Update

Hello All,
We are all doing great! The boys started school when we got home and are doing very well. Aleks started 8th grade and Dmitri started 7th. I am surprised at how fast they are both learning English. They are so bright and the teachers can't say enough good things about them. They are both in ESL class and Aleks has been moved up to a hight lever just after being in the country for 2 months!!! They are both on the Honor Society and bring home Awards for their studies. We are really proud of them. It was Dmitri's 13th Birthday and we celebrated it here with his new friends...He has a blast!!!
All the kids get along well between each other and are very used to each other now. Katie, who we adoted from disruption about 5 years ago is finishing up 10th grade this year with all Honors and AP classes. She was accepted to the Center for Advanced Learning for the next two years and will be completing her high school diploma as well as getting her medical 2-year certificate for the next two years. She is very excited.
Ilianna is finishin 2nd grade and will be in 3rd next year. She is doing well in school.
Our baby, Isabella, who is now 3 years old...is just as always making us laught and loves all her brothers and sisters...and they love her...
It was also our 9th year marriage anniversary on the 27th of May...
Blessings to everyone...and hopefully I will post more often and add pictures soon...
Inna

SUMMER 2009 HOSTING

Hello everyone,
Now that we are back home settled in and the boys are in school, we are planning our next hosting trip for this summer. Approximate dates are June 15, 2009 until July 20, 2009. We are inviting kids from Father's House, a Christian orphanage in Kiev, Ukraine. If anyone is interested, please email me and I can tell you more about kids that are coming and email you pictures. Please spread the word. My email is maranatha220033@yahoo.com
Please pray for this trip, so that every child will have a family and a great vacation in USA.
Blessings

Home Sweet Home...

We are home!
We had a great flight and kids did well. They were so excited to finally be at home. We arrived home at 12AM. My mom prepared food, the house was clean with flowers and candles. It was so nice.
The boys loved their new room and ran to unpack their things right away. The girls were so happy to see us and their brothers and sister. It was a great reunion!
Even though this adoption journey was so long, we could definately see God's hand in every step.

WE ARE GOING HOME...

We are finally coming home tomorrow. We are flying out on the 29th and will soon see our daughters and other family members and friends!
We got our visas today. We submitted all necessary paperwork and our visas were done same day in about 20 minutes. Praise the Lord!
Last Monday, the orphanage had a going away party for the boys and it went great! Almost all employees and children came and there were many people. The man who started this orphanage spoke first and it was quite emotional. He talked about his memories of Aleks and Dmitri when they first came to the orphanage 8 years ago. He shared some funny stories about them and said that the kids were trully a blessing and good example to others in the orphanage. He spoke with tears in his eyes, but they were happy tears that these kids finally have a forever family that they prayed so long for. Then one by one, kids stood up and wished the boys blessing in their lives and others talked about happy memories that they had with the boys. It was such a great time that we spent together. The orphanage director gave the boys Ukrainian Bibles as gifts and gave us a large clock that has the map of the world on there.
Today we went with our sons to gransma Luda's house to say goodbye. It was good for them to see their grandma once more. Their bio mom was also there. We sat and talked about happy times and grandma gave the boys some gifts. We talked for couple of hours and then hugged and said goodbye. Their bio mom hugged me and we stood there for a while...she had tears in her eyes, but did not want the boys to see her crying. I am so glad that we were able to have this meeting and the boys had some closure in their lives and can now move on to their new life in our new family. They are very excited to go home to America.
Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us throughout this journey! God is good and we are so happy and blessed that we are His children!
Please pray for our safe flight home tomorrow!
Blessings to you all!

We now have passports!!!!

Praise the Lord! Something happened in this whole adoption process, before it actually was supposed to happen... Everything is delayed in Ukraine, but we actually got the boys' passports before we were supposed to get them... strange for Ukraine...
We applied for passports and did not want to pay the fee for passports to expedite them, so we just prayed.. we were told when we applied that if we paid the fee, then we would get the passports or Thursday or Friday...but we decided not to pay... and we still received the passports last Friday! What a great surprise!!! So Monday we are going to take the boys to get their medicals done and then to US Embassy to get their visas... we are almost home..
Yesterday, one of the girls from the orphanage celebrated her birthday here, so she asked me to help her prepare her birthday fiest...it was fun to teach them how to cook and spend time with other kids.. We had a blast!
Tomorrow the orphanage is having a goodbye party for the boys and everyone is invited!
We already have our suitcases almost packed and ready to go...
We definately have a wonderful attorney who helped us thorough this rough journey... We would reccomend her to anyone who needs help with adoption in Ukraine, but most importantly we have a wonderful God who loves us and cares for us and leads us though all tough roads of life..
Blessings to all!

Delayed....again

Once again we are delayed in the process. We are still waiting for our sons' passports. We are hoping that they will be done on Monday and we can have medicals and visas on Tuesday. We changed our flight once more for the 29th of January now. This is the 3rd time changing our tickets while we are here in Ukraine. There was a lot of "paperwork" that was needed to apply for the passport at the "ovir" and also it took a while to unregister the kids from their place of registry. Even though our sons lived at the orphanage for 8 years now, they still were registered in the apartment where their gransmother lives. Since the orphanage and that apartment belong to different counties, they were giving us a hard time when boys had to be unregistered... It seems like most people here just like to complicate things and no one really thinks about whats best for the kids... Oh well, we are enjoying our last week here ( and I really hope this is the last week in Ukriane for us)!
Thanks again for all your prayers...this has been a very long adoption process...

Last week in Ukraine (hopefully) :)

This is us after church by the orphanage, "Fathers House". The blue building is where the kids first come and live for a year or two for rehabilitation and then the building in the back with red brick is where the "family time" orphanage is..

This is at church, they were praying for us and another Ukrainian family that adopted during the same time as us.

We have applied for passports today and should get them either on Wed. or Thurs. this week. They we are off to get medicals and visas. Now that we are getting closer to leaving, I know that we will definately miss all the kids that we contstantly spent time with here at the orphanage... We will continue to pray for them and to look for families who would open their hearts and homes for these kids.

On Sunday, we went to the local church here where all the kids from this orphanage attend and they prayed for us and the kids and blessed us. It was really nice and very emotional. They also gave us flowers, which was really sweet of them. The director of this orphanage is also second pastor in this church. There was also another Ukrainian family at church from Cherkassy that adopted 3 boys from this same orphanage and the church also prayed for them.

Moving forward...

Yesterday we applied for our boys' new birth certificates and will pick them up tomorrow morning. The good thing about this is, that since my husband is the person adopting (because of age issues), our attorney got the new certificates to have my name on there also as the mother. We are so glad that she is so knowledgeable and able to know how to do things the right way. We will also apply for passports tomorrow too.
So so far everything looks good and it seems like we should be ontime to leave on the 25th of January. We should know for sure sometimes next week.
The boys got haircuts yesterday and they look so handsome. They are counting down the days, when we can finally board that plane and fly home.
We are also talking with the administration here about making another hosting trip for kids in the summer to USA. If anyone is interested in hosting kids from this orphanage in the summer or helping in any way to make this trip possible, please email me with your questions. Kids traveling will be from 6-16 years of age.
Blessings to all of you...

Birthday Party!

Yesterday on Jan. 11, it was my birthday. We had a party here at the orphanage and many kids came! They were so sweet, bringing me gifts of whatever they could find.. One thing for sure...they are so generous and kind. They do such a great job raising kids here in this orphanage! Viktor and I cooked and the boys helped prepare the food and set up the table. It was a great party and everyone enjoyed the food... some kids asked to take food with them too...
Viktor and the boys went into the city and picked out gifts for me and brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers! The kids wished many good wishes and blessings for me and it was so precious.
On the adoption front: we are done with our 10 day wait after court, but we have some property issues here to take care of for the boys so dont know how long that will take.. We are trying to take care of it fast...and know that God will take care of it.
Couple of days ago we took boy's gransma to Ukriane hospital...(it was not a pretty sight)...she broke her arm and since she can not walk, Viktor had to carry her everywhere in the hospital.. She had a cast put on her arm and she is doing much better now...
Today we were invited by my third cousin and his family..so we will go and visit them...

Me with all the gifts that the kids gave me...

Dmitri, Aleks, Viktor and our daughter, gave me a ring, earrings and necklace for my gift~

Beautiful flowers that my boys and my husband gave me!

My birthday party with all the kids and some workers from Fathers House!

Day 6 after court...

We are on day 6 of our waiting period after court. Right now we are not really doing anything that is related to our adoption of our kids. We are just waiting...
The boys, really want to go home already and so do we...its great that we were able to spend so much time together already here in Ukraine...we really feel like they were always a part of our family. They always help out. Dmitri really likes to cook and helps me all the time in the kitchen. Aleks cleans our room and always likes everything to be nice and clean. We went to Kreschatik (main street in Kiev) and saw the huge Christmas tree. It was freezing! Our baby rode a pony around the Christmas tree and asked her daddy to buy her one too!!!
Yesterday, we drove around to different travel agencies with our attorney, to get a good price on tickets back home. Tickets are more expansive one way, than roundtrip! For now, we changed our return tickets to January 25th...please pray that this is enough time and that we can leavce on that date...
Today we went grocery shopping and will make pizza and other dishes for Christmas eve (tonight). Tomorrow, Jan. 7, is Christmas Day here in Ukraine. Everything is closed in Ukraine tomorrow and everyone will be celebrating.
So Merry Christmas (again)!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year to everyone! May God's blessings be upon everyone and His grace be with us during this new year! Thanks for all your prayers and support during our adoption and time here in Ukraine!

Here is some yummy food and we prepared here for our New Years Party!
and ofcourse wonderful Ukrainian cakes....

and more cakes....

Our baby receiving gifts by the Christmas tree in our living room.

Dmitri with his best friend Slavik on New Years Eve...

Our family on New Years Eve..together...we miss you Katie and Ilianna...

Dad and Dmitri preparing some waffle cakes for our New Years party..