Update: 05.13

We originally thought we would be able to get Sasha’s court documents sealed this morning and then pick her up today. However, we had to wait until later in the day to get the documents officially sealed. Due to the current circumstances regarding U.S. and Russian adoptions, the court was very specific about when they would stamp/seal the documents. In the past it was common to basically post date them or seal them a day early but not anymore. Unfortunately that did not leave us enough time to get to Armavir to pick up Sasha today. Instead we will travel to Armavir very early in the morning to pick her up so that we can return to Krasnodar by mid-morning to get the papers filed for her passport. We are praying that her passport will still be ready by the end of the day tomorrow so we can fly to Moscow over the weekend. If it isn’t ready then we will spend the weekend in Krasnodar and pick it up on Monday and head to the airport.

At 4:10pm Russian time the documents were sealed and we officially and legally became Sasha’s parents! Our facilitator came by the hotel around 5:00 to show us the documents and congratulate us. Officially her “gottcha day” will be May 14th. We have had some great authentic food here in Russia, but today we celebrated with dinner at Subway!!! It was truly one of the best meals we have had since leaving the states. I think mostly because it was familiar and reminded us of home. Next we went and bought Sasha a little hat. In Russia all little kids keep their heads covered. You will notice that in all her outdoor pictures Sasha is wearing some kind of hat.

While we were somewhat disappointed today when we learned we couldn’t go get her, we are also very thankful and rejoicing that she is legally our daughter now. Considering all that could have happened given the current situation if the only delay we have is in picking her up we consider ourselves very fortunate. I don’t think we will ever know what transpired so that we could finish Sasha’s adoption at this time. We have learned some details since we’ve been here and are praising God for the favor he has provided to us, our facilitator and through our agency. CWA has a good reputation with the Russian officials and our facilitator has been working with adoptions for a long time. She knows a lot of people and isn’t afraid to push her own agenda at times. She has a great deal of mutual respect with the officials and definitely knows when to push and when to accept the answer she’s given. We’ve seen her do a lot of great things on our behalf and are so appreciative of the extra mile she’s gone to bring Sasha home.

We now know that our court date was cancelled the week before we came. Our facilitator worked diligently and exhausted all her resources to get the courts to keep the date we were given and hear our case. It was unbelievable that we ended up having our hearing and that there were no further delays or problems with the courts. We were prepared for them to make additional requests for information or something just so they would have a reason to postpone and in effect cancel it. That never happened and our court hearing went very smooth. Our facilitator has since learned that no other court hearings have been held in the region and there aren’t any scheduled. Currently they are all being postponed with no time estimate given. In addition, the judge originally assigned to our case was switched the morning of our hearing and we ended up with a judge that had worked with our facilitator previously. The prosecutor and judge went through our home study thoroughly and asked us very specific questions. We are so thankful that our home study provider did a great job with that and nothing he wrote could be disputed. Our facilitator said she had never seen them refer to the home study so much. A lot of prayers have been answered throughout our adoption journey and we continue to see God’s hand leading and guiding us and going before us.

Today we find it amazing that there was a judge in Krasnodar that was willing to put her job on the line (her exact words) and award us the adoption during a time of such uncertainty. She then followed through with everything by sealing our documents today. As excited as we are about this it also makes me a little sad. There’s a little guy in Guatemala who belongs in our extended family, too. Yet he continues to live in an orphanage because there hasn’t been a judge willing to sign off on his papers and take responsibility for his case. We continue to pray for Vanny and that his paperwork will move through the right hands and God’s faithfulness will once again be obvious to all.