It’s time for a long overdue update!!

As I type, we are driving back home from Indianapolis, where we were officially added to “The Grid.” Today, we were fingerprinted by the Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. In the next two to three weeks, the FBI will conduct a final background check on us, and then CIS will determine if they will approve us to bring Masha back into the country as a legal citizen.

We hope to have the approval from CIS back around the end of this month; this is the last thing we need before we finalize our mountain of paperwork and send it all to be translated. If all goes according to plan, our docs will be translated and ready to submit to Ukraine on 1 January.

Earlier this year, Ukraine restructured their governmental agency that administered adoptions in an effort to reduce corruption and to better provide and protect Ukranian children. They stopped accepting applications for adoption as they restructured and worked through the backlog of applications already in their offices. 1 January is the “re-opening” date, when they begin accepting new applications.

Many families have completed their paperwork over the summer and fall, and are waiting anxiously for Ukraine to open back up. As a result, many applications will probably be filed in a short period of time. We are hoping that the government will see that they can more quickly process the applications of families that have participated in hosting programs….but you never know. We simply have to be patient and wait for the Ukranian government to issue us an invitation.

It could be as quickly as a couple of months, or as long as six. We just have to believe that God will work in our situation, and that we will receive our invitation according to His timing. We’ve heard from other families that this wait is the hardest part.

We are very fortunate that Masha’s orphanage has access to email, and we are been able to send packages, letters, and emails to her. Earlier this week, Mark fired up his laptop and found an email back from Masha!!!! It was short, but she told us she missed us, and that she thanks God for bringing us into her life. It was just what we needed to lift our spirits!