Yesterday we met for our travel meeting with Lifeline. As always, it was a great meeting. We learned more about our time line, how things will work in country, etc. I definitely feel more prepared. Everything with Lifeline has been incredible. If you are considering adopting, I would definitely consider this great agency.
Our dossier is finishing its translation, or may already be finished, and will be submitted in the very near future. Once submitted it will probably take about 4 weeks before we hear anything from Ukraine. At this time we will hear that our dossier is registered and we may get a travel date then or it may be another week or two before we get our travel date. The Lifeline adoption worker in Ukraine will receive our invitation and he will send an e-mail to our Lifeline social worker here, who will send us our information. The original invitation will be in Russian so our formal invitation will need to be translated, however they can e-mail us immediately with the date. (good to know I don't have to walk to the mailbox every day with great anticipation for the letter) The travel date could be a week or two and up to about one month out. We would love to travel in June, so we are hoping for things to move quickly. Of course the timing is completely out of our hands and we are trusting God will have us their at the right time to bring home the child He has already ordained for our family.
We also went over, in great detail, our schedule for Ukraine. It was great to have it all laid out and now we have a much better understanding of what it will look like. We will spend the first day or two getting acclimated to Ukraine. We will then have our appointment with the SDA to be presented a child. We will stay in Kiev the next few days waiting for the paper work. We will then travel to the area of the orphanage. Once their we will meet our prospective child. We will then give our official intent to adopt. Once it is official, the paperwork has to travel, bus, train, etc back to Kiev where the SDA will take 10 days to process it. Hopefully during this time we will be able to schedule a court date with the judge so when our approval from Kiev arrives we can have our court date soon there after instead of having to wait another 2 weeks for a date. We are then all able to travel back to Kiev. We will be there for about a week applying for our Ukrainian Passport and Visa, US Medical exam, etc. All of this should take us about 60 days.
So, what are we doing for the next several weeks...tons of stuff. Preston is busy working like a mad man, 85 hours just this week, to pay for the adoption. Logan, Nathan and Owen are busy finishing up the school year. Nathan is trying out a new body harness for his walking.
He is doing really well with it. We just hold him at the handles at his shoulders and he is walking. This is great for him because he can just walk and we don't have to hold his hand above his head. As he gets better and better we can begin holding him on the handle that goes across his back. I am spending my time getting ready for the trip: summer learning materials for Logan (required reading books and grade bridge materials), favorite food for all 3 boys, new toys for our new child and some other fun new games for the 3 boys and ordering new bedroom furniture for her room. (I think we have it narrowed down and will purchase it soon this way it can be put together before we leave).
Thanks to all of you who have supported our adoption in so many ways. We have had a great response to the tons of different fundraising events we have held this year: the Cookie Party, Noonday Party, Premier Jewelry Party, Bowling Fundraiser, Necklace Fundraiser, Daniel Frei Photography Fundraiser (put "Hite" in your coupon code at check out and we receive 80% of the profit), Just Love Coffee and our Pure Charity direct giving account.
I will be sure to let all of you know as soon as we get our travel date. Thanks so much for praying for us and supporting us in this great journey.
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