Now We Wait

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 Now we wait. 
What do I mean by that?
Well for a little over a year this adoption process has been a series of  us filling out paperwork, taking classes, home study appointments, document collecting, trips to Chicago for special stamps, basically busy work, for months, and months. Well now our documents have passed through our agency on to our translator, and then to Ukraine to our facilitator (who I hear is the BOMB), and now they are with Ministry of Social Policy (MSP) in Ukraine. They will decide if we adopt Nina and Katya. At this point we have done all we can. Now We Wait and we Pray.  We pray for the judge looking at the paperwork to find no errors. We pray that our approval date would come quickly. We pray we would get our first MSP appointment fast!! Very Fast!! We pray we can raise, save or borrow the remainder of the funds we need.  We pray for a quick wait between MSP and Court. Court is when Us, the judge, our facilitator, our translator and Nina and Katya get together in the Judges office and that judge decides if we, The Gardners can be Nina and Katya's parents. If the outcome is favorable we will have a mandatory 30 day wait until I can go get my girls. I am praying that this will be waived. Yes I know it is mandatory, but God doesn't work inside Ukraine restrictions so I know If God wills, it will happen!! Well after the 30 day Wait then we get to busy work again. Birth certificates, sounds easy right...LOL... Not so. We will have to go to each of the girls birth city (it could be the same city, could not). Then apply for Nina's in country passport and ID because she is 16 she has to have this. We will also need to apply for both of the girls American passports and visas. They will need special medical exams. I am sure there are other things that I either am forgetting or just don't know yet. This will take about 5 weeks!!! Yes 5 Weeks!!! The most awesome news the girls will get new birth certificates with Mine and Richards name as parents. When the step foot on US soil they will be citizens. 

 Wait, we were talking about waiting. We are waiting, waiting on MSP, waiting for God to answer more of our prayers (He will)(have faith), waiting on a travel date, waiting to officially be parents to 4 kids, two from Ukraine, waiting, waiting, and praying, and praying. Waiting is hard and one day seems like 10. I woke up today thinking it was Wednesday, it's not. I want to leave tomorrow I'm not ready to leave tomorrow, but I want to wrap my arms around those two beautiful Ukrainian girls and Never Let Them Go!!! 
Well we are not quite there yet. We will take it one day at a time. We will Pray. We will fund raise. We will save.  We will keep applying for grants and loans (the no interest adoption kind). We will continue to make ready a special place for Nina and Katya to come home to. I am almost done with the girls rooms. We have pictures all over so the girls know we have loved them since the beginning of this process. We wait. Waiting is hard.  

 But,

 God is faithful, and we will wait for Him. We will wait for God's MSP date, and we will wait for God's Court date, and we will wait for God's "gotchya" date. It will all be on God's timeline, when He wants things to happen. After all we, The Gardners are just answering the call He has set before us. God has given us all everything we have needed to run this race. This journey has been amazing this far. The people I have connected with, become friends with, learned from, been helped from, been blessed by, been loved by. 

 I keep seeing this quote " God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called". He has been slowly equipping us, The Gardners to welcome these two wonderful girls to our family. Why did God choose us? I don't know, but I sure am glad he did. So with that said We will wait. We will wait on the Lord, because all good things come from above. Please pray with us.

 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:18

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