Sudden Change

Well I was intending for my next post to be the details on how we began our adoption process. But now that all seems irrelevant. I guess I'll give a crash course on where we were headed to fill in the gaps.

Last April we signed on with Gladney Center for Adoption and joined their Russia program. After reading every single word on the Gladney website, we loved the agency and were particularly drawn to the Russia program. We have spent the past eight months and countless hours completing mountains of paperwork, attending webinars, online training courses, visiting various governmental agencies to acquire necessary documents, fighting with FedEx, reading adoption books, talking with social workers, and completing a home study. Not to mention the thousands of prayers we've said covering our future little Russian baby. Our dossier (basically a huge packet on our entire life) made it to Russia this fall and was translated and queued up just before Christmas to match us with a child.

And today we got the news that Russia has officially banned all US families from adopting from Russia.

We are obviously sad and torn up. My heart mostly hurts for all the families who were waiting to bring their child home. There are about 45-50 children sitting in an orphanage in Russia right now who have met their new parents and are so excited to be picked up and taken home. They are holding photo albums of their new families and holding on to the promise of their new mommy and daddy coming back for them. And now the new parents will never show up, bringing more loss and abandonment into these kids' lives. What a low blow.

Part of the new Russian legislation Putin has put in place states that they will put in new procedures to better care for their orphans. I'm assuming Putin wants a high five or something for that. And although it is noble and needed, the political motivation is definitely not the right avenue to accomplish this, and cutting off US adoptions is not going to help things in the meanwhile, or long-term, for the hundreds of thousands of orphans affected.

But here's what I really think: I think Putin (and his Duma posse) should walk in to each of those orphanages and look each of those kids in the eye and tell them himself that their parents are not coming for them and try to explain why. I doubt they will care about his plans to change the Russian procedures to better care for them.

So I guess life will just move on, like it tends to. And many people in the US and Russia will add this to the scars they bear, our family included. But my prayer is that the God of all comfort and peace will meet every single child and family right where they are, in their struggling moment, and offer His healing power. And somehow use this to draw people closer to Himself like only He can do.

Please be in prayer over all those affected by this sudden change. Even my sweet kids who are eating lunch right now and talking about the sign language they will teach "our baby from Russia." It is a loss for us all.

Thank you for all the calls, texts, and emails from those who love us. I know everyone is wondering what this means for our family now, and we really have no idea. We haven't even begun to go there yet. But thank you for the support and love.