Abba, Father!

I read this after putting on mascara for the first time in five days.  Cried because I felt every part of the article...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/july/10.18.html?start=1

Maybe we're supposed to adopt as many times as possible so that we learn the processes well and can help support others during their process.  Hopefully through it God's family will be strengthened and multiplied, not by any strength in us (which is all God's grace anyway), but by the power and grace of the Lord.  God's family, our family, our church family - brothers and sisters in Christ - it's all one big family, and our future babies, wherever they currently are.  I pray that they are in God's care, hugged deep within His arms, always.

Evelyn Noelle

Tomorrow's the day, unless, of course, today is the day... and we will get to see our little Evelyn Noelle.  Gestation is an amazing miracle of God, and I am ready to see the end product and be done with the initial process.  Thank you Lord for being Lord of all, and beyond able to be our strength, if we have faith that your grace is sufficient for all of our needs.  My worries and my whining are straight out of my own sinful nature.  Praise God for overcoming this with the cross and Jesus Christ, and for putting a lowly sinner in a place in this life to come to know Him.  I am undeserving of all of these blessings, and I cannot wait to get back home to the rest of them with the newest one.

Hopeful Thursday

Russian adoptions did not close to U.S. citizens, and today JCICS summarized that talks have been moving forward between the countries. Today, May 13, 2010, Russia and the U.S. issued a joint statement on the significant progress of their talks on basic principles of agreement for adoption protocols. Talks will continue tomorrow due to the significant number of issues under discussion, but JCICS believes a future bilateral agreement between these countries will include protocols for direct communication between primary adoption authorities and utilization of only U.S.-based Hague-accredited adoption service providers. Woo-hoo!

Currently there is a general agreement on broad terms only, and not the necessary definition of precise terms, practices, procedures and rules.

Following are the links:

http://jcics.org/Russia.htm

http://www.adoption.state.gov/news/russia.html

Return to Russia???

Yikes, folks.  There are obviously untruths told somewhere along this line, but this week a Tennessee single adoptive mother returned her legally adopted seven year old Russian son, on a plane by his lonesome, to Russia.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/09/russia-urges-adoption-freeze-american-returns-boy/?test=latestnews

The Russian education ministry immediately suspended the license of the adoption group involved- the World Association for Children and Parents.  They also are recommending that the U.S. & Russia come to an international accord before any new U.S./Russia adoptions are allowed.  Apparently the U.S. has refused such negotiations in the past, but there have been other incidents recently of adoption failures even more grotesque that have ended in the fatality and brutal killing of the adopted children.

Is Russia party to the Hague convention?  I'm going to take a moment to look this up...

http://adoption.state.gov/country/russia.html

The answer is no, they are not party to the Hague Convention.  I know this is not an all-encompassing saving grace, but I now have better mental evidence for its usefulness (which I did not doubt, I am just still educating myself as to all of this).

Russia also adopted-out to U.S. families 1,586 children in 2009.  According to the article, there are more than 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF.

We need to pray for God's hand of protection on these children!  Also for Him to move in a mighty way to expedite all of those who are waiting for their chance to have a mommy & a daddy to love them and show them Christ-like love and the earthly example of the heavenly miracle of God adopting us into His family, eternally, and just as we are.

Those who wait...

Since I have only recently started re-educating myself as to the Bulgarian adoption process, I am relying on other blogs for my news. I also recently found such a wealth of blogs regarding their own personal trek through the process that I am feeling behind and confused. I have a lot of reading to do!


According to Almost Home, the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria, the MoJ, is agreeing to strive to share more information regarding children already on their registry of adoptable Special Needs and older children, and also to add many more children to the registry starting this year, 2010. I could summarize, but Almost Home has already done so here:

http://thehowe5.blogspot.com/2010/04/while-we-wait.html

I do not know if this is “good” news or distressing, but AGCI told us that we could apply once our new baby is 9 months old which will be in February 2011, which seems to be about when hope can be applied to referrals increasing. I know that the process is taking years; I just don’t want to think about the length so very much. I hope that the MoJ’s endeavors will (eventually) expedite current waiting families and increase the number of waiting children who are adopted into a forever home. Maybe the Bulgaria to US international adoption statistics will finally gain more than a “modest uptick”…

http://adoption.state.gov/country/bulgaria.html#statistics

Midnight at the Interwebs

For posterity, or simply for the reason that it is way past my bedtime and I want to place a mental bookmark on my evening’s surfing progress, I am saving about 100 links to adoption blogs mainly dealing with Bulgaria. I cannot believe I haven’t done this already, and I guess I just never realized how many are out there; I'll have to finish another day. Kind of scary, realizing how important it is to get the thoughts off of your chest so that you don’t implode and how many families out there are blogging about the process, the waiting… it was a good thing to see though, because I started to feel an urge to look for a country whose process may not take as long or maybe have more available children. What a selfish jerk I am! One of our next children is likely in Bulgaria, or will be once they are born. It constricts my heart painfully to think that they are there already, waiting… but God’s plan is perfect, and maybe we are not currently the family that this precious child needs, so we need to be open to His guidance and grace. He put Bulgaria in our hearts at the beginning of September, and I am amusedly content that His timing is not our own (as I should be)!

Then there is poor little Evelyn, who is already exacting her revenge on my innards for my looking beyond her to the next child. She is more than a cute nursery and little baby girl clothes to be washed and folded, and I know this, but maybe it is God’s way of redirecting my attention so that I do not succumb to the ever-lurking fear I am so prone to. My children need me to be more Christ-like, to give the sort of love that I seek from God… At this I fail daily in multiplicity. I need to be filled with grace, and not of myself. I need to do this work as unto my Lord. I will not give word to my doubts, they are not from the Lord and I will not type them here. I pray that I am the mother that my children need. They are the children whom God knew I needed.

little.blue.feather.

I wanted to announce the opening of our cousin Michelle's Etsy shop! She creates wonderful articles and gifts with which to grace your cherubic cutie. You can be sure that great care and love goes into the production of each item. Please check her shop out at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlebluefeather?ga_search_query=littlebluefeather&ga_search_type=seller_usernames