Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Our Adoption - (less than) 4 weeks to go 6/28/2005

Week 46 came and went and I missed the update. But here is what it entailed:

We received our Visas from the Ukrainian consulate! Visas are entry permission documents stamped right into your passport. Receiving ours was quite exciting until we discovered that they wrote my visa in my maiden name rather my married name. We’re not sure if it was a mistake or if they always issue the visas according to the name in the front of the passport. My passport was issued before I married and later amended. I applied in my married name AND pointed them to the page with the amendment, so it may have been intentional on their part because it seems like this would be important enough for them to do it correctly. I tried to call today to learn if it needs to be fixed, but today is a Ukrainian holiday and the Consular office is closed. Will try again tomorrow.

My friends gave me a baby shower on Saturday. This was an amazingly special event because it made the reality of us soon coming home with a child so much…well, more real!! Our house is now full of little toys and toddler dishes and other things which clearly indicate the presence of a little one. And the best part is it looks so natural in our house and feels so right in our hearts. I know I won’t believe it fully even after we’re home with a little one, but it is becoming more believable each day that our trip draws nearer.

Actually, the real highlight of the shower was a time of prayer the ladies had for me. I was so blessed by this and must have needed it even more than I realized. Afterwards, I felt a huge sense of peace and of renewed trust and assurance that God is in control and He’ll see it through to completion! I’ll have to continue to return to these truths again and again before it’s over, though. Please keep praying, folks! It makes such a difference!

There’s another reason to pray besides our spiritual and emotional well-being. The adoption situation in Ukraine is soon supposed to be getting MUCH better. However, the “much better” phase is not likely to happen until some time after our trip. And until then, things are NOT good some might even call them BAD. We are refusing to give up though, remembering that God is in charge and it is up to Him to connect us to the child meant to be ours. Still, please pray for the children in Ukraine who need homes that the current barricades will soon be torn down and adopting them will be easier and faster than ever before! These children deserve homes and families to love them!!!!

We continue to prepare for our travels, collecting gifts to take, buying the right toiletries, evaluating our wardrobes for appropriate attire to take, and so on. We are also finally working on the photo book we will be making for our child to see as a way to “meet” his extended family and begin to get more comfortable with us and our home and such. We hope he likes it!! We’re still collecting digital pictures from family to go in the book, then we will build and organize it, and then we’ll print it through Apple’s iPhoto book program. So cool!!

I’ll do another update this week on Friday… at least that’s the plan.