Let the shopping begin

We spent about an hour in the courtroom this morning. Everything went just as we were told to expect. The only question that they asked that we hadn't prepared for was "if the girl is allergic to pets, what will you do?" I answered seek medical treatment, and let the dog live outside. Leigh coudn't believe that I didn't just say, "we will get rid of the darn cats." After a lenghty 3-5 minute deliberation, the Judge came back in and affirmed our petition to adopt Anna Beth. She was not able to wave the 10 days before the ruling would be final, but at least we know we can come get her next month, and that she will be ours.

We have a few more hours here in Arkhangelsk before we head to Moscow for the night. We have an early start for home with stops in Amsterdam and Atlanta. If all goes right, we will be home a little after 9 Sat night. Thanks for continuing to remember us in prayer, and we look forward to seeing many of you for Christmas. We won't have Anna Beth home for this Christmas, but we will have many of those to come. Looks like we should be home in time for Mardi Gras though, so I guess that isn't all bad.

Well, I guess to address the title. I have been a little concerned about all of the shopping that had been going on around our family. Seems all of these little things kept appearing. I had requested that we not get too much ahead of ourselves until Anna Beth was really ours. Well, she is pretty much ours now, so I have lost my argument and the furniture and other stuff can start coming home too.

Again thanks for all of the prayers as we have made this quick but stressful trip to take care of this very important step. We should find out next week when we can return for Anna Beth, so we will keep you posted. This year more than any, I have a new appreciation for what God did for us at Christmas. If you haven't met the Son that was Gods gift to you, I encourage you to seek Him out. It will change your life. Who knows, following Him may even lead you to a land far away to meet another of His kids that He wants you to raise. Merry Christmas

We made it back to Arkhanglesk

No pictures with the post, because we look rough. We made it over with out any real problems. I had a really bad sinus squeeze on the way to New York, so I doped up really well for the flight to Moscow. Neither of us had any trouble on the long flight. We had another lenghty layover in Moscow, so we stretched our legs and filled our bellies. Flight to Ark was pretty easy. We both fell asleep before take off, and woke up when they told us to prepare for landing. All of the luggage is here, and the hotel is just like it was in August, except cold.

Thanks for all the prayers, Leigh and I were able to walk off the plane fever free!!!

Did I mention it is cold here? But it is a dry cold! Dang straight, at -10, there can't be much moisture in the air. Oh well, we have coats etc. Tomorrow will be court prep in the AM, and I guess siteseeing/inventoring the baby store in the afternoon.

Thanks for all the prayers, we will see you tomorrow.

Court date!!

We got notice that our court date for Anna Beth's adoption hearing will be the 18th. We will leave on Tuesday, go straight thru to Arkhangelsk on Wednesday. We will meet for court prep on Thursday. Have the hearing Friday morning, and if everything goes as expected, we will start for home Friday night. We won't have the baby with us then, in fact we won't even get to see her this trip. We will come home for Christmas, while we wait on our 10 day waiting period to pass, and then go back after the first of the year to pick up Anna Beth. The Russian government will basically shut down for the first 10 days of 2010, so we will not go back until after at least the 10th. When we go back we will be there for 10 days to 2 weeks, which puts us bringing Anna Beth home around the 23rd or so of Jan. We will keep everybody posted.

Planning this trip during the holidays has been kinda interesting. We had a few more days notice than we expected, but that put us traveling during the holiday period. We were fortunate that we were able to use frequent flyer miles for this trip. We thought at one time that we would be able to fly first class, but because of the holiday, it took all of our miles just to get the tickets. If we had not been saving miles for the last several years, we would have been looking at $3000 per ticket. God is good and he took care of us again.

Thinks are coming along well on the new house, and we should have Anna Beth in her new room before summer. Actually, before her 3rd birthday at the end of May. It has been exciting to see what we designed coming together. Come by early one morning, and I will show you around.

Thanks again for all of your prayers, and we look forward to showing Anna Beth off next month.

last piece of paper (we hope)

Well, it finally happened. The piece of paper we have been waiting on has finally arrived. We received our approval from immigration to be adoptive parents. Who would have thought it would take this long to figure out. I still contend that if we could get the government involved in approving natural childbirths, we could end world hunger, overpopulation, and most government entitlement programs. Well, we have copies of the form off to Todd and Lesley. They will take them to the Sec. of States office in the morning, and then send them on to Dallas for us. Dallas will turn them around to Russia for us. Once they get to Russia, the Judge has to review them, and then we can get our court date.

We have prayed for months that we are home for Christmas. At this point it will require God's touch for that to happen. We look forward to being able to praise him for that gift.

We are also especially happy that Caleb was given an all clear yesterday. He was back at St. Jude's for scans following his Chemo treatments. He is CANCER FREE!!!! We thank God for that for sure.

We thank you for your continued prayers as we try to get God's child home with us. We cannot adequately express to you how much of a difference those prayers make.

B

Still waiting

Well, there isn't much to tell right now. We are still waiting on our FBI clearance to return, and our form from immigration. Once we have these, we send them to Russia and they will set us a court date. While it is still likely that we could be home for Christmas, our spirits have been a little down this week because we were hoping that if our paperwork came back we would be able to go for our hearing at the end of October. Please pray for us as we wait. It is so hard to not get frustrated when the delays come. And it is as equally difficult to keep from getting overly excited.

We had a great visit with Lesley, Todd, the girls and Caleb this weekend. Continue to pray for them as Caleb is half way through his Chemo treatments. He has been really good so far (besides feeling pretty lousy after each treatment). Pray his counts stay up so he can stay in school and do all the things a 6yr old should be able to do.

As far as building a house goes there isn't a lot that can be done when you get 20+" of rain while you are trying to build a foundation. We will try again this coming week to pour a slab. I think the delays there are part of the frustration as well. Hopefully with a little progress we can keep occupied while we wait on the paperwork.

Thanks again for continuing to lift us up.

News of the day is we got our appointments for our imigration background checks. We go next week to be fingerprinted yet again. Then we are just waiting on the finalized I600A to send along with another batch of paperwork to Russia. Once that is there we will be waiting on our court date. We will only have about two weeks notice for that trip.

Keep Caleb in your prayers, he starts testing at St. Judes in the morning but we probably wont know anything about treatment for a few days.

What a week

Well, we have been home for almost a week, and what a week it has been. We nailed down a place to rent while the house is being built, we moved up the close date on our house again, and we started taking down trees on the lot. We also got the news that our little nephew Caleb was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Caleb is the 6year old son of Lesley (Leigh's sister) and Todd Free. They live in Walker LA right now while Todd is finishing up a degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and working on the staff of Walker Baptist Church. The good news is that this is a curable cancer. I didn't even know that they used those words together. But this will be a difficult time for our little man as his body has to undergo treatment. The leave for St. Judes on Tuesday. Once there the team in Memphis will do all of the testing to stage the cancer, and then develop the treatment plan. Please pray for the Free family, especially Caleb. When Caleb was born in China, he was diagnosed with Spina Bifida. While that diagnosis was never confirmed in the US, it was the reason that Todd and Lesley were able to get him because he was considered special needs. God has been holding this child of his all along, and we know he still does. We as humans just hate that Caleb is going to have to go through this. We also know that God will be glorified through this, and we look forward to seeing how others lives can be changed by coming into contact with this wonderful little boy.

As for the rest of our timing, we are working on a new round of paperwork. As soon as it is in Russia they can set us a court date. We will have about two weeks notice of our court date, so we will let you know as soon as we do. But still looking at several months from now.

Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

We are back in the good old USA

Wow, thanks for all of the prayers. 3 flights down, 1 to go and we should be home tonight in our bed. Total of 25 hours or so this trip, so not too bad. HA!! As we get our feet on the ground we will try to get a few more pictures up. Thanks again, and we will keep you posted as we try to get her home for Christmas.

Day 2

The morning visit of day 2 started off much the same as day 1. After a few minutes of stickers and crayons and "this will be ok", we went into a meltdown. But this one was much shorter lived. We were able to soothe her, and comfort her and after several minutes of down time, we were able to re-ingauge her in play.

She is very much a tactile learner. She looked like her cousin Ashley touching everything to see what it was. She and Leigh played with the balls in the ball pit. Leigh would roll them around the room, and the Diana would take them and put them into the other ball pit. By the time the visit was over she seemed to be much more comfortable with us. Even as people would come in and out she didn't have the same reactions as the first day. And we didn't have anymore breakdowns. After a little cajoling, we convinced the orphanage staff that since we didn't have anything else to do in Kotlas, so they should let us come back for the afternoon visit.

The afternoon visit was by far the best. We were able to go outside again, and Diana played with just us while we waited for her group to come out. She played with the bubble fan, and ran with us (or from us kinda hard to tell sometimes) and let us catch her and toss her around a bit. When her group came out, she fell right in with them but she had her new bubble toy and wasn't quite ready to share. They tell us that, “nobody takes her toys.” She would play with her group, but always checked over her shoulder to make sure we were watching her.

Then on the see-saw we saw it, the smiles, the giggles, even a little laughter. Deep down inside of this tough exterior shell is our little Anna Beth. She didn't let us see if for to long, like she suddenly remembered, “I am not supposed to let them see this” but it is there.
After play time, we went with her group back to her room. Her caregivers told us that she had surprisingly awakened from her afternoon nap early, and had hopped and skipped around like she was expecting us back. We got to take her to the potty again, and then came one of the hardest things we have ever had to do. After five years of knowing this time would come, it didn't make it any easier. They let us leave some things for her in her locker, then she gave us the biggest hugs you can imagine. We told her bye again and she waived. Then we had to leave quickly so that she couldn't see that it was us having the meltdowns this time. We spent the rest of the evening back at the hotel watching a movie and trying to rest. We are both so emotionally drained that we could do little more. We will be back, just not soon enough for any of the three of us.

Day one with Diana

Wow, what a morning. We met Diana (Anna Beth) this morning. After a meeting with the orphanage director, the social worker, and the head tutor, we were introduced to her. After several anxious moments, she was wooed by the Cheerios. We then spent the better part of two hours going back and forth between melt downs and quite play. She is very quite, shy and reserved. When she gets too much to handle, the first thing that pops out is the bottom lip.

If, after several deep breaths, she is still overwhelmed, the melt down occurs. Both Leigh and I were able to comfort her, and to get her back interested in the toys and such, but I know as stressful as it was for me it had to be so much more for her. Here are a few pictures from the morning. As always we don't know when we will have access for more updates, but they will come as they can. I leave you with today's devotion from “My Utmost for His Highest” John 14:27 “Peace I leave you with, My peace I give to you...” If you have ever been troubled or not at peace, have you turned to Jesus? Have you laid it all at his feet? Today we step out on Faith once again that our little girl with a broken heart will be given the chance to dream her dreams. With nothing but the faith that we are caring for His child, we press on to make her ours.

Bryan and Leigh Noon day 1

We are writing these each day, not only to share with you but journal for ourselves and for Anna Beth. Because we don't have internet access you will see all of this at once, and it will read much like the roller coaster this week has been.

After praying over John 14:27 we returned to the orphanage for another visit. This time we took a different approach and were a little more in command of our plans. We first asked to visit with Diana in her group. They brought her to us anyway by herself. After a nice visit with the Speech Therapist, and again with the doctor, we got to the business of trying on some new clothes. She seemed to really enjoy that. Then we got permission to video her playing with the other members of her group outside.

There was a lengthy delay as the caregivers decided the kids needed to change into some nicer play clothes if they were going to be on TV. When finally outside with her group Diana seemed to play well with others. We watched as she ran, and climbed, and laughed like a normal two year old should. She was very happy when in contact with her caregivers and playmates, and seemed to always be watching over her shoulder to make sure we were watching. (Though she still wouldn't get close to us.) After playtime we got to go to her room, a very nice room by any orphanage standard, I might add, we got to watch as she showed us her locker, and how to take off her outside shoes and put on her inside shoes. She showed us where her bed was, and even where the potty was. As we left we told her “Paka” or goodbye and she waived bye.

Leighbo types. We had a much better dinner and some down time, and fortunately due to my overuse of my “Charmin to go” clogging the toilet, we were moved to a muuuch nicer room in the hotel. As I went to bed I picked back up the devotion and went back to the scripture reference. I wanted to read the whole chapter and lost it again when I got to verse 18. I totally forgot that is where that was “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” WOW. Just when we think we can't take it anymore, when we don't know what to do, don't know what to pray, there it is. Just seek Him and His word. God knows me well enough that He just about has to knock my knees out from under me to get my attention. Well, my knees are a little sore this evening, but Bryan and I have peace that can only come from above. This whole adventure is not about Bryan and Leigh, or even about soon to be Anna Elizabeth Cordill, but about choices and life and stepping out of our comfort zone when we are called. I think this kid is gonna be our toughest assignment yet and some days are going to be tough. She has a lot to overcome for just a short time here on this earth. But I pray for us all because where there were two, there are now three.

WE are alive, just on dial up

Sorry for no real story, but just wanted to let everybody know that we are alive and well. We will get pictures up tomorrow when we get back to the hotel in Ark. We have had 1.5 days of interesting visits with Diana (Anna Beth) and the staff at the orphanage. We have our last visit this afternoon. Due to only having dial up access and using the secretary's computer, we are not able to load the pictures now. Talk to you tomorrow.

Our summer vacation at the beach

We were afraid that since we were not getting to take a summer vacation apart from our trips to Russia that we wouldn't get to see the beach this year. Well, this is the "beach" outside our hotel. This is the River Dvina and our hotel is on the banks of this river. We saw lots of sea, rivers, and marshy areas on the flight in. That flight was on something akin to a regional jet, just not quite as nice or as new.

The Hotel Pur Navolok is a nice hotel. Seems to be the only place that has a truely bi-lingual staff, so I am glad this is where we are staying. We have enjoyed our day of doing very little. We did venture out for a midday stroll. We found several shopping opportunities but all we could come up with to buy was bottled water for the hotel room, and a nice lunch. A good rule of thumb seems to be that if you can read the name of the resteraunt then they will probably have a menu for you in English.

We also met another couple that is here from Maryland. They are into day 6 of the 10 day waiting period. They get to see there son twice a day for 1-2 hours at a time. We had a nice visit with them over dinner. They still have about 3 weeks left in country so we will try to see them again when we come back from Kotlas.

We thank you for your continued prayers, and look forward to seeing you after we get home. Oh, and thanks Tyler for waiting until we left the country. We expect to see you at the airport Sat. night so we can give you both a big hug. We are very happy and hope we have our little flower girl home in time for the wedding!

The blue tarp on the roof kind made me feel like we were staying in New Orleans!!

We are in Russia

Twenty-three hours later, we are in Ark. Everything went just fine on all of the flights, including the Russian gentleman who didn't understand why I wanted to sit by Leigh, just that I wouldn't go away until he let me. We are tired but good. Going to get something to eat, and then to bed. We learned some more details about our trip, nothing has really changed. We just know more about what we will be doing.

Will update with pictures when we can.

Bryan and Leigh

The first trip is finally here

Hey guys. Well trip one has finally arrived. It has been along time since Bro David's series of "Know Fear" in November of 2003 when God confirmed the call in our lives to go to the orphan's of Russia. The emotions today are really hard to describe. Elation, fear, nervousness, great expectations, fear, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, joy, they just go on and on and seem to contradict one another. That being said, we are really glad that we have been able to walk to this point with our Lord, and with you by our sides. Since I have a plane waiting, I need to finish what I came here for.

We leave Monroe at 12:30 today. We get to Moscow at 11:00 tomorrow. There is a 9 hour time difference for you keeping score at home. We will connect at 2:30 Sunday afternoon for our flight into Arkhangelsk and get there a couple of hours later. We will be in the city of Ark until Tuesday evening about 5:00 when we will fly to Kotlas. We will meet Anna Beth sometime Wed. We will get to visit with her, the orphanage director, caregivers etc. Thursday as well. Hopefully Friday too as we don't leave Kotlas until that night around 7:00 PM. Saturday the 29th we reverse course and leave Ark around 7:00 in the morning, connect in Moscow, and the again in Atlanta ending up back in Monroe about 8:00 Sat. night.

We will have limited internet access, especially in Kotlas. Any updates or new photos of Anna Beth would not appear here until sometime Wed., but no guarantees. Could be not until Friday when we are back in Ark. We will do our best to beg/borrow/steal some bandwidth to get new photo's up here.

Please leave comments on the blog, as we might not get a chance to clear emails, facebook, etc. and we will focus on the blog.

Well, I have to go finish packing, Allen and Boogie are taking us to the airport, and I would hate to be late today.

With God's angels we go to the city named Arch Angel!!!

Bryan and Leigh

We got our Visas in today!! Looks like we have everything we need to go. We leave Monroe Saturday a little after noon. We get to Moscow Sunday a little before noon. We will make a connection and go on into Ark that day. THANKS FOR ALL THE PRAYERS TO DATE! It seems a little surreal after over four years to actually be packing to meet our daughter. Will let you know how it goes while we are overthere as best we can. We won't actually get to be with Anna Beth until Wednesday, so we will just be hanging out till then.

We have our first travel dates!

We got the news today. We will be in Kotlas on the 25th, and get to meet our little girl on the 26th. Today was my birthday, and this was one of the best birthday gifts I have ever gotten. We don't have all of the arrangements down pat, but looks like we will leave Monroe on sat the 22rd, get to Ark on the 23rd. We will just hang out until we go with our facilitator to Kotlas on the 25th. We will get to spend part of 2 or 3 days with her, and then repeat the process to get back home. Thanks again for all of the prayers. We continue to pray that we have her home for Christmas.

We found out today that our last paperwork has indeed been registered in Russia. We find out tomorrow when we travel!!!! More to come soon.

Getting closer to meeting our little girl

We have been advised to keep the calender clear between the 20th of August and the 30th. There are no guarantees, but we are hopeful that we will be able to travel during those dates to meet our little girl. Remember, this is just the first of probably 3 trips, and we won't get to bring her home this time. We are so excited to be this much closer to getting to bring her home. Please pray that we will get our travel dates, and that everything will go smoothly making the arrangements for that trip. Thanks again for all of the prayers, and we will keep you posted.

We finally got our hands on our psyche evaluations. Hopefully we will have them to Dallas by Monday and then on to Russia. Thanks for the prayers for patience, and pray that we get to go to Russia soon to meet our little girl.

Things are still moving along. We have had some additional paperwork to submit, so we are also submitting a new version of our homestudy. Pray that all of that gets done soon and that it can get to Russia as quickly as possible. We still hope to meet her next month. We want to be home for christmas.

Nothing is ever easy or cheap. Late yesterday we learned we each needed a Psychological evaluation. We found somebody to do them when we get back from D.C. Only takes a few hours and $1000. Oh well.

When God says you are going in the right direction

Thanks everyone for your comments and prayers.

Yesterday we confirmed with Buckner that we wanted to proceed. They grilled us a little more to make sure we understood what this meant. They reviewed the life of a parent with a child that requires regular and even lengthy therapy as well as the risks of raising a child with FAE. After they agreed we knew what we were getting into we submitted the last piece of paperwork required. We were still a little nervous about making this step of faith but after reading Hebrews 11 and praying we just new that this really was the plan that God had for us.




This morning we received an additional communication from the Russian Dr. that examined our little one. D is really small, and has been diagnosed with speech delay. We really didn't know what that meant, so our pediatrician in Dallas asked us to find out how many words or phrases she could actually use. Dr. Sophia responded, "Diana understands speech, pronounces simple words, knows names of parts of body, tower of 8 cubes." What an awesome God!! We were asked to take this step without really knowing all of the answers. Then as soon as we did, God filled in some of the blanks. It is never easy to walk by faith. We never know exactly where we are headed when we sign on to follow God where he takes us, but we are so rewarded when we do. Please don't take me to mean that we never have pain, or we never wonder why? We just know that there is a peace that He gives you when you are walking with Him.




We also received a couple more photos.

Thanks again for all of the prayers.





Bryan

We have a referral!!!

WOW!! God is so good. Just when we thought we were getting in line for the official waiting period to begin, we got the news that a little girl that turned two yesterday could be ours. We have known for a few days, but today we were able to review her medical information with a specialist in Dallas, and we are stepping out on faith that she can be ours. I first must say it was awfully hard to listen to John preach about faith yesterday. Our little girl (and I mean that literally) was born very small. She is still very small for her age, but she seems to be strong and physically she is progressing at a very normal rate. There have been some concerns, but God knew what we would need. We contacted a Dr. in St. Petersburg to see if she could go and visit her and help us with a more complete review. The Dr. responded saying she had already met and examined her, and she would forward her report. WOW!!!

Our potential daughter (and I have to say that, because she could still be adopted by a Russian Family) is in an entirely different region than the one in far east Russia that we initially sent our paperwork. She is in Arklhangelsk (yes, it means Archangel) which is in northwestern Russia on the White Sea. They seem to be an adoption friendly region, and we are able to submit our dossier there now and everything will be ok. The timeline hopefully is that we will travel to meet her in the later half of July. Pray that happens, so that we might even have her home for Christmas.

God has worked many miracles for this to happen, and one is for Leigh and I to be comfortable even given the medical concerns for how small she is etc. We are quite sure that she must be ours, she has Leigh's runny nose and eczema. We thank everyone for the prayers and thoughtfulness to this point, and we graciously ask for those to continue. We will share more as we know it, we just wanted y'all to know too.

Please continue to pray with us that God holds her, comforts her, and that she recognizes Him in us when she sees us.

Bryan and Leigh

And finally we have our Thursday

Our last post was over two months ago. The reason, no news. Today we finally got some news, and we will be progressing again. We received notice that our homestudy agency has been removed from the black list in Russia. So all of our documents that we have been waiting to get redone are good again. We still have to have things re-notarized, because we opted not to pay the extra $150 to have them sent back from Russia because we thought they wouldn't be any good anyway. Then it is off to Baton Rouge for the new apostille. This time I will make sure it is on SQUARE paper. From there, back to Dallas and then on to Russia. Hopefully since the documents will be the same, translation won't have to be redone. The maybe, just maybe, we will get registered.

So, what does it mean when we are registered? Well, then the real wait begins. Once we are registered in our region in far east Russia, we wait to be notified that we have been referred a child, or children. Then we get to make our first of two or three trips.

I thank you all for all of the words of encouragement that you have offered over these months. We have started and scrapped several blog posts, just because they couldn't be shared yet. We were really comforted around Easter. We were able to hear clearly from God, that even when is Son was on the cross, He was not abandoned, and God has not abandoned our children either. Our prayer remains that God will continue to hold our children, so that when we meet them they will recognize Him. Don't ever hesitate to ask us how the process is going. You may not get a great response some days, but we know that you want only the best for us too, and for that we are greatly appreciative.

Keep on praying, and hopefully we will have lots of updates soon.

Bryan and Leigh

Maybe good news on Thursday

We haven't posted lately because there hasn't been any finalized news to share. We were hoping we would know by now, but maybe by tomorrow. I had hesitated to write because I still feel like I just get to run to you and beg for prayers, and this one was one that really seemed like it would take care of itself. But tonight at Destiny i felt like I really need to voice this request, and ask for you to do likewise. Our social worker is working with a local child placing agency and their staff to see if they could take over our case or something like that. Many of you may already lift up the work that goes on here in Monroe with this agency, and their director just wants to make sure that what he would be doing with us wouldn't effect their daily mission. Please just ask God to smooth this path. We expect to have an answer soon, and in the best case scenario we will have paperwork headed back to Russia early next week. Thanks again, and keep praying. I can't wait to see what else God is going to be able to reveal to us while we are waiting.

Why we need prayers today

I already feel like we just spout out these near daily requests for prayer as if you had nothing else to do. I don't get a chance to hear from all of you everyday about how to pray for you, or your kids, or your circumstances. We don't even know how to begin thanking you for the prayers you have offered up for us, and the blessings that your support has already given. Today we learned that the officials in Khab will not budge on the homestudy agency issue. As long as our homestudy agency is on the "blacklist" they will not let us proceed.

The good news is that our agency has been very active in trying to clear their name. The bad news is that no one actually knows whether or not that can be done. We are moving on in faith that the Lord can make this happen. Just yesterday we were reminded by what happened when Joshua followed the Lord's words and march around Jericho. If he can tear down those walls 1400 BC, then he can make 1 line of 1 report be changed. I don't know that this is the enemy attacking, but I do know that Leigh and I have placed some stakes in the ground, and claimed some territory that the enemy can't have. So this could just be one of those attacks.

Please pray for our spirits. This has been an especially hard day for Leigh. I was mad two weeks ago, so I was not surprised today. She however was mad. Our church is spending the next 40 days focusing on 40 days of victory. Follow along at http://www.40daysofvictory.blogspot.com/ . I hope that it doesn't take 40 days for our agency's name to come off of the list, but I know what I will be praying everyday until that happens. And it looks like it will take 30 or so of these 40 days for our paperwork to be updated and be back in Russia ready to be registered once our homestudy agency is "re-approved".

It really is not easy to open up to a computer screen, but it is probably easier to do that then to open up to all of you as a group. Thanks for your patience as we come with our seemingly never ending urgent needs for prayer. It is just that when you know your child/ren are laying in an orphanage somewhere, and it seems as if there is nothing that you can do, calling out to God is all you an come up with. And asking our friends to be intercessors for us is the only other answer. You have told us that if there was anything you could do to speed it up, you would. Well the only think that I know that all of you can do is pray. Pray for us to have continued peace knowing that all of this will happen in God's time. That it is part of a wonderful plan that he has for our family. A plan that he has known since the beginning of time. A plan that we may not even fully understand here on this planet.

For some who read this blog, this faith that we place in God's plan may seem odd. You may have never had the opportunity to move in a direction that you were not completely in control of. Or you may have specifically stated that it was of your own doing and that God or any other supreme being could not have any part in your life. I am here today to ask you to reconsider that. To let your heart believe that the stories and the miracles that we share in this blog are not coincidence, or luck but they are the Divine movements of a God that it is indeed a pleasure to serve.

Again, thanks for all of the prayers that have already been lifted up on our baby/ies behalf. And please pray, especially in this next 40 days that we can put this yet another roadblock behind us.

Bryan (and Leigh)

Government at Work

Praise. Today we found out that the Secretary of States office has found the new Hague format for the apostilles and is creating one to match for Louisiana. Thanks to some hard work by Sen Francis Thompson and his friend Secretary Jay Dardenne this got done very quickly for the State of Louisiana.

Now a little bit about how these men were used of God. All last weekend I had to work our booth at the home show in Monroe. About 2:00 AM Sat. I woke realizing that even in my dreams I was crying out to God to do something about this situation. I kept praying, and about 1:30 PM sat Sec. of State Dardenne's assistant (who lives in Baton Rouge) was in my booth at the home show. He took my information, told me that the Sec. would be in Monroe on Monday. Monday morning Leigh called Senator Thompson, he handed Sec. Dardenne a letter about what we needed, and the rest as they say is history. So even though we were frustrated by someone who said our paper must be square, we can know we saw God move in this. We know we grew in faith, and can continue to trust that he will answer our prayers.

The wait will be longer

Big news day Friday. Two major themes, and I will address each.

1. There has been a blacklist published in Russia of home study agencies that have 1 or more delinquent post placement reports. Our home study agency made the list. We don't know how this will ultimately affect us. We could have to find a new home study agency, our agency could get their name cleared from the list, or since our adoption agency Buckner is not on the list and they are the ones to guarantee our post placement reports we may not have anything to do. Our social worker has been very open and helpful so I think this can be resolved. I also think that this will not be a problem until the court hearing, so we have several months to deal with it.

2. It seems that the Hague treaty on adoption set a new format for apostilles. Until this week that had not been noted by too many people. But in the true style of a bureaucrat somebody decided that only documents appostilled with this new format could be accepted. Our documents had made it all the way to Khab, they had been translated, and they had been delivered to the governmental officials in that region and been accepted. The only thing they lacked was the official notice of registration. This edict about only accepting the Hague format came down and our documents were returned to the Buckner officials in Khab. So we are waiting to see if these documents can be grandfathered, or they will have to come back to us and we can go to baton rouge and get them re-appostilled. The wording is all the same, the difference is that instead of being done on a piece of 81/2 x 11" paper they are to be done on a 9cm by 9cm piece of paper with some other random margin requirement.

Even in my dreams I find myself crying out in prayer for our kids. I pray every time that God is holding them, and that when we get to they will recognize our touch as His. I don't know how God will be able to affect the heart of a non-believing government employee in Russia, so I pray that there is a believer who will work on our case and God can use them. Or that he will use somebody that doesn't even know they are being used of God, just that they are willing.

I don't know what this does to our time line. At least we know that our documents were acceptable, and we are almost registered. We will be in contact with the secretary of state's office on Monday to see if they can prepare to make the changes. Jay Dardenne, here I come...

Still Waiting

The good news is that we haven't been told to redo any paperwork, but we also haven't heard that we have been registered in Khab. Valentines turned out to be a little bit of a hard day. We were on the phone with Lesley talking about how sick Caleb was. (Caleb came home from China to be part of our family.) Lesley and Leigh visited about how much Caleb liked to be held and comforted when he was sick, and all Leigh could think about was who would comfort, and hold, or pat, or cuddle our kids when they are sick. We prayed, through tears, again that God would continue to hold our kids and that when we were able to, they would recognize that touch. God has done some pretty neat things lately to remind us that we are right were he would have us to be.

At a Kari Jobe concert last week I got some time to meditate and pray over the fact that God really does hold the world tight in his arms. Since that is the prayer we are praying, he just reaffirmed that while we are waiting he is holding on to us too.

Keep praying this prayer. Lord hold our babies until we can.

On to Russia

We received notice today that our dossier is on its way to Russia. We have a new set of hands to pray for now. When it arrives in Russia, it must be translated from English into Russian. Please pray for our translator, for both speed and accuracy. Also pray that the translated version of our dossier meets all of the requirements of the region. The next step after translation is registration of the request in the region. Once that happens the timer will start. We really don't know how long it will take to get the referral, but it will only happen after that registration. Please continue to pray for the kid/s as they wait for us to come and meet them.

Bryan and Leigh

On to Dallas

Part 1 of the Dossier is off to Dallas!! I made it down to B.R. and got all 24 of the documents apostilled and the 2 pound package off to Dallas. Hopefully everything will be right when it gets there tomorrow, and it will be on to Russia soon. Thanks for all of the prayers.

Don't forget to to keep praying for it as it goes on from here.

Bryan

UPDATE FROM FRIDAY
The dossier arrived Friday morning. They haven't called to tell us to fix anything, so we are hoping that is good news. Thanks for the prayers.

Paperchase continues

While I was gone for a couple of days shooting birds with one of our suppliers, Leigh chased down most of the documents we have to have for our dossier to be sent to Russia. Hopefully we will be able to meet the notary tomorrow. If that can happen, I will take them to Baton Rouge Thursday to be apostilled. Then drop it off with fed-ex straight to Dallas. If everything looks good, then they will send it on to Russia next week. After all of this time, it seems like we really are moving in the right direction. The other family that will be registering in Khab got their paperwork to Buckner today, so if ours get there Friday, they will travel together. Leigh is hoping that means we can travel together with them when we get our referrals.

So here goes another prayer request. Please pray that we really have everything right this time, and that I can get to Baton Rouge on Thursday. Then, pray for every set of hands that will touch this dossier as it moves from here, to Russia. Once it is in Russia, pray for the person that will translate this ream of paper into Russian. And please don't forget our biggest and constant request is that this child will feel the hand of God as it lays in its bed in Russia.

Oh the Places you will go...

Oh the places you will go... Who would have ever thought where all we would go with God to get our kids. We have known from the beginning that adoption was God's plan for our family. And we knew after visiting Russia in 2005, that God put this country in our hearts for a reason. It has been a long time since our first visit to St. Petersburg with SAC in April of 2005, and it has been along time since we started our paperwork to adopt. During the last almost 4 years God has continuously blessed us. He has given us patience as the landscape of international adoption has changed, peace knowing that all of this is part of His plan for us, and perseverance to stay the course during all of the changes. In December, we learned that, if we were willing, our agency had a new to them region that could really change our time frame. So now we are no longer going to be adopting from St. Petersburg, but from a region in far east Russia, Khabarovsk. The time from registration to adoption could be 7-8 months sooner than in St. Pete. And in God's never ending sense of humor, we already know somebody from that region.

Please bare with us as we learn to blog. Neither of us are the best at opening up, but we want a way that you our friends and family can keep up with our progress, and know how to specifically pray for us. One of the things that we will need you to bare with us on is that our child or children, (yes, we are approved for 2 if they are available) will have their own story to tell. We won't be able to share their given names with you until they are ours, so please don't ask. We will come up with something you can call them in your prayers.

Now, where are we, and how can you pray. Where we are is completing phase 1 of our dossier. Once it is approved, it will be sent to Khab where it will be translated and registered. Based on the information we have regarding our timeline, it is very likely that our child has been born. The overriding prayer is that as they lay in their beds in Russia, that our kids feel the hand of God. There typically are not enough hours in the day for care givers in the orphanage to give each child all of the attention and contact that they need. So we pray that God will do that for us.

We will share more as we can. Thanks again for praying for us, and our kid as we await our first trip to meet them. Oh the places we will go...