More Changes - Heading back home and then back again!

Sept. 6, 2011

Dear Friends and Prayer Partners,

Around here, it seem as thought the minute you send out some news, something changes and you have to update the news. 

All last week, we waited and waited for a court date.  We were supposed to be given one this week and we were, but it wasn't what we expected at all.


All this to say,  all of our plans have changed dramatically in the last 24 hours.

Although, the courts promised our facilitator that they would give us a court date for this week, that didn't happen.  Instead, they scheduled out court date for Sept. 20.  Our facilitator has no idea why, but because we have the head of the court, we cannot argue with that.  Both Carol Ellisor and some others we know said it is not common, but it is not unheard of. Basically, it seems they do what they want.
Others who have been through the process say it is not out of the ordinary for Ukraine.

This whole thing kind of threw us for a loop, so  after counseling with the Ellisors and a few others, we decided that we are just going to have to come home to SC until the court date.  David needs to work and I, LL, need to take care of the girls.  It would be useless to sit around here and do nothing for 15 days.  So, here is the plan for now:
We leave Odessa at 6:30 (11:30 am EST) this afternoon for a 5 hour bus ride to Kiev.  Thankfully, it is a nice bus.  The bus will take us directly to the airport in Kiev, so we will spend the night in the airport and fly out at 6:45 Wednesday morning.  We will have a  short flight to Munich, a 3 hour layover there and then we fly on to Charlotte.  We arrive in Charlotte at 3:45 on Wednesday afternoon. All in all, we will be traveling for about 28 hours - ugh!  We are hoping to be picked up by Lisa (the girls' caretaker and the girls).  Our plan is to try and make it to church Wed. night.

We will need  to leave SC again on Sept. 18 and arrive in Ukraine on the 19th.  Lord willing, our court date will remain on the 20th.  After the court date, LL will have to go to Kiev to fill out papers for the US embassy and then she will again return to SC.  After the 10 day waiting period and the time of doing Vitya's legal paperwork.  David and Vitya will return to the US together/  At this point, it looks like this will be the first week of Oct., but we never know!!

We have to say that we have mixed feelings about this.  We know that God is in control and we surrendered to His timing, so we know there is a purpose in all this.  We will probably see it clearly after this is all over.  We are very excited to go home and see our children and they us.  We are very sad to leave Vitya.  I was sick yesterday and didn't even get to say good-bye to him.  David spent some time with him and our faciliator talked to him on the phone and explained what is happening.  David said he seemed very sad.  Natalia said he may be fearful that we won't come back.  Our hearts break to leave him, but we have written him notes and have some gifts and snacks for him that the other couple with us, the Elliots, will take to him when they go to the orphanage.  Please keep him in your prayers, especially that he won't listen to lies that we aren't coming back.

We are having to drain our finances for both of us to come home, but we have to keep trusting that God is in control.  We still need around $10,000 more to finish the adoption, so maybe part of the reason that God is bringing us home is to do some fundraising events.

Well, that is all for now. We need to finish getting packed.  Hope to talk to you soon and nothing will have changed too much.