Twelve Years with Erika

Can you believe it has been 12 years since we brought Erika home?  I can't!  That little nearly 8 year old girl who was so tiny, so brave, so ready to have a family, has turned into a lovely, beautiful young woman.  She has blossomed soooo much!

She has continued to bring us joy and is working hard at life.  She still loves photography, is attending college as a psychology major, drives,  and is as witty as ever.

Here are a few pictures from our early adoption days:
The earliest photo we have of these two.


The steps to her orphanage.
taking a walk
Lining up

Her very first french fry.

giving a gift and getting a kiss!

 Ready to leave
Saying good bye
back to Kyiv

On the airplane

The reunion

 Finally home and Dabba left 3 bunnies!

And more recently:

UPCOMING EVENTS

Both Sarah and Erika are finishing up their college semesters and ready for a full Summer! 
Sarah will be going to Haiti this summer and working with our sister church.  When she comes back, she will be volunteering at the camp both she and Erika used to attend as campers.  She is also planning to volunteer at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.

In the fall, both She and Erika plan to go to Ukraine. She didn't go last year and was apprehensive about Erika going.  But now that Erika has gone and come back safely, she is going to go with her sister this year. :)

Erika is busy working and will also be volunteering at camp. 

These are the two girlies left at home. :)

Me, I'll be busy writing, and working with our face book support groups.  I'm also working at the shoppe with Mike.

Post Placement Reports and More

Well, the day has come.  We finished sending in all of our post placement reports to Ukraine.  Every few years a report is required, with photos.  Our reports have always gone to the D.C. consular's office.  The reports are due on the Month that the children were adopted.

The form is VERY EASY to down load and fill out.  Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not require an agency letterhead, or apostille or notorization. 

Our last report was a little late.  I wanted it to be special.  There is room on the report to write how things are going with your child, and I wanted to tell Ukraine how thankful we have been for our sweet girls.  They have blessed us so very much as they came home and have grown into strong, beautiful, confident young women.  I am so very proud of them.

They would not have had the opportunities in Ukraine because of their physical disabilities.  But today, they attend college, drive, have friends, go dancing, teach a college girl's bible study, and are interested in Missions work.

Erika went to Ukraine last year, and this year, both Erika and Sarah are planning to go to Ukraine.
Sarah is also going to Haiti this year, and both of them volunteer at the camp where they were ministered to all those years when they were younger.

Our adoption journey has been one of tremendous blessing and tremendous heart ache.... And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

We have been so very blessed with all 8 of our children. 

We have learned of God's grace and mercy in our lives, in very living and practical ways, not just through reading.  It has been a daily experience.  We have learned to trust HIM when we didn't know where to turn.  We have learned how truly weak we are outside of Christ.
We have learned that not ONE MINUTE of the lives we have shared with our children has been wasted.  Each and every day, the mundane, the exciting, has been a piece in the puzzle of life for them.  Those little lessons of teaching about love and forgiveness, about how to care for a chicken or a goat, or a dog, has placed another piece of their little hearts back together.  And today, they are able to love.  They KNOW they were loved and ARE loved.
Oh what a blessing that is to my heart.

Erika and Sarah are in college. Erika lived in the dorms for a year and then came back home.
Sarah and she plan to move into the dorms again next year together with a couple of other close girlfriends.
Erika has a very special young man in her life and she works for  an Affirmative Action compliance company. She is a psychology major.
Sarah is busy BUSY....She is working at a restaurant and is an accounting major.

Our other two girls are not at home, but they are in contact.  Stevie is now in Nevada and is a mama.
Her little baby boy is adorable and she is learning to navigate motherhood quite well. :)
She adores her baby and just as she used to snuggle those chickens (we called her the chicken whisperer)  she loves her little one. 

Alli is living close by and we talk or go to lunch.  She is working full time and loves her job.
The girl who used to throw away her money, now counts money! :) 
She is raising a little puppy that she adores and has a boyfriend.

Our sons are all doing really well.  Chuck is still working on his music and he is now a manager at the medical supply company he works for.  Timothy is teaching.  Joseph is an adjunct Philosophy professor and is on his last leg of getting his doctorate degree, Marcus is an accountant.
We now have 13 grand children between the ages of 21 and 2 months.

And Me?? 
Well, I'm finishing up editing... I had to take a pretty long break to meet Miss Alli's needs.  And another book or two  is in my head for follow up.  I feel like we have lived another whole lifetime since I finished my first book... :)
I am working with Mike in the auto shoppe.  It is so strange when change happens.  Going from being home all the time and educating the children at home, to working full time with Mike has been a process.  That adjustment time has taken a while! :)  
But I have a really nice boss who gives me time off to take care of the grands when needed and to take a nap if needed. :) 

I wanted to end this with a HUGE thank you to Ukraine for giving us the opportunity to raise our Girls, for Russia for helping us complete the process of readoption in Russia and being very helpful with the process of paper work, and to the USA for letting us raise our little Oklahoma girl.

And I would like to thank our Social Worker Kathi, who stuck with us from beginning to END... ALWAYS being available to talk, to  help, to advise and to share.  She is AMAZING.

If you are an adoptive parent, that social worker who helps you through the process is somebody you need to stay in contact with.  Do remember to update them on a regular basis of how things are going.
They are there to help you.

And now, all of our arrows are out of the bag..... I pray they will do great things for the Lord.
Their stories are not over and neither is ours! :)

The Trip Back

Back to where she came from.  I cannot imagine what is going through her head right now as she prepares to come back home.  I'll have more to say soon, but here are a few photos of her at her old
orphanage.....

Erika and Papa Dima

 Then and now

 Then and now

What an incredible experience. :)

more to come

Our very first posts were about our experience bringing Erika home from Ukraine.
She came home in April of 2006. I started blogging in Feb of 2007.

It Was Like A Breath of Fresh Air

Easter Sunday was a wonderful reminder of the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He brings about NEW LIFE by breathing into us His Love.

After services, the gang showed up for an Egg Hunt and BBQ.  We had a wonderful time of fellowship.  The grand kids are REALLY growing up!  We had so much fun with family and friends. :)

 And this is what they looked like after we cleaned up! :)

Washed In the Love of Christ

My last post was rather negative. I'm very sorry. :(  It was raw, and I was raw.
Rejection hurts.
But you know what?  Isn't that how our kids feel?  Isn't that how they got to be with us in the first place?
For an adoption to take place, there has to be a rejection, right?

For some kids, they are able to heal, and we have experienced and been a part of that process for many years.  For other kids, it never ends.  Their hurt is too much, and while they take baby steps for a while, sink back, take more baby steps and even giant leaps, they still sink back, and as parents, we have to understand that this child will not heal easily.  They will be grown and yet not ready to face life.
And you know what? That is where they are, and we have to accept where they are, even if it means they reject our love.
Their stories are not over and 18 is not the magic age of everything being fine, so now you are on your own.

They have a life time of relationships and growing to do, just like everybody does. There will be people who come alongside and speak life into them, just as we have.  They may be in the form of a friend, pastor, significant other, spouse or child....but it will happen.

As I sit here and type, I realize more and more that life is so short, and the time we have with our children is so short.  We MUST make the most of it, even when it is difficult.

Love, even when they scream they don't want it.
Accept, even when they don't want our acceptance.
Reach out, even if they don't take your hand.
Be kind, even if they don't return your kindness.
Reach out, even if they don't respond.
Be available! So when they are ready, they can reach out.
Leave the door open.... they may try at some point to walk through it.
Pray!  Oh Pray!  Prayer is powerful!

And NEVER EVER EVER EVER GIVE UP.... Never, EVER.

Christ loves us.  We are washed in His love daily.  It is palpable for me right now.
The Lord comforts those who mourn. He is near to the broken hearted.
He is the lifter of my head.

And I will walk in faith and TRUST the one who is worthy of my trust!

She's Gone....

Alli was doing well when she first came home, and quickly began to erode away at any semblence of family life.  She has stated numerous times she didn't  want  family and especially didn't want parents.  The reasoning is trauma based and makes no sense if you are trying to make sense of it.

This child can say, "I think you are wonderful parents", "I just don't want parents."

I cannot describe the last  6 weeks.  She went from being great to running away; something she planned out for her 17th birthday.  We talked her into going to her bio sisters house for a week hoping she would settle down, but no. When she came home, on her birthday, she was adamant about moving.
I took her to see the counselor and that was the last time we were together.

We actually stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel.  She ordered her coveted mashed potatoes and gravy.
The very first place we ever ate together was Cracker Barrel in NC and all she would eat was Mashed Potatoes. :)

So, now she is 17. We talked her into staying with our son and daughter in law, who have graciously opened their home for her for a short time, and she did go with them.  (They are treating her as an adult guest)
She is working at a new job which the Lord graciously provided.

Texting her hasn't been very successful. She doesn't want to talk.  We are blocked from FB or Instagram.

She wants to live her life how she wants to live it.  She said, "I don't want to be told what to do, or that I have school or that I have bed time, or need to get up. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. "  "I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, eat what I want, when I want, sleep when I want, when I want, get up, or do school when I want to."

And the sad part is, the only thing we were telling her by then was, "You may not have relations with a 25 year old man"..... She was doing what she wanted and she still left.

TRAUMA is horrid.  This child is the long term result of long term trauma.  Our 6 years of intensive, connected, purposeful, intervention could not stop the tidal wave of behaviors that have been a part of our lives all this time.
She would have periods of doing great, and then fall backwards into old fears.  That I get.
But this? I honestly don't get this.  She threw her Summit program notebook in the trash, and is choosing a dead end.  I fear for her safety and where she will go from here.
We have done ALL we can do.

She is in the hands of the Lord. She always has been, but today, it is more of a reality.

Why do people reject love?  Why do they knowingly run towards destruction?
Those are questions I will probably ask the rest of my life. :(

Sooo, unless I have anything positive to say regarding the two girls who are no longer home, I am going to focus my attention on the two who remain and are doing fabulous.

I don't know what else to say.....

Sarah... :)

Guess Who Got Thier First PayCheck??

 Yep! Miss Alli! :)

Guess Who Got Thier First PayCheck??

Erika's Walking journey.... I Loved Seeing This Again!