Welcome to the 2005 edition of TheHofs Abroad

This page is a place holder for when we travel to Ukraine in late September 2005 for our second adoption and will contain updates on the events of our journies to Amsterdam and Ukraine. Please stop back in October and follow along.

25 September 2005

We just wanted to send a quick update and let you know we made it to Amsterdam safe and sound. We could not sleep at all on the flight as it seemed very hot and miserable. But we would still be believers in the jetlag diet as today we are fine. Yesterday (Saturday) we went sightseeing with John and Andrea who came over from England to spend the weekend with us. A big THANK YOU to them for the company. We weren’t tired much until we got on the bus ride, which was an hour ride to the Hague and had big tall comfortable seats etc. We also ate at the Pancake Bakery, which was good. Dana tried a pancake with ham and cheese, Rob had a pancake with bananas, pineapple, ice cream and something that we couldn’t pronounce and I don’t remember how to spell, but it was all good. We also went to the Maduradam, which was a replication of Holland sites at 1/25 scale and was much cooler then we both expected. We will try and get a picture or 2 up later, but just wanted to make sure there was nothing pressing in our inbox and thought we would say hi.

25 September 2005

The flight to Ukraine leaves out in the morning – today ,Sunday was a great weather day and another day of tourist stuff. We took a boat ride, bought our souveniers, and spent some money with FEDEX/KINKOS for the internet café. It’s ironic that all our paerwork is done and we are still spending money on FedEx! LOL. Tonight we talked to Kyle on the phone briefly, it about broke our hearts ,when he said “ you come back now”. But with that we are done playing tourist and ready to get to the buisness part of the trip, which will start soon.

Thanks so much for all your prayers – we will send out our cell phone number via email once we have it. As a reminder, our appointment is on Tuesday at the NAC, don’t know if we will get to the internet before then or not.

This was taken by Andrea –if you can’t read the sign it says “Hard Rock, Amsterdam”. We didn’t go, but it made a good place marker.

27 September 2005

If you were trying to look at our picture from Amsterdam, there was technical difficulties on our end, so it wasn’t your browser or anything. Sorry about that, if it isn’t fixed by tonight, then disregard, it will be a project for more downtime later.

We made it to Kiev and the weather is nice. We did not have VIP service, and customs and passport control was a breeze. Today we had our appointment at 10. We looked at books for over 3 hours. Every child we looked at had additional issues. We looked at a 6 yr old boy – he was in a “private” orphanage and most likely not really adoptable. Then we found another 6 yr boy – but it turns out he had several siblings. We then looked at the new sheets, kids just available today –nothing really. We then went to sibling books. This is where the heartache really started. We found 2 boys 5, 7- turns out a couple from Italy hosted them over the summer and plan to adopt them, that is great, but not for us . Then 2 other boys, then 2 girls, etc etc. 2boys in a private orphanage. 2 girls had a 13yr old brother. Then another set, turns out mom and dad came and took them home –FRUSTERATING!! Why are they still in the book, with a sticky note that says mom and dad took them home???. Then a boy6, girl 4, we thought this was it, but it turns out they have a 12yr old brother who wants to be adopted with them and the father regularly visits, so not a situation we are interested in wrecking. All that to say we were defeated and ready to go home. V our translator managed to get us another appointment again tomorrow at 11. All that said, we know that if this appointment doesn’t go well, we are heading home. It is a heart breaking process, but we don’t have time growing on trees, and we have Kyle waiting at home, and a house purchase and move shortly after we return, so if it doesn’t happen tomorrow, we are heading home.

We will try and update again tomorrow-

28 September 2005

Well we have begun the arduous task of trying to get home.

A recap of today’s events: Today when we got to the NAC, there was a huge line of families waiting (some since 9am) in the hall and down the stairs, not a good sign. About 11, there was a mass outflow of families, all with very sad faces, apparently no one was getting referrals and it looks like they were being kicked out. At a little after 12, they came out and told the even larger crowd, that anyone who had appointments at 12 to come back after 2. We waited some more, then at 1230, they told us we would not be seen today and that we should petition for another appointment. Of the couples who did not get a referral today, one was looking for sisters 12-13 yrs old. I don’t know what their other criteria was, but that seemed like a reasonable request to fill. IF we petition for a new appointment that request will be heard tomorrow (maybe) and then we are probably looking at an additional 7-10 days for the appointment. We just don’t have it in us for that. If we didn’t have a beautiful little boy waiting for us at home, this would be a different fight. We are going to request another appointment for February or March and since the NAC currently isn’t accepting new dossier’s from Americans, we feel blessed to still be in the game. Change needs to happen, change is happening, but we aren’t interested in hanging out in Kiev for who knows how long for that to happen. We ran into other families who have had 3+referrals and one who has been here 9 weeks and doesn’t have a court date in sight.

To the families in the wait, before you start sending Cathy emails and starting theories as to why we are coming home without a child, I can tell you our criteria was prefer boy 4-7, siblings possible, either gender. We weren’t too picky on health issues, but were not willing to take HIV or Hep C. If we would have been willing to take 9-10yr old boys, our choices would have been endless. That was our decision based on our family and we realize that. We have no bitterness or anger at Cathy or our translator – he has been wonderful, and we actually would have loved to hang out with him for awhile. He has been working hard, and is also very frustrated with what he sees right now. We knew going into this, we were going to 1 appointment, the fact that we had a second one was a pure miracle. When we submitted our dossier last December, second appointments weren’t the painful process that they are currently. We felt the NAC was very generous to us, they allowed us to look at files for over 3 hours, let us pick books from any region we requested, and let us sit at a side table when other families came in. She showed us the newly available children, that weren’t even in the plastic yet. For us, age was a big factor. From the files we reviewed yesterday, we would have adopted probably 10 children or sets of – but they all were either not adoptable or came with 3-5 other siblings. We were willing to take 2, but not more on this trip. Again decisions we made. That is the beauty of adopting from Ukraine- they did not pre-select a child for us, we could pick and choose, however somewhere the system is broke. We know that there are lots of children in the orphanages, but for whatever reason they are not available for adoption right now. Are the children not being registered? We aren’t sure of where the system is broke, but it does need to be fixed.

ON a personal note, we are OK – we aren’t exactly happy with the really expensive miscarriage we just had, but we know that people have lost children they love, had stillborns and other great loses. We still have our family, we haven’t given up on the adoption process entirely, but we aren’t real excited about sitting over here burning vacation while things are getting sorted out. We don’t see the life learning lesson in this yet, but we are sure there is - we know that God still sits on the throne and He is still in charge of our lives. We know God is into adoption and caring for orphans, and we know he gave us a heart for adoption. Why that didn’t connect on this trip, only He knows. A friend once told us you can only see your life like looking at a parade through a fence – God sees the whole thing. Perhaps the cavalry is coming later in the parade, we don’t know. We aren’t sure what the future holds, but we are confident Kyle won’t be an only child.

The process of getting out of here might be a bit slow, but we plan on getting home ASAP. To our family, we aren’t sure when that is, but we will try and email once we have tickets. Signing off from Ukraine, for now.

2 October 2005

We did make it out of Ukraine rather quickly – our translator found us a deal on Aerosvit. On the way home we stayed at a hotel with water park in Iowa for some good family time with just the 3 of us. Life is getting back to normal, Rob is not going back to work till the 4th. We aren’t quite over the jetlag, but are getting there. Hopefully there will be news of another travel date before the new year.