February 14 2005 - travel time frame

Happy Valentine's Day!

We have just today officially accepted the referral of Dub and Jack as our soon-to-be adopted children. These are the children that God has chosen for us, whatever medical issues they may have. The doctor from the University of Minnesota Int'l Adoption Clinic has said that he thinks Dub may have FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) based on some of his facial features as well as his small stature. Though we find his evaluation troubling, we take encouragement from the first hand reports from the orphanage that Dub is, at age 40 months, potty trained, very social, running, climbing stairs, speaking lots of words, and communicates well with adults and other children.

We do have the option to decline this referral based on medical evaulations, but we believe that God has chosen these children for us for a reason, and we will be obedient to His plan for these kids, not our dream of "the perfect children".

Our view of the boys' physical and medical conditions is this: if Angel were giving birth to them, this would be like getting a little early information so we'd be prepared for what to do when we got them home. Now we are prepared for what we may or may not need to do when we get Dub and Jack home.

Please pray for the health and development of both our boys.

Now that we've accepted, our acceptance will be wired to Kazakhstan, and the Kazakhstan government will issue us an adoption invitation. We had thought, up until today, that this invitation would take 7-10 days to come through. We just learned this morning that it will take more like a month! God's time.

So, while we're sad that our boys will not get to come home for another few weeks, we are very happy that God is so good to send us to Kazakhstan in the SPRING rather than the middle of winter!! Have you seen the weather there?!?

http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/KZXX0052_f.html brrrrrrrr!!! t-t-t-t-t-t-teeth ch-ch-ch-chat-t-t-t-er-er-er-ing

So, we are planning for an April 1 departure, give or take. Please pray for Dub and Jack's health and physical development, and for the many details that we must address before our departure.