Court Date

We have a court date, it is on Thursday December 3rd at 12:30 (most of you will be sleeping!). This is where the judge will pronounce Nina to be our daughter, and she will become Nina Stumbo, what a crazy thought!

After Thursday we begin our 10 day waiting period. Andy flies home on Saturday, day 2 of our wait.

After the 10 days I get to go get a new birth certificate for Nina. In this certificate, Andy and I will be listed as her parents. After that, we can apply for a tax code (not sure what it is for). They say this tax code can take 5-14 days to get. It is necessary to have this to apply for her passport. Once the tax code is here, we can apply for her passport. They say it takes around 10 days.

Nina then has to have a medical examination where to determine she can fly home. Once she is in the clear, we take the results with her passport to apply for a visa. Once we have the visa, we come home!

So this is what we have left in order

-Court

-10 day waiting period

-Birth certificate

-Tax code

-Passport

-Physical

-Visa

So, at this point, me being home before Christmas is looking hard. BUT, we are asking you all to pray that the Lord comes before us and that all things fall into place so we can be home before Christmas! This would be cutting it short, but it can happen. So please, pray with us!

Our daughter!

Our sweet daughter, it has been great to see her the last few days. We cannot wait until we can get her home and have her meet our girls (who we miss so much)

We wanted to share a picture of us with her :)

And the adoption blog has great pictures and videos!

We have it!!!

We have our referral, praise God!!!

Our Apartment

Our apartment is pretty big. We have two rooms and a bathroom. I figured you don't need to see the bathroom (we have a washer in there)

But we do have our living room/dinning room/kitchen room, and then our bedroom.

Beautiful!

This country is full of rich history. There are some beautiful buildings and churches.

I wanted to share just a few pictures.

When walking into a church women have to wear head coverings, and at one particular church, even a skirt, so I rented the skirt you see (it was more of a wrap)

Really, this city has beauty in every corner seems like.

Call to Prayer

It is 11:30 for us on Monday morning, I know most of you are sleeping.

We have received news today that the quarantine in the orphanage has been extended until Thursday and they still don't know if this will affect our referral.

To say that we are discouraged is an understatement. We have been waiting since our original SDA appointment last Wednesday for this referral. An appointment that lasted 10 minutes. Nothing has happened since then.

They say there is a possibility for us to get it today, if not, we will not get it until Thursday or Friday.

If you read this on Monday morning, PRAY, please pray that we hear good news at 3:00 pm (your 7:00 am)

We need this referral!

Lord, we are in the palm of your hands, all things are in your hands. Please, grant us the referral.

UPDATE:

No referral. Now we wait until Wednesday or Thursday.

Update

We have been in Eastern Europe now for 5 days. The last few days we have had time to enjoy the city and be tourists :)

There are beautiful buildings here and a lot of rich history. We have walked a lot and enjoyed being in a big city.

Our apartment also is big and very comfortable. It is nice that we have our own little kitchen and we are able to make some of our meals, of course we have been eating out every day. Our goal is to have a day where we just stay here and save some money!

I will try to upload pictures tomorrow.

If there are any questions, I will try to answer those too, we have time to do that!

Oh, and our SDA appointment went well, it lasted no more than 15 minutes and now we are waiting to receive a referral so that we can continue on with the adoption process. Pray that we receive that document on Monday!

We made it!

We are here and we are doing well :)

Our apartment is really great and we finally got access to internet. It is not the best, but it works for now!

Our SDA appointment is tomorrow, so I will update as soon as I can.

And we are off

This afternoon we got into our car and headed over to my mom's house. Our dear friends had taken our girls for the morning so we could get all our packing done and they prayed for us and sent us out, out to get our daughter. As we pulled away from our driveway my eyes got watery. Next time I see my home, Nina will be a part of our family.

We are covered in prayer, we are showered in love. We know that as we travel and journey to get Nina, we have many people praying for us, lifting us up to the Father. His peace surrounds us, we are excited to go.

She has a family!

Lera, the little girl I posted about just a few days ago, has a family!

Praise God!

Adoption Blog Going Private

On Saturday our adoption blog will go private. If you did not receive an e-mail from me today, it means I do not have your e-mail address. I need your e-mail address so you can be added to the blog list.

Unfortunately, a private blog can only have so many readers, so I will give preference to our family, however, I still have quite a few open spots!

I will continue to update this blog as well, so people will have a general idea of what is going on.

Orphan Sunday

LERA
Girl, Born August 7, 2005

If Lera doesn't have a family committed to her adoption within the next few days, she will be sent to a mental institution where she will then be unadoptable and 'sentenced' to a crib for the rest of her life.
Here's a little about her: Lera is a gorgeous little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is 4 years old. She is quite high functioning, and doing very well. She has flat feet and a systolic heart murmur, but no major heart conditions. She is able to walk and climb, she eats by herself, dances, and understands and follows directions. She has also been transferred to the regular class, so she living and learning with her typical peers.
There's a grant of $1,000 available to the family that adopts her. It's so sad that she's run out of time. She is in RUSSIA and those are closed institutions. Here's the info about adopting from her region of Russia:

• 2 trips
• Both parents for first trip, about one week
• Both parents travel for 2nd trip, approximately 14 days (One parent may leave after the court proceedings are finalized, after about 5 days.)
• Total program and travel fees under $25k
• Fee includes a $1000 orphanage donation
• Only one child can be adopted at a time
• Married couples and single mothers may apply

Please pray for a family for Lera to come to her rescue quickly!! Are you that family?

And if you live close to us, we will help you raise the money!

Last Leg of the Race!

We are close, so close to being done raising money for our adoption. I have one last chipin. All donations are tax deductible. If everyone gave at least $5 and invited 5 friends to give this much, then we will get there!