How do they know?

"Mommy, Johnny* told me in the bathroom today that he knew where I was born. He said I was born in Russia. He said I needed a new mommy. How did he know where I was born?"

These were the questions Dima asked me as he looked intently into my eyes through our rear view mirror on the way home from kindergarten. He wanted answers from his mom.

I took a deep breath. This was not the conversation I was planning on having that day. Instead of talking about playground games and music class, we were talking about the roots of his life, a life with many unanswered questions. These questions needed delicate answers for the ever developing mind of a five year old.

"Well, buddy. You were born in Russia. Johnny was right. You know that. We love Russia because it is the place where you were born."

"But how did he know?"

"Well, his mommy probably told him."

"How did his mommy know?"

"Well, you know how we love to tell people about how we are adopting a sister from Russia? We also tell a lot of people about how you were born in Russia. We are so proud of you and we think God has written an awesome story in our life. This is OUR family's story. It's special. We want to tell people, do you?"

"Yeah. Maybe he was born in Russia, too".

"Maybe, you should ask him. There are other kids in your class born in other countries too. Maybe you could ask your teacher to find a map and you can all point to where you were born."

"So, did I need a new mommy?"

"Well, I don't know if that's how I would say it. God always knew that I was going to be your mommy. Even though you weren't born in my tummy, God was preparing you in Ana's* tummy to be my son. And you will always be my son. Always."

"You wanna hear a joke...."

And then we went on to laugh about jokes and playground games and music time.

This story of ours is a public one. Sometimes I wonder if it's too public. Sometimes I wonder if the public nature of our story will one day be tough on our children.

But, I am a proud mama. I am proud of my son. I am proud of our story. I am proud of our daughter's life and how God has created her to be our daughter, even in her birth mother's womb.

My prayer is that God would give us the words to instill confidence in our children's lives. I pray that they would be proud of their story. I pray that they would not become bitter with the fact that people ask them questions, much more than any one else. My prayer is that they would see their story as exciting, adventurous, set apart, and special, not different, not isolating.

I often wonder if it is wrong of us to be so public in the sharing of our family story. But then my heart is always drawn back those precious moments when we arrived home with Dima for the first time.

After a LONG flight overseas, weary and worn from the travel, we stepped on to the escalator in the Cleveland airport. All of the sudden we heard cheers of "Dima! Dima! Dima!" Then we were met with lines and lines of people holding signs and gifts, offering hugs and smiles. It brings tears to my eyes (even as I write this) to go back to those moments of love and support from our community.

This same community walked with us through a two year journey of bringing our little boy home. There were tears in every eye when they saw Dima, because they anticipated his arrival as much as we did.

And we have this forever documented as a way to say to our son, "Look at ALL of the people who were so excited to finally have you home. Look at ALL of the people who love you already. Even before they knew you. Look at them all."

This is our prayer for our daughter too. We pray that she will know that there are hundreds and hundreds of people praying, giving, and working towards bringing her home. And one day soon, she will get to experience that same celebration. If I knew her name, I would be cheering it now.

Thank you for being a part of this journey with us. Though there are times that the public nature of our family's journey feels painful and scary, we also know that we could not do this without you. The prayers and encouragement, love and support that we have received as a result of you coming alongside us has been completely overwhelming. And if we kept this journey so private, we would have missed out on the blessings you have been to us!

*names have been changed for privacy

UPDATES:

• The next set of documents we are working through are formal requests to adopt in specific regions in Russia. Once these are completed, the "paper chase" portion of our process is over.
• We are continuing to receive checks in our mailbox on an almost daily basis. Thank you! Thank you!

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• We are praying even more intently for our little girl. That she would be loved and cared for. That she would be a "favorite" in the orphanage.
• We are praying for wisdom for our agency as they are placing our referral requests into a few different regions. Pray that God would direct them to the perfect little girl for our family.

Until next Monday, love, Kate, Steve & Dima.

Too Much

"Well, Kate. We were hoping for 50 people, but we have 150 people coming to the fundraiser on Saturday." 

This was the conversation I had last Friday with my precious friend, Romina. As I mentioned in last week's blog, Romina is a woman who began following our story on our blog during our first adoption. She and her family live in the San Diego area. While we were nearing the end of our adoption of Dima, they were beginning theirs. Our hearts are forever tied by our adopted Russian boys.

When she found out we were adopting again, she and her family began dreaming of ways they could help us raise the money we needed. They decided on throwing a big pizza party for friends and family, with the proceeds going toward our adoption. Now, when I think pizza party, I think... "order a few Little Ceasar's pizzas and throw some Cokes out on the table." This is not the pizza party they had in mind.

We skyped on Friday, the night before the event, and "met" face to face for the first time. She and her sweet daughters showed me all around their property. Romina had spent all day making home made pizza dough and pizza sauce that was going to be cooked in their outdoor ovens. They hired 2 chefs from California Pizza Kitchen to toss and bake the pizzas for the evening. On their property, they have a choo choo train and a go kart track. This was no ordinary pizza party...this was a full scale family EVENT - packed with great food and fun activities for all.

On the night of the event, Romina had me skype in, then set her computer (with me on it) on a table filled with pictures of our family. As people came up to the table, I was able to talk and "meet" many of those who were coming to the event. I tried not to scare people because most people didn't know I was actually "live". They would come up and look at the pictures and I would try to wave a little to get their attention to say hi. It was actually quite entertaining. It was so fun to get to see faces of these people who I will never meet, but people who generously supported our adoption through this event. Many encouraged us and sent their blessings to us for our journey.

The next day I got to hear all of the amazing details of the evening. I can't even describe the amount of work that she, her husband, her family and her friends put into making this evening an over the top success. They thought of every little detail. From rewiring the sound system, to having their children be waiters and waitresses, to purchasing portable air conditioning units since the evening was unusually hot. As she shared with me about the event, I just began to weep. "How can we accept this? Why would someone do something like this for us? This is just too much. Too much." She beamed with excitement as she told me all about it and I was just overwhelmed with the graciousness and generosity of this family. 

About 12 of the kids served the tables. They took orders and brought the food out to the attenders. At the end of the night, they each had a collection of tips that had been given to them. They asked, "Romina, what should we do with these." Romina, who said to me that she never wants to force generosity, told them, "You have worked hard for these tips, and you offered your services for free. You can keep these tips for yourself as a thank you." 

One of the kids said, "can we give them to the Garcia's?" 

"Yes, you may.." she said, "but you do not have to. You deserve this money." And one by one, each of these kids placed their hard earned tip money into the donation jar. One boy in particular had received quite a large amount of money in tips. He thought for a while and then placed the money into the donation jar. Wow. Could there be a more beautiful picture of generosity? 

There is story after story of kindness that are too many to even share - and some I probably will never even know. 

By the end of the evening, they counted all of the money and were so blown away to tell me that  they received $7,000!! Unbelievable. God, again in His goodness, went above and beyond all of our hopes, dreams, and expectations. He used a hard working, generous family whom we have never met to bless our lives.

When I wrote Romina and told her how I couldn't believe she would do this for us, she responded in this way,

"Kate, remember....I did not "meet" Michael (my adopted son) before I decided to make a difference on his life. The value of a person does not go up or down depending if we personally met them or not. We are all God's children that need help and redemption!"

What a beautiful reminder of how to live and love others.

And though everything in me wanted to say, "no, Romina! I can't accept this. This is too much money. You guys did too much work...I just can't.." I was reminded of God's love for us. 

What if we responded to His gift of salvation to us in this way, "No Lord...this is too much. I can't accept this. Your death on the cross for our sins is just too much." It would be offensive to God to not accept His gift, though the cost was unimaginable. 

His heart is gladdened by our reception of His gift. This is the tangible picture of grace my dear friend Romina showed me. As we skyped on Sunday afternoon, she was exhausted, but more than that, she was filled with joy and excitement to be able to offer such a gift to us.

So, we accept this amazing gift with humility and we rejoice in God's goodness to us and His generosity through amazing people, like my friend Romina.

P.S. Here are some pictures of the evening. As you look at them, imagine the bustling noises of people, train whistles, go kart engines and party music :)

the night's menu

chef Romina

the waitresses

fun on the go karts



train rides!

UPDATES:

• We are hoping to have all of our documents for our dossier in our hands on Thursday of this week (that's what FedEx says). Then, we will mail it to our agency and hopefully be officially registered. From there we will know what region we are assigned to and then have more region-specific paperwork to complete.

• Including this latest fundraiser, we have received close to $23,000 in donations. We have begun applying for grants now that our home study is complete and look forward to God continuing to meet our needs.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• We pray for our little girl - that God would begin to prepare her heart for us and us for her.

• We pray for wisdom as our agency works with the facilitators in Russia to determine what region we will be assigned.

Thank you for following along with us. We hope you are encouraged to see the amazing things God is doing through people. We are!

Until next Monday, love, Kate, Steve & Dima.

Goodbye, Orphanage

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever run out of things to write about on this blog. But it seems like every week, things happen and my mind and heart are blown and God reminds me about Himself: "I am living and active".

The past few days I have been reminded of the truth that our journey of international adoption is far bigger than just the expansion of our family. The story God is writing in our family through adoption is joining hearts and changing lives beyond our dreams and expectations.

This past weekend, I helped lead worship at a huge retreat with hundreds of teenagers from our church. We went to an indoor water park called Kalahari. It was an awesome time of going down slides, swimming in a wave pool, and just getting away with the students. Dima had a blast. Of course, he rode every slide he was tall enough to go on (the darker and scarier the better).

The theme of the retreat was family, and on Saturday night Steve spoke on what it meant to be adopted into God's family. He shared pieces of our personal adoption journey with Dima, showing many video clips along the way.

One of the clips he showed was the one when we first met our son. When Dima walked into the room and met us for the first time, you could see the looks of fear and curiosity all across his sweet, little face. We were strangers to him. Though we already knew him, he did not know us. Though we already loved him, he did not love us. We were foreign to him.

This is such a picture of God and His love for us. Before we knew Him, He knew us. Before we loved Him, He loved us. Though He was foreign to us, we were never foreign to Him. He reached out His hand and invited us to be adopted into His family.

Steve went on to show videos of Dima now. There is such a difference. Now the looks on his face are looks of joy and love. What was the difference between the first video of Dima meeting us and the one of him years later in our home? Adoption.

Steve so beautifully spoke these words, "The ultimate expression of God's affection is adoption." Adoption transformed a lonely orphan into a loved child. Adoption transformed fear into security. Adoption transformed pain into joy. This was true in Dima's physical life. This is true in our spiritual lives when we respond to God's invitation to be adopted.

It was an incredible evening as were challenged to believe that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from God's love. Once we are His child, there is no turning back. To quote our Russian host and dear friend Ludmilla, "Goodbye, Orphanage".

At the end of the session, Steve asked the students if there were any in the room that desired to take the step and reach out to God's outstretched hand of invitation to join His family...hands all across the room went up in response. We are all in need of adoption.

Afterwards there were a few students who came up to me and shared their stories of adoption. Would you believe that in this one room that night - EIGHT students were adopted from Russia? How incredible is that?

I had multiple conversations with different students who were so excited to have a connection with someone who had experienced their beginnings. They proudly talked about the region where they were born and some shared of their memories they still carry. Some of these memories were painful. I hugged them each and told them how loved they were, that they mattered, and that they were visible pictures for us all of God's ultimate affection through their adoption story.

When we came home, I received an email from my friend Romina. Romina is a woman I have never met face to face, but God joined our hearts through our adoption journeys. When we were in the process of adopting Dima, she stumbled across our blog, contacted me, and shared her story.

At the time, she was in the beginning stages of adopting a child from Russia as well. She and her family live in California and they sensed a strong stirring to be a mother to the motherless and a father to the fatherless. So we stayed connected and had the joy of following each other's adoption journey. We shared in each other's joys and pains, and have developed a sweet relationship, though we have never actually met.

So this morning I opened my email and received a message from Romina. She told me that a few weeks ago she and her family spent an entire day baking and selling cookies to raise money for our adoption!

Above that, she has planned a big event at her house on September 15th where they have invited everyone they know to come to their outdoor kitchen for pizza and desserts. There will be go-kart rides and train rides all intended to raise money for our adoption. Our adoption! So for all of our friends in the San Diego area, if you want to be a part of this let me know!

This dear woman is someone who has never met me or our family, but still feels compelled to be a part of our adoption story since her own heart is stirred for the orphans of the world.

Between this email from Romina and the stories of this past weekend, I have been reminded that our adoption story is much bigger than just our family. It is not just about us getting a child. It is a story about what God is doing in people everywhere, and how adoption is an example of the deep affection our Heavenly Father has for His children.

UPDATES:

• We are almost completely done with our dossier. We are hoping there are no errors in any of our paperwork. From here, we are just waiting on U.S. Immigration to contact us to get fingerprinted. Then we are done..for now. 
• We learned that this week we may hear which region of Russia our little girl is from. Exciting!

PRAYER REQUESTS:

• We are praying for wisdom as they decide where our case will be best received...that God would direct them to perfect region for us. Thank you for praying with us!
• Please continue to pray for our little girl. As we watched the video this past weekend, I was reminded again to pray for her RIGHT NOW. That God would be preparing her heart for us and ours for her. That God would already begin to connect our hearts in a way we can't understand.

Thank you for being a part of this story. Thank you for your support, your prayers and your generosity. And for the teenagers at our church - thank you loving our son. The way you treat him is so beautiful. I stood in the middle of the convention center on Sunday and watched a group of 6th grade boys pushing Dima around on a chair mover cart. The entire ride he had a huge smile on his face. Thank you. I love that he has so many awesome "big guys" that he gets to look up to as he grows up.

Until next Monday, love, Kate, Steve & Dima.

Easier or Harder?

Over the last couple of months, many people have asked us, "Is the adoption easier or harder this time around?" 

I say in many ways it is easier. Words like "dossier" and "apostille" are not big, scary words any more. This time, I'm not afraid to walk in the summit county jail to get fingerprinted. I know right where to go and what to do. The paperwork (though still massive) is not as overwhelming. 

I'm on a first name basis with the summit county clerk of courts as well as the woman who works at our local post office. In fact, she remembers me from the last adoption and I remember her. We exchange pictures and stories of our children as she helps me figure out how send documents that need to go to to Cleveland, then to Columbus, and back again to Akron. I know these things can be done because we've done it before.

My expectations this time around are more balanced.  I'm not in a hurry to pick out paint colors for a nursery. I don't have a grand expectation that we'll get a referral by Christmas. I know the timeline on documents now and know that not everything needs to be rushed. My expectations are set for the long haul. 

Our first adoption took much longer than we were originally told. Those long months of waiting were excruciating, but as I look back, I cannot begin to imagine it being any different. If we had gotten a quicker referral, it would not have been Dima. And I am absolutely convinced Dima was made to be our child. The waiting this time around is still going to be frustrating at times, but I know it can be done because we've done it before.

But, here's what else I have done before, I have walked the halls of a Russian orphanage. 

I have seen the faces of children that will forever be etched in my memory. 

I have held my son for 4 days, then had to say goodbye for 4 months. 

The first time around, I didn't know what these experiences would be like. I didn't know what incredible joy I would feel when I got to hold my son in my arms and see his first smile. 

I didn't know what incredible pain I would feel when that final knock on the door came, and I had to watch my son get taken back to his reality, while I sat on the floor of a quiet room experiencing the shock of goodbye. 

Since I've experienced these things I now have a context to draw from. This makes things MUCH HARDER the second time around.

I believe that my daughter is born already, based on the timeline of our adoption process. And so this time around, I grieve now for the time I am missing out on now with my little girl. I close my eyes and see the inside of the orphanage. I smell the food and wonder, "is anyone feeding her? or is she doing it herself?" 

I close my eyes and see the bathroom and wonder, "Is anyone doing a happy dance for her when she goes in the potty?"  

I close my eyes and see the beds lined up and wonder, "is anyone singing to her? Who sleeps beside her? Do the kids comfort each other through the night when they get scared?"

I have seen the inside of an orphanage before, and though Dima's caretakers truly worked hard to provide the best possible situation for him and the other children, nothing can replace a family. 

So, this second time around the day to day busyness of the adoption process does not bring me to the frustration points that it brought me to the first time. I am expecting to do and redo paperwork. I am expecting countless fingerprinting, medical appointments, and countless trips to the post office. 

Then there are the nights where my heart feels like it might shatter over the thought of this little girl who God has chosen to be our daughter. I wonder what she is doing and who is loving her. In those moments, I am reminded of a God whose love transcends borders and oceans; a God whose love for children, especially orphans, is stronger than mine; a God who can take the longing prayers of a mother's heart and work in the life of her daughter - no matter how far away she is.

And one other thing I remember...we cannot do this on our own! So thank you for asking us questions about our adoption. Thank you for caring about us. Thank you for joining us in our journey. We need your prayers, your encouragement, and your support.

Until next Monday, love, Kate, Steve and Dima.