To lay the groundwork for 2012, I’m resurrecting and revising some of the key posts from the past that tell our story. This is a summary of the three weeks in August 2006 when we hosted Masha. The group of host families gathered anxiously at about 11:45 PM in the hotel lobby to wait for the travelers. A unique combination of excitement, exhaustion, and nerves filled the room, as families practiced their greetings in Russian and clutched floppy stuffed animals. Right at 12:00, the call came out…”They’re HERE!” as the minivan pulled into the parking lot. The next three weeks […]

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Adopting Masha, in 500 words or less.  Hmm.  Do compound words count?  Uh oh.  I’m up to 19 already. Here we go…. We received our clearance to travel the day of my mother’s wake. We travelled on Mother’s Day. We survived jet lag with pharmaceutical help. We saw a monkey dressed like a child. We met with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption (the official referral) on our 9th anniversary. We watched a Ukrainian dogfight. We boarded an overnight train to southern Ukraine. We were reunited with Masha! We learned to shower in a bathtub. We visited a beach adjacent […]

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In 2006, we met Masha In 2007, while we were adopting Masha, we met Lena. A little backstory…. During the time when be were adopting Masha, the crazy idea that we might actually want TWO kids crossed our minds.  We realized that God had better plans for us than we did, and we also realized that immigration officials weren’t likely to be all “Oh, well GOD told you to take home an extra kid.  Sure, let’s just rubber-stamp your paperwork and you’ll be on your way.”  Anyone who’s adopted or knows anyone who’s adopted knows it’s not that simple at […]

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I walked through the shadow of the mountain of snow. Yacinavata.  (Bless you) No, that was’t a sneeze.  But still, I’d take all the blessings I could get.  We were trapped in this small town in southeastern Ukraine, known only for being a transportation crossroads of sorts…and our only hope to get to Lena. *** Rewind a few days.  After fifteen months of homestudy and paperwork and waiting a lot, we finally left the ground.  Our appointment with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoption was a day before Lena’s 14th birthday, and we couldn’t wait to be there to celebrate […]

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I am really horrible on camera, but Scott Amstutz did a great job of making me look slightly less idiotic than I really am… And you can meet Mark!   If you don’t see the video in your email or RSS reader, click here to view….     What’s your story? Leave a comment…