Things to do

While having a Russian induced nervous breakdown

By Tim and Carrie

- Write a very long rant about how much Russia sucks
- Eat all the twizzlers in your co-worker's desk because she didn't show up for work today
- Regret eating all the twizzlers in your co-workers desk
- Drive around Brentwood in your car for an hour listening to old songs on your i-pod and skipping any that may be adoption related
- Eat a chik-fil-a kids meal in your car sitting in the parking lot while mumbling to yourself and hope no one you know sees you
- Vow to start fasting. Decide you will eat nothing but ice cream until you have a court date
- Try and google exactly how much it will cost to overnight one piece of paper to St. Petersburg without an exact address

Any more suggestions?

Needless to say we do not have a court date. What we have instead is another form to fill out that says basically exactly what all the other forms said. It also included our favorite question of all time: Why do you want to adopt? The reasons we put have gotten more and more far fetched because we can say nothing about religion, altruism, loving Sam, or anything nice.

There goes another week. Bring on the twizzlers and ice cream.

Expectations: Don't have them

Alternately titled "If one more person asks me for an update I may scream"

Not really, well maybe just a little bit.

Tim's last post was all excitement and good news and I hate to be the Debbie Downer on that so instead there are just no posts and everyone is left hanging, which is not nice.

We have almost all of our Dossier: part II finished, including another visit to the doctor, but when I asked Bethany for a timeline they basically said we have to wait for Sam's medical stuff and they are running slow. This is contrary to what Irina told us when we were in Russia which was pretty much that it was going to take them 4 weeks and then they would be waiting on us. Basically they said we'll be lucky if it's early July.

That means six more weeks of waiting. And I opted out of my summer classes because I thought we were leaving and I shouldn't have done that but now I think it's too late to try and re-enroll. On the upside of that my brain is completely fried for the class I'm currently in and I have five chapter summaries due tonight that I haven't started yet so it's probably best that I just let it go.

And this is just a long complain-y post about nothing. Because when people ask for updates that's what we can say. Nothing. I want to go back tomorrow. I want to hold my sweet little boy and bring him home and not have to wonder wonder wonder what he's doing. I feel like we've been holding our breath inside a tunnel and what we thought was the light at the end just ended up being someone's headlights.

Praise God's infinite wisdom and perfect timing. I'm glad he knows what he's doing because I have no idea.

Attempt to ford the river or wait for conditions to improve?

I was a kid when Apple computers invaded schools and my class was one of many that diligently went to computer class every week to play games that today's kids would laugh at if they saw them.

The best game was the Oregon Trail.

Why am I telling you this? Because I had the epiphany on Sunday that adoption is a lot like the Oregon Trail.

In the game you start of by selecting your players, buying supplies and choosing when to leave. You're well rested, well stocked, and you think you're prepared for the road ahead.

You travel for awhile in spring and everything is great and you think you'll soon be in the promise land of Oregon before the end of summer. And then an axel breaks.

And while you're fixing the axel two oxen run away.

And Suzy gets a snakebite.

And thiefs steal half your food.

And Tommy catches dysentery.

But you keep travelling because everyone has told you how wonderful Oregon is and there is no sense in turning back now. You come to a fort and you buy some more supplies and everything seems okay.

And then you get to a river. A big river. And you're given four choices. The first two are dangerous but quick. The last two require patience but are safer.

As a kid we always forded the river or caulked the wagon. Computer class was only so long and your wagon was still only in Kansas.

Why is this like adoption?

God has given us a path, and we've heard hundreds of stories about the wonders that wait at the end of it. But right now the trail is hard. It feels like I have dysentery, Tim has a snakebite, there's only one oxen left and we're out of bullets. Winter is coming. And we're at a river.

And right now all we want to do is camp on the side of that river, sleep under a shady tree, maybe build a little cabin and just stop. Sure, Oregon is great. Heck, we even went there on vacation and know about the rich soil, the cool ocean breezes. But it's hard to remember that feeling when you're this tired.

That was a very extended metaphor to tell all of you that nothing has happened. Absolutely nothing. The FBI has nothing and we are about to ford that river with our one oxen because we can't wait any longer.

Immigration won't email us back and until we get the FBI and the immigration everything else is on hold.

And both of us are having a hard time getting the motivation to do anything else. I think we left part of our spirit in Russia and that makes everything else harder. We hold on to bright spots. A big hug from one of my four year olds. A great find at a garage sale. A good book.

So I have no news to share. The trail is hard, and most of it is just boring and long and all looks the same.

P.S. Fording the FBI river will cost you $125 and an entire lunch break. Just so you know.

Would you dare to believe?

Maybe there are things you can’t see

And all those things are happening

To bring a better ending

.

Someday somehow you’ll see, you’ll see

.

Would you dare would you dare to believe

That you still have a reason to sing

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

It can’t compare to the joy that’s coming

.

So hold on you gotta wait for the lig ht

Press on and just fight the good fight

Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling

.

It’s just the dark before the morning

.

I heard this Josh Wilson song on the radio last night after talking to my mom about E. And I don't like to wax poetic about songs being inspirational or whatever but this is exactly the song I needed to hear. I needed to hear that God was working even if I couldn't see it and that soon all of this pain and sadness and hurting would just be a memory and none of it compares to what's ahead.

There is a box of clothes on the kitchen table. They are little girls clothes I ordered off ebay several weeks ago. They came the day before we got the email that said they didn't think we could have her. And they are still sitting there because I can't bear the thought of taking those tiny little clothes up stairs and putting them on hangers and then having to take them down and put them away. I couldn't stick them in a closet or give them to my mom, they just needed to sit there. Which seems silly to Tim. It's like if they are sitting there then there is still hope. We haven't given up.

I think I'm going to hang them up. I'm going to do it because there is something comforting about having those little clothes hang there in anticipation. And I need to believe that God is bigger than this and that he has a better plan for all of us. Other than that we are just waiting.

Waiting,
waiting,
waiting.

In Soviet Russia, blog updates you!

So we have sent all the money into our agency for our dossier fees. Unless we get E then we owe them more money. First time in my life that I would excited about owing someone thousands of dollars more. Soon our dossier, homestudy and various other documents will be translated into the beautiful language of Russian. In Soviet Russia, blog updates you. Then it will be sent to Russia. I am hoping that the In Soviet Russia joke is the first thing they read. I think it will really encourage them to process our paperwork more quickly (don't worry that is not in our paperwork). We really have no idea when we will be travelling possibly in a couple of weeks or in a couple of months. Carrie has not really read any blogs about families adopting waiting children. I tried searching the internet, but dealing with Russian websites I have to remember that in Soviet Russia, website searches you! Never gets old. What I have learned so far in the process is that there really is no solid predictor of when things will happen. The processes that we expect to take a while are usually quick and easy, and the things that we expect to be no big deal are time consuming and difficult. So my conclusion is that adopting from Russia is much like a Yakov Smirnoff joke. It is a reversal (not really that funny), and what should be difficult is easy and what is easy is difficult. In Soviet Russia, child adopts you.

Joy

So it has been over a month since we completed our homestudy. We have been waiting on the approval of the homestudy since that time. What we thought would just be a day or two wait has been a draw out process that is both frustrating and time consuming. Russia is 9 hours ahead of us and so really the only time communication can happen is early in the morning here which is late in the afternoon in Russia. I would say that is a difficult month, but not terrible. But in the small group of 8th graders that I lead, we have been learning about joy. Yeah that is really hard to teach about joy when I have to deal with day after day of frustrating news. I have been angry, annoyed and exhausted trying to deal with this wait. But yet I teach about joy and contemptment. Oh yeah and then there was the week on being in joyful in trials. Good times (at least I got to study about the outcome of trials). I really don't think it was a coincidence. It is hard to be too upset when I have to read Phillipians. Paul wrote that from jail. He used the words joyful words throughout that book, 16 times to be exact. So that has been my struggle throughout our wait. I think that it really hits home with a couple of songs that I have recently heard. One is by Bebo Norman "The Only Hope." You can listen to it below. But he basically talks about how we have decided what we want and that is not always what God wants. I think it really is about joy. One line is "I want a star, but You are a galaxy." I want to cling onto that star, but God is so much more and that is where I need to be joyful.

The Only Hope - Bebo Norman

the other is by Steven Curtis Chapman (you have probably heard this one...I know I have). It is talking about the recent lose of his adopted daughter and that heaven for him right now would be to see her. Later in the song (you can also listen below), he talks about heaven being so much more. And my take away from both of these songs is that what I sometimes think as joy is just a glimpse when I do not allow God to be my source of joy.

Heaven Is The Face - Steven Cu...