Sick babies and toy stores!

FYI, I just typed a magnificant, multi paragraphed blog entry, and lost it when I tried to publish.  I will try my best to duplicate but if my literary ability is lacking, you know why.

Today was alot like the other day.  We started moving around about 7:30 and headed to the orphanage about 9:30 to make out 10:00 meeting with Jonah.  He wasn't feeling very well during our first visit.  When they brought him to us he could barely hold his eyes open.  He has been sick all week and they had just given him some medicine that wiped him out.  He was a trooper and played as long as he could, but he eventually ended up asleep on Leah's chest.  He slept for about 1:30 of our 2 hours visit, but that was ok.  As a matter of fact, it was one of the sweetest visits we have had with him.  The second visit, he was much more active.  He played with toys, walked and crawled, laughed...he was just all around fun.  We have been noticing he is very musical.  They told us that on our first visit earlier in the week, but we have been noticing it lately.  He likes any kinds of toys that make music.  He loves tamborine toys, toys that sing songs that he can dance to, little mexican shaker toys.  Anything that can make a beat he loves.  So today, after we visited him, we headed over to a toy store near our hotel and bought him a toy piano for his birthday.  They orphanage workers asked us earlier today if we knew that Monday was his birthday.  We told them yes and asked if we could bring gifts.  We are also going to bring a cake, but they said he couldn't eat it, but they would be glad to! 
     Leah and I were talking about his birthday and it led to a converstion about his birth mother.  Monday is not only a celebration of his birth, but also a day to thank God that he led his birth mother to make a sound decision.  You see, she could have done just about anything on that day.  She is a drug addict, they say she is probably a prostitute.  She could have had him and put him in a dumpster or left him somewhere to die.  She could have aborted the pregnancy before she had him, but she didn't.  She went to a hospital and had him.  She left less than two hours after he was born and left his birth certificate without a mother or father on it, but at least she did what she did.  Even then, a year ago, God was not only orchestrating Jonah's safe arrival in baby orphanage #4, but he was orchestrating our decision to adopt.  It wasn't until January that we made the decision, but our hearts were already beginning to turn.  Before we deciced to adopt, before we chose Russia, God had already chosen Jonah for us.  It's beautiful.  We will thank him every day for the rest of our lives.  We don't deserve this kind of favor.  We are filthy sinners who have no claim to the riches of God, but through the cross all those things are reconciled.  Through the cross we are given purpose and made whole.  It is because of the cross that we live, and we will teach that to Jonah. It's clear how much God loves him, his story is already amazing and he is not even 1 yet!  Until tomorrow....

Day 3 in Volgograd....

     Day 3 started off alot like day 2.  I woke up before the sun and could not go back to sleep to save my life.  Unlike day 2, I didn't wake until 4:40 am so it is getting better.  I am shooting for 6 am tomorrow morning.  It's getting colder and colder here.  The days started off at about 31 in the mornings and now they are starting around 25 or so.  Our mornings always start with the same journey, a 15 minute walk to the underground train station, buy train ticket, ride train to next stop, and a 15 minute walk to the orphanage.  It's quite the journey, but one we look forward to making daily.  Actually we make it twice daily!  Most of our days are taken up by walking....come to think of it, that may not be a bad thing for me!  Today was a little different.  When we arrived for first meeting with Jonah, we were told he was sick.  We had seen signs of a cold, snotty nose, watery eyes, cough, but had hoped he would fight through it.  They were just warning us that he was feeling bad.  I was glad, I had worried they would shut down our visits if he got sick.  He was definately feeling bad this morning.  He didn't want to play, he was cranky and fussed and whined most of the visit.  To be honest, I was sort of happy to hear him cry.  He hadn't cried, fussed, or even made much noise since we had been visiting, and I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with him.  So to hear him cry kind of sent an overwhelming calm over me.  I know it's weird, but that's how it went down. 
     Our second visit was great!  He had just taken a breathing treatment and was feeling great when we arrived!  We walked, played, laughed, we even shot some amazing video of him dancing!  Trust me, it's great video!  Mom, it's in the email!  We were told we would be interviewed by a social worker from the Russian government during this visit, but she didn't show up.  This means that on Monday, our last day to visit, one of our visits will be shared with a social worker and questions about discipline methods and why we want to adopt.  I guess it's just part of the process so it's all good. 
     The longer we are here the harder leaving seems to get.  We leave for Moscow on Monday night to start our medical examinations Tuesday morning.  One very important piece of cargo stays in Volgograd, his name is Jonah.  He must stay here and wait for us to finish the medicals, go back to the US, get our FBI clearance, get our court date in Volgograd, and fly back to make the adoption final.  It will be roughly 1-2 months between when we leave and when we can come back to get him.  Just thinking about it tears my heart out.  I apologized to Leah today and told her that I loved her a whole lot, but I have never loved anything as much as I love Jonah.  She understood and said she felt that way too.  Leaving him on the other side of the world seems like an impossibility, but it is necessary in order to finish the process.  Please be praying for that day.  I try not to think about it, but I know it is coming.  I hope he understands why we have to leave and that we are coming back.  I'm pretty sure he will.  (I may be giving babies a little too much credit here, but who knows!)  Until tomorrow......

Thank God for Grand Pizza......

Sleep is hard to come by here in Volgograd.  We went to sleep last night around 7:30 pm (we were tired, don't judge), and I woke up around 1:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep.  Leah, however, slept like a baby.  I find that my mind is running a million miles an hour these days.  I laid in that bed and thought of Jonah.....wondered how he was sleeping....wondered if he would remember us when we left for the orphanage this morning, things like that.  Finally the alarm went off at 7:10 and we were ready to get up and eat breakfast then start the journey to baby orphanage #4.  We eat breakfast each morning here at the hotel.  It is included in the price of the room which is a really cool thing.  The only draw back is it is not very good.  Yesterday morning I thought I had scored some good ol' American sausage patties, but upon biting into the first one, discovered it was good ol' Russian liver patties!  yum.  I ended up eating some kind of fried bread and fried mystery meat.  This morning was different, when I arrived in the breakfast restaurant my heart stopped!  I looked on the big table and saw a huge bowl of cocoa puffs!  They must've had a meeting and realized that they had to feed the big American before he got angry!  If they have cocoa puffs the rest of this trip, life will be good.  Food has been an issue for both of us.  It's hard to eat when you cannot read menus or communicate with servers.  We had eaten a meal in the airport in Houston on Monday night, and pretty much lived off of cheese crackers until last night we made a monumental discovery!  Right around the corner from Hotel Volgograd (our hotel) is a little cafe called Grand Pizza!  Pizza!  We went in and, somehow, managed to order a chicken pizza and some green tea.  We ate there last night and tonight.  I feel that we will eat there every night until we leave.  You can get a whole pizza and drinks for about 380 Rubles (just a little over $10).  Life is good. 
     The reason we have to ensure that we eat good at night is because it is really the only good meal we get each day.  Breakfast is hit or miss, and the trek to and from the orphanage takes away time for lunch.  We are allowed to see Jonah from 10-12 and from 2-4 each day. He is on a very tight schedule.  When we walked in for our morning meeting, he was just waking up and eating breakfast.  It took him a while to get going, but once he did, he was hard to catch.  We get to go into this toy room and play with him.  He loves it in there.  There are toys everywhere and he loves to try to play with them all!  He can even point his crooked little fingers and tell you which ones he wants.  He is very smart.  This afternoon was a really sweet moment for us and him.  When we walked in, the nurses brought him out and he was smiling and yelling for us!  They had him all bundled up and we were told we could walk outside with him. We went for a walk around the orphanage and talked to him about what life was going to be like when we got back to Texas.  Talked about his room, his toys, his new dogs (romo and sophie), even talked to him about his DeDe and Pops, and his MeMe and Papaw.  He seemed very interested.  Our second visit was cut short due to our translator having to help another American couple to the airport with their newly adopted baby.  They were headed back to Indiana, and we cannot be at the orphanage without a translator.  The day ended watching Jonah ride off standing on the back of a little bike, waving his little hand saying "paca-paca".  (an informal goodbye).  We got almost to the door and the nurses yelled at us to come back and he was standing, staring at the doorway with his hand in the air.  We can tell that he already loves us, and we know we already love him.  We can't wait to see him again tomorrow. 

The Day We Met Jonah...

Today was one of those days that will forever change our lives.  Sort of like the day we went out on our first date, or our wedding date, but, truth is, this was bigger than that.  Today we met Jonah for the first time.  Of course, his name is Nikolay, but we are calling him Jonah, and the orphanage workers have begun calling him that also.  This day couldn't have come at a better time for us.
     Monday evening, we left Houston on a Singapore Airlines jet bound for Moscow, Russia, 13 hours later we landed in Moscow.  Neither of us was able to sleep on the plane due to the fact that it is just hard to get comfortable on an airplane!  Once in Moscow, we met our translator, Alex, and he took us to the S7 airlines jet that would get us to Volgograd.  We had a 4 hour wait for our plane, but eventually we were able to board and we flew to Volgograd.  This was all last night.  We got off of the plane in Volgograd and immediately noticed that we were not in Texas anymore.  The Moscow airport looked alot like Houston.  Big, busy, english everywhere.  The Volgograd airport was no airport at all.  Our jet landed and we climbed down stairs out onto the runway, which was about 31 degrees, and walked to the baggage claim. The baggage claim was a conveyor belt, that was outdoors, and we all huddled around it anxiously awaiting our bags to come around.  We got our bags and could not find our guide who was supposed to be meeting us there.  Fortunately, after what seemed like days, but was actually minutes, she found us.  My short sleeved shirt tipped her off to our Americanism.  I told her it was 90 in Houston 20 hours ago when our journey began!!  She loaded us up in a black audi, driven by a young, non english speaking, man and he began to drive us to our hotel.  I must admit, I thought we were being abducted.  The Volgograd airport is about 20 minutes outside of town. 20 long, dark, foreign minutes.  At one point I had decided that they were driving us somewhere to dump us and take our money!  I had already formulated a plan for escape.  Thankfully they got us to the Hotel Volgograd and helped us check in instead of killing us.  We went inside and saw that our room was about 175 years old and consisted of three twin beds, two small chairs, and a TV that didn't work......that's it.  "Dungeon-like", I said to Leah!  Once everyone had left and we were all alone, it hit me.  It was all finally real.  We were on the other side of the world, literally, about to begin visiting a baby, who was counting on us to give him a good home. This thought broke me.  I became very overwhelmed at the magnitude of what was happening in our lives.  Those thoughts and 30 sleepless hours, at that point, and I was actually thinking of changing my plane tickets and flying home when the sun came up!  Luckily, I am married to a level headed woman who loves me and Jesus, who reminded me of why we were there and assured me that if we got some sleep it would all be better in the morning.  She refered to my condition as "culture shock" and told me she went through that in Paris in July. 
     She was so right!  We woke up this morning, met our translator, and began the 20 minute walk to the orphanage.  After meeting with the Russian department of education, we were officially approved and were able to go see the baby.  The DOE let us know that Jonah's birthday was October 31, 2010!  That's right, Halloween!  To make things better, that is Monday, and we will be here to celebrate with him!  This is significant because I have been worried that he wasn't going to be able to have a 1 yr old birthday party, but now we get to give it to him!  How cool is that?  After the DOE meeting, we headed  to meet him.  His area is called "stars".  There are 6-8 babies there at all times, and his nurse told us that he was the "smartest baby in his group".  She said that he "is loving, loves attention, and loves to dance!"  All of the workers just gushed about how smart he was and how lucky we were to be able to get him.  Then they brought him out, and we realized that everything they were saying was true, and so much more.  Time stopped as I watched them walk him out of his group room and into Leah's arms.  He smiled at us, and let us hold him.  He gave us hugs, and played with toys with us.  He crawls really fast.  Really really fast!   He is almost walking, as a matter of fact, he may have taken him first steps with us this afternoon.  I'm not sure on that because the nurses speak Russian and I forgot to ask the translator to ask them.  We get to visit with him from 10-12 and 2-4 each day until we leave Monday night.  We are loving our time with him, and cannot wait for it to be forever.  As we were leaving from our last visit today, the nurse was holding him and he reached out and grabbed my jacket and pulled me close to him.  He reached for Leah as she walked by.  It made us happy because that means he is bonding already.  We feel very lucky to have not only gotten a child, but gotten one who seems to be extraordinary. Last nights anxioity, is todays joy.  There is no where else in the world I would rather be than in Volgograd with my son.  I cannot wait to bring him home. 
     We will try to update this blog every day or so until we leave Moscow again.  We will be flying out Wednesday at 11:00 am and landing in Houston on Wednesday at 2:15 or so.  Another 13 hour flight with hours lost due to time difference.  Please continue to pray for our travel, our sanity, and Jonah.  As of today, his name was erased from the Russian Database of Orphans.  He is an orphan no longer......today, he is an Elder.

To Russia We Go...

Tomorrow at 5:30 pm Cory and I leave for Russia for 10 days. We will fly nonstop about 13 hours to Moscow followed by a 4 hour layover in Moscow, and then another hour and a half flight to Volgograd. When we get off the plane in Volgograd it will be late Tuesday afternoon there. Wednesday we will have an official meeting with Russia’s Department of Education. Sometime after that we will meet our son for the first time.

I can not even begin to explain how this feels, mostly because I haven’t even come to grips with it yet. I haven’t completely even reconciled this in my mind yet. I can’t explain how I have already come to love this little boy, and I know that it will only be worse when I actually hold him in my arms. How can I even explain how many people have stepped in along the way and helped Cory and I? So many friends, coworkers, and family members have helped us that my sense of community will never be the same. I feel like Jonah is the most loved baby in the world already.

After spending about a week in Volgograd we will fly back to Moscow for medical exams. We will stay two nights there and then fly back on Wednesday.

When we leave Russia, Jonah stays. This will be the hardest part. Where we leave our son at the orphanage and fly back to our quiet, comfy little lives. This is where I need you guys. I am pretty sure I am going to be a wreck.

We truly believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe that when he knit Cory and I together in our mother’s wombs he knew one day that we would be in this moment. We believe he knew that Jonah’s mom would be pregnant with him and give him to the orphanage and that he would one day be ours. I believe this is the same God that has been, and will continue to take care of my son. He was taking care of him long before I ever filled out the first piece of paper for this adoption. He was the one that put adoption on our heart, so I know that he is the one in control. He is also the one that I believe will comfort us and give us peace about this situation.

Our adoption agency is telling us that we could return to get Jonah as soon as December. We may have him home by Christmas! What a beautiful present that would be.

Ways you can be praying for our family:

Peace for Cory and I

Jonah to be comforted by meeting us, and not upset when we leave

Safety

Finances

We love you guys and hope to be able to update the blog while we are gone so check back soon!

Cory and Leah

New News in the Pursuit!

Wednesday October 5^th  was the best day of our lives so far. On that day Cory sent me a text immediately and told me to call him asap. I called him immediately and he told me there was something he had to tell me but he couldn’t until I came home. “Is it about Jonah?” I asked. Somehow I just knew. He wouldn’t tell me but I rushed home at 3:45. He told me Anya our Adoption agent had called and had sent us the referral. It was in Cory’s email. He hadn’t even opened it or looked at it because he wanted us to see it together. He told me that she had told him that our referral was for a baby boy who was 11 months old. He had blond hair and six teeth. Living in Hull, we knew that our internet would take forever to open the pictures, videos, and medical records so we went back to the school and sat with the door shut in my room. I will never forget how anxious I was driving to the school and how long it took the first email to open. We sat side by side and Cory held my hand. And then there he was. The most beautiful thing I have ever put my eyes on. There were 5 pictures, two short video clips and a medical record. I had never thought about how I would feel the moment I saw Jonah the first time. It was an indescribable feeling. Tears streamed down our cheeks as we studied everything about him and laughed about the little personality he portrayed in those pictures. “He’s funny!” Cory said, after we watched the video clips. It was so exciting to call our parents and tell them that we had pictures of their grandchild. I was blessed by the reaction of our family to the news.

Anya had told Cory that she could not believe how fast everything is going with the adoption for us. She said that people are usually not nearly this far along in the process yet. Cory and I know that God is blessing us. Our cup is overflowing.

Tomorrow we have an appointment with an international adoption specialist doctor at Texas Children’s Hospital. Cory will take everything the agency gave us to them and let them look at it and give us any advice they have. Then we will call the adoption agency and give the official acceptance of the referral. From there we will soon get travel dates and more information.

Blessed beyond measure by an amazing God is what we are. It’s hard not to look back on the last year and be amazed. A little over a year ago with Cory’s support I promised God to follow him wherever he led, even if it didn’t make sense at the time. With Cory’s support I left my well paid job, went on a mission trip across the world, and now we are adopting the baby that God has set apart for us. God definantly “ruined our lives” by a lot of people’s definition, but we there is no where else we would rather be. I feel this sense of urgency to express to everyone that we are only here because of the God that we serve.

I can not tell you thank you enough for praying for us. We know that everything has gone so smoothly because so many prayers are being offered on our behalf. At homecoming Friday night so many people stopped me and asked about Jonah and told me they had been praying. It is so moving how our church, our family and our friends have cared so much.

Please pray for Cory tomorrow as he makes the trip to the doctor. I am not going because I need to save as many days as I can to travel to Russia. Please pray that everything continues to go smoothly and that we will soon have baby Jonah home. Please pray that through this whole process that God is glorified and that we are all brought together as a community even more. And of course pray for Jonah. I am looking at his little face as I type this and I know that the God who is bringing us together is taking care of him tonight.

Full Circle

         Two years ago at Darla’s, (Cory’s mom), house I saw a Christmas card that changed my life. Usually I know everyone in her cards, so when I saw this one and asked about it Darla told me about Aaron and Charity Clayton and their story of adoption of their son Sam from Kazakhstan. She told me about their blog, and when I read it, it struck a cord in my heart and I never forgot it or Sam’s little face.

Last summer I found myself at Super Summer (leadership youth camp). I was praying, and asking God to just let me know how I could follow him better. Through a few different methods, he showed me that I needed to go on the mission trip they were offering the next summer, and that I needed to quit my job as a nurse and become a teacher. I am not the sort of person who does irrational crazy things like that, so I told God that I would take one application to one place to be a teacher, and if he opened that door I would walk through it. So I made a resume and drove it to Hardin High School, simply because it was the closest to my house. Two weeks later, after getting certified, I was hired. I became a teacher, and then signed up for the mission trip that they had talked about at Super Summer as well.

Ever since Cory and I first got married we had talked about adopting. And since I saw Sam’s picture and subsequently read his parent’s blog, we knew it was something we wanted to do. At the beginning of this year we changed in an idea for something more tangible, as we started contacting adoption agencies. Cut to now, and we are neck deep in this whole adoption, just waiting on pictures and medical information to show up any day now.

I spent the last two weeks in Paris, France on that mission trip that God called me to go on. The day before I left I was in a little town close to Dallas, at base camp to prepare us for the trip. One of the speakers was Aaron Clayton, the father of Sam, whom had turned our hearts to adoption. When we broke for lunch I saw Sam running around the cafeteria. He was older now, but I knew it was him as soon as I saw him. I watched him for a while and then saw him run up to his mom. I finally got myself together and went over to her and told her everything I could, about how Sam’s picture and blog had inspired Cory and I to adopt, and now we were in this pursuit for Jonah and how much their story had inspired me. She was so nice and so informative. She told me that today was Sam’s birthday. “How old are you Sam?” I asked he smiled and said “4”.

I called Cory and told him how everything had come full circle. To me it seemed that everything from the moment that I had first seen Sam’s picture two years ago at Darla’s house had led up to that moment, from quitting my job to becoming a teacher to going on this mission trip. I was so thankful that for a moment in this crazy process of adoption that God allowed me to see some of the puzzle pieces as they fit together. Even though he didn’t owe it to me, he let me see how a few steps of obedience had put me exactly where I needed to be, and yet the strength I had to be obedient hadn’t even come from me but from him. Thank you God, for adoption of me, just as I was, sinful and wretched.