SDA appointment

Well, as of this morning things were still uncertain in the region we thought we would be going to so we decide to review the files of other children.

Long story short, we decide to accept the referral of a beautiful little girl who turned 4 a few weeks ago. We were able to pick up the referral this afternoon and will be meeting with the inspector of the region tomorrow at 3:15pm. I am not exactly sure yet when we will be able to go to the orphanage.

Then as we were getting the paperwork for the referral we found out things had been straightened out in the original region. Unfortunately because we already accepted the referral the procedure is that we have to go meet this little girl first and then we can decide whether to go through with her adoption or go back and get the referral of the original little girl. A few hours could have made a huge difference but for whatever reason things have worked out this way for us.

We do feel very good about this referral though, so as long as things go well when we meet her we feel like we will be going through with this adoption. It is still very hard especially since now the other region is open again, so we are just going to pray and see how things go over the next few days. The other thing is that it doesn't look like there are any other HIV+ girls available for adoption from this orphanage, so if we say yes to this little girl we will only be adopting one. We did find out too that the SDA is not giving referrals for two unrelated children at the same appt., so if we were adopting two from another region we would have to meet the first one and say yes and then travel back to Kiev to accept a second referral.

If we adopt the little girl whose referral we accepted we will be staying here in Kiev. We will be moving apartments though because the orphanage is on the other side of the river. The downside to this region is that it is know to be very slow. It takes a long time to get a court date here. Once we know more certain how things are going to go and when our court date is we will make the decision about what to do. Probably Joe and Morgan would return home and then Joe would just fly back here for a few days for court and then go home. We will see.

But for now, things are good! We are all enjoying our time here in Kiev very much. I really like it here a lot, although I am sad if we stay here I will not get to see more of the country. I may have to go sight seeing. Morgan is being so good and seems to be having a good time. They have a zoo and a circus here in Kiev, so we will probably be checking them out if we stay.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! It really means so much to us.