It’s been quite some time since I’ve written an update. It’s not that much hasn’t happened, but more that what has transpired has been difficult to talk about. Since February we’ve had to decline a third referral and then be told that the region we were adopting from didn’t have any other healthy little boys eligible for adoption. We were actually quite deflated about not really knowing what to do next.

I know that Krista was frustrated, simply because if I’m frustrated about the adoption, I don’t need to ask how she is feeling about it. We didn’t really want to change to another region and redo numerous amounts of documentation to become registered in another region.

About four weeks ago, we began to hear from our agency about another opportunity. Unfortunately they shared with us they had a referral for us to consider, but it was in a different region. 1800 miles east of Moscow, with a mandatory 10 day waiting period on the second trip, and two overnight flights to get there. Ughhh. Not what we were hoping for. More money, more time…but also the only door that seemed to be opening for us.

And as I have so many times…I prayed. The same answer I have heard from God, I heard very clearly again. “I’ve never gave up on adopting you into my family and there is no distance I wouldn’t have travelled for you”. I look forward to sharing that with our son someday.

So we asked the questions: what do we need to do and what could they share about the referral without us being registered in that region? Well, it’s been a good news story since. Krista has worked very hard the past month to get the massive amounts for government documents, including being fingerprinted for at least the fourth time (remind me not to commit any crimes since our fingerprints are now on file in several countries and numerous federal, state, and local agencies :).

We also were given the medical records for the little boy before we were completely registered. We were also suprised that they sent us so much more information than we had ever received on any other referral.

His name is Valera and he is currently 17 mos old.

We were able to arrange a conf call with Dr Bledsoe, our adoption specialist, to consult on his medical history. She was positive and mentioned that while he was a preemie (born at 30 weeks) he had no “red flags”. He didn’t require any significant medical procedures and has shown decent growth and development since birth. They also had at least 1/2 dozen pictures of the boy that showed him very happy. Needless to say, we were and are very encouraged.

So, over the past week we have been waiting on our agency to give us the approval to travel to make our first visit to Tomsk, Russia (yes…it’s in Siberia…thank God we are going in the summer!!!). Today we were given approval to go the week of June 8th and we will see Valera for the first time on June 10th.

Krista has started nesting, pulling toys from the attic, and is super excited about going to Russia. I’m obviously still trying to convince myself that we really are going to be parents again. I’m also going to be standing in my ancestral homeland within the next three weeks. It’s really very exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

After a 4 1/2 year journey to get to this point, Krista and I couldn’t possibly communicate how much we appreciate the love and prayers so many of you have offered over the years.

Please keep us in your prayers,

Chris

James 1:27