 

As a person who generally uses far more words than are needed to state the simplest fact, I am finding that I quite enjoy the discipline of simple speech that must be employed in writing letters for translation. 

A few days ago, we received letters back from both kids.  They were simple and lovely.  We, of course, read them over and over.  Vitalik's letter opened, "Dear Father, Mother, and Little Bothers"  -- We all found the translator's typo humerously ironic!  :o)

Paperwork Done (for now) - On to Decorating!

We are happy to report that last week our home study was completed, and we have been deemed capable of caring for children!  Yay!   Also, we have sent all relevant papers to begin processing w/ both the U.S. Gov't and Ukraine.  Now I begin the much more fun process of getting bedrooms set up for Lera and Vitalik! :o)

How Did This Happen?

Below are a couple of pictures from one of our fun visits with Vitalik and Lera before any of the kids knew of our intention to adopt.  My favorite picture is the one where everyone is going crazy as we TRY to get them to pose.  :o)

Finally, everyone cooperates. :o)

Lest we forget the amazing events of the past month that have brought us from "completely sure that our family was complete" to "eagerly awaiting the arrival of our two new kids," let me attempt to document events as best I can.

8-15-2010 (Sunday)  Woke up expecting another ordinary day.  After church, Eugene mentioned that our friends, Evan and Jack, were playing in a concert at a park in the afternoon.  I had slated the afternoon for much needed rest (the boys had just completed their first week of Kindergarten and 2nd grade, and had been at their cousins' house for a sleepover on Saturday night.  In an uncharacteristic move, I opted to forgo their rest, saying, "What the heck, let's all go, it'll be fun."

We had no idea that the concert was part of a field day for a group of orphans visiting from Ukraine.  When we read the front cover of a flyer for the program (http://www.redlineunited.org/), something unexplainable happened to Eugene and me.  When the concert was over, we couldn't leave; we had to find out more.  We learned that the kids would be returning to Ukraine in just a few days.  We picked up a flyer telling about the kids for whom program sponsors still hoped to find families.  Siblings Lera and Vitalik were on the front page.  We never turned to page 2.

As we drove away from the event, many things were clicking: 
- We recognized Lera as the girl who had been sitting near us at the concert.
- Her name was Lera!  I had planned to have a daughter named Laura (after my mom) since I was a little girl.  Each of our three boys would have been named Laura, had they been a girl. 
- I had always joked that in our next life, we would start earlier, have two kids, wait several years, and then have some more.  (From a distance, families of this design look very appealing to me - in my imagination, the older kisd are SO helpful with the younger siblings!)  Maybe we were actually supposed to have this family make-up in THIS life.  :o) 
- For the past year or so, I had been walking around praying, "Show me something I can fix."  Was this it?
- Eugene, ordinarily a serious planner, provider, and general worrier, looked at me and said, "Well, let's think.  It would wreck our whole plan for retirement - I don't care.  I would never play golf again - I don't care.  I would never go on another trip - I don't care."  We were just seeing the world through a different lense.
- We both knew that we had to meet them. 

8-16-2010:  Monday night, Lera, Vitalik, and their host family (an awesome young couple named Eleni and Adam) came for a cookout at our house.  It was a great night.  Vitalik played soccer in our back yard against a very happy Spencer and Heath.  Lera tried out our hammock and attempted to get a very shy Mason to be her friend.  We enjoyed a nice dinner, followed by a great episode of "Wipeout" on tv.

Although Vitalik and Lera new only a few English phrases, like, "Nice to meet you", "Thank you",  "Good Job" (accompanied by a big thumbs up), it was obvious that they are gorgeous, friendly, bright, generally delightful kids - certainly kids who deserve a break - a chance - a family.  When they left that night, I looked at Eugene and said, "That boy could be the CEO of a company." (Vitalik has as much natural charisma as any person I've ever met.)  And Lera was so sweet and beautiful... could it be that God actually DID have a daughter in store for us afterall?!

So I guess that the rest, as they say, is history.  After meeting them, we spent a couple of days waiting for sanity to set in, and as you can see, it never did.  :o) 

8-17-2010:  We visited on Tuesday in various combinations over a movie, Heath's t-ball game, and Lera/Vitalik's karate class. 

8-18-2010:  Wednesday morning, we decided to stop torturing ourselves and just admit that we were going to do it.  After a fun time at Eleni and Adam's pool, all kids went home and learned of our plans to adopt.  We told the Cline boys, who were immediatly offernig to share their rooms, and their sleeping bags.  Eleni and Adam told Lera and Vitalik, with the help of Google Translator.  The report we heard was that both kids were totally surprised and very happy.  :o)

8-19-2010:  Thursday, Eugene and I hung out at the airport for a couple of hours before the kids departed for Ukraine with all members of their group.  We learned to say, "I love you." in Russian.  As I understand it, every child in the group left the country with a family who hoped to adopt them.  For more details about this wonderful ministry, visit http://www.redlineunited.org/.