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.