Finally Here!!!

We have been here for two days and we woke up this morning and it was snowing - so pretty and the mountains on the way to the BH are just gorgeous!!

Here is what has happened to get us to this point:

March 26th
The day finally arrived!! We are packing our bags for Kazakhstan!! The started early for Kristi and I with so much to do and we really could not sleep that well anyway. An early run to Wally World kicked our day off before 8:00 - real good for us on a non-work day! Then started the daunting task of packing our bags and getting below the 50 lb mark. We packed and weighed, unpacked and weighed, packed and weighed until it was not fun anymore and became frustrating. We finally got to the point and said "whatever is in the bags, that is what we are taking." We left the house after prayer time with Kristi's folks and headed to Charlotte. We made it to the airport in plenty of time. First God moment - when we went to check our luggage, two bags were right at 50 lbs, one bag was at 50.5 lbs and one bag was 52.5 lbs and the gentleman working the desk found out we were adopting and did not charge us anything. Plus, we wanted to bring an umbrella stroller with us for around town and for the trip back and we didn't know if that was considered one of our checked bags or not. Technically, it was supposed to count, however, the gentleman let us check it without charge as well.
We said our goodbyes to the Musicks and went through the security check. Kristi's bag got unpacked and everything thrown back in! We were not happy!! We left Charlotte without a glitch and arrived in DC. When we got off the plane, we checked our next flight and it was delayed 3 hours!! We could not afford a delay b/c we had connecting flights in London and Frankfurt. We went to our original gate and they told us to try the gate that had another flight to London. We went to that gate and they told us b/c we had checked baggage, we could not change flights and we could try United's customer service desk. We got there and were surrounded by a bunch of angry Brits. They had taken over 2 hours in customs/immigration and all of them had missed their connecting flights. They were bad mouthing the States and just being hateful. When we got up to the counter, God moment #2 happened. We were placed on a direct flight from DC to Frankfurt and "in time" to catch our flight to Almaty. What a relief! So, we had plenty of time in DC and grabbed our last opportunity for fast food and ate Wendy's - Kristi got the 1/2 pounder and I got the 3/4 pounder!!! ummmm....BEEF!!! Kristi and I were separated by a seat and the guy in between us switched so we could be next to each other. They had movies playing the whole trip and we could choose what we watched.
We made it to Frankfurt, found our ticket counter and they did not have record of us b/c in DC, when they re-routed us, it cancelled everything we had after DC. They were able to put us on and we started boarding within 20 minutes. This was a little smaller plane and we were flying for another 5-6 hours. No movie though. When I thought we only had an hour left, something came over me and I prayed for the trip and just got emotional...it was hitting me that we were very close to our destination and getting ready to begin the journey in another country to pick up our son. Well, for everyone I told we would be 11 hours ahead, I was wrong...b/c we kept flying passed the 12:45 timeframe I told some of you. We are really 10 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. We landed in Almaty and went through immigration w/o a hitch. We went to pick up our bags and NO BAGS! Good thing is they had a record of bags that were still sitting in Germany and our bags were on that list. There was just too short of a layover in Frankfurt for our bags to go from United to Lufthansa in less than 45 mins. Luckily, from our past experiences traveling overseas, we had packed an extra set of clothes...if we hadn't, our son would have seen his new parents for the first time in grubby clothes and smelling RANK ! ! ! We are supposed to get our luggage tonight at the same time we landed last night which is midnight here.
Our apartment is cute, nicer than what we thought it would be, very clean. the bed is almost sitting on the floor and the sheets are a far cry from 600 thread count sateen sheets from home!!!
We are here though and still trying to get adjusted to the time. We are both very tired and sleepy and it is dinner time here, breakfast time there. We will get used to it soon hopefully.
We have been asked not to put our experiences on the internet or blog so I don't know how we are going to let everyone know what is going on except through email.

Secretary of State

We had to submit three copies of our passports to be notarized and apostilled - new change in procedure over in Kaz. We sent them off this weekend and they arrived in Raleigh on Tuesday. Kristi called to check on the status and one of the two people who process those has been out of the office for 4 weeks, so one person is processing the Apostilles for all of NC. She was swamped and told Kristi she could get our back to us in a week and a half to two weeks!! After Kristi spoke with her for awhile, she determined that she may be able to get them in the mail to us tomorrow. If they are not shipped tomorrow, then there may be an outside chance we could get them before we leave the house Monday. If not, then someone must be here to pick up the package and then send it to our adoption agency so they can foward it to their people in Kaz. These are papers we will need at the end of our trip so there is time for all of this to occur and will not get in the way of our travel.

I added a link to some new friends of ours who hopefully are traveling to Kaz real soon and will be over there when we are. They will be a couple of the first families to adopt from the actual city of Almaty and not have to travel an hour and a half ouside the city to their BH. What a blessing considering the troubles they have experienced. Check out their sites to see how God is working in their lives and how His plan is unfolding for them.

Kristi and I only have one more day left of work and then we are done for 8-10 weeks!!! We can't believe we will be traveling in 4 days and see our son in 6 days!!! Please pray that we remain focused on our task of packing and get it all done before Monday. Pray for safe travel, 4 legs to the flight, and restful flight so that we are as fresh as possible to meet our son for the first time. Please pray for his continued safety and health. Pray for our friends who are waiting for LOIs and who will be traveling soon.

We got 'em ! !

We were able to get the tickets we wanted. We are leaving Charlotte at 2:42 Monday afternoon and we arrive in Almaty at 11:45 pm Tuesday night. We travel to the orphanage first thing Wednesday morning. Adrenaline and caffeine (if we can find some) will be the only things keeping us going after our 22 hour trip!!!!We are waiting for some copies of our passports to be returned from Raleigh where they were apostilled and then we are going to review all of our paperwork with the adoption agency one more time. We have one suitcase full of gifts that we filled two months ago when we thought we were traveling and we never touched it, so it is ready to go. Now, we need to work on his suitcase, one a piece for us and our carry-ons. Fun fun! We can't wait! I am going to be worthless at work Friday!!!

Tickets and Visas today

We were in touch with a another travel agency today and found some tickets for Monday March 26th. They wanted a faxed copy of the credit card authorization, so we had to go to my office and fax this to them. She told us we needed to get it back to her within an hour and a half and when we called her to let her know it was on the way, we could not reach her. So, we hope we still have two tickets tomorrow morning.

Another thing, Kristi talked to them earlier in the day and discussed the option to change the flight coming back and she was told that we could as long as we paid a fee. The paperwork we needed to sign states that the tickets are not changeable, so we have a few more questions for this agency.

We will be leaving Charlotte at 2:42, go to DC, then to London, to Frankfurt and finally to Almaty at 11:45 PM (12:45 our time - so we will travel for almost 22 hours!!!)

We received our Visas in the mail today. Everything is coming together!! I can't believe it is finally happening!! Kristi spoke with the Adoption Agency and they told her the orphanage workers are anxiously awaiting our arrival!!! Kristi was told that we will be able to go to the BH on Wednesday - that is if our minds are functioning!!! I can't wait to see how those pictures turn out!! Our son may be scared to death of the two zombies coming after him!!!

Trying to find tickets

Our travel agent kinda sat on our request to find us flights b/c of the cable issue, so she didn't get started on finding tickets until Thursday. By that time, next weekend's flights were all booked. We are trying to get a Monday flight and then we would arrive Tuesday night. We are being told that we must see the Minister of Education (MOE) before we can go to the orphanage. The MOE supposedly is only available to meet on Mondays. We are checking if 1) we can go to the BH on Wednesday w/o meeting with the MOE or 2) if the MOE can meet with us mid-week. If neither of these are an option, we will be in country almost a week w/o being able to see our son or we start looking at later in the week or the following weekend.

What cable issue?

OK...so we never found out what the big deal was about the cable issue. Bottom line...our visas are being shipped TOMORROW ! ! ! Praise the Lord!! What a wonderful God I serve!!! We found out late today (travel agency is three hours behind) that our Visas were being processed and they are being shipped out tomorrow. The travel agency says that all the flights are booked for the weekend and the only intenerary they sent us actually has us leaving Thursday!!! WOW ! ! ! I looked at expedia.com and found several flights leaving Greensboro, Raleigh and Charlotte on the weekend so I don't know what the agency is looking at. Boy, have ticket prices gone up and I guess it doesn't make it cheaper booking a ticket one week before departure!! We have one small hurdle, there was a change in the policy around passports and the number of copies we need to take with us for court or the embassy. So we our FedEx-ing notarized copies of our passports to Raleigh to have the FINAL papers apostilled and hopefully returned to us before we leave. If not, we may have Raleigh send them to our Adoption Agency and then have them send it to their office in Kaz and we will pick it up over there. I can't believe all of this is happening!! I am still a little numb about it!! I have to shake that off and get to gettin'!!! A lot of packing to do!!

R U Kiddin' Me ? ! ? ! ? ! ? !

OK...before we jump the gun, we need to get some more information and get it fast. In this LOI process, it must be "cabled" from Kaz to the consulate in NY. Our travel agent said she could send our passports and our visa application on, but she has seen passports disappear if an LOI has not been cabled yet. We have to understand this process before we get overly frustrated and TOTALLY LOSE IT!! Someone who has adopted from Kaz in the past said she just printed the LOI she got off her email and sent it in with her passports and visa application and got her visa. Nothing about this "cable" process. We have our LOI on our email!! What is the hold up?
So, we are not totally out of the clear yet!
That is our luck, go figure!
We will be seeking information about this cable issue. Then we will be seeking information about getting our visas processed as quickly as possible so we can head to KAZ ! !

What a difference a day makes - 3/12/07

Holy cow!! God is good!! We finally got some good news today. Our LOI is complete and on its way or already in NY ready for us to travel!!! We are scheduled to leave March 24th. Right now, this is no estimate...we are in the process of booking our plane tickets and getting our visas!!! Praise God, Almighty!! The power of Prayer is awesome!! Kristi and I have felt His presence with us more the past 35 days as we have been participating in our church's 40 days of devotion to "Build our Legacy." I truly believe He tested us with the phone call telling us it could take up to 5 months and that would put us leaving in June. We did not react like we would have two or three months ago. We got frustrated but we Praised Him for being in control of this process!!! Have I said God is good??? We are beside ourselves right now. I am sure panic will sink in tomorrow as we assess the situation and prepare to leave the country for 8-9 weeks, and we have to do it in 10 days!!! After 6 years of heart ache, we are possibly 12 days away from seeing and holding OUR SON!!! What a thought and what an image."Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Aint' that the TRUTH!

No News 3/11/07

We are starting to receive calls every Friday now for updates, or lack of updates. This past week, we had a message from our adoption agency on Thursday and our hearts sank knowing that it wasn't our normal day to receive updates. Unfortunately, our agency worker was just calling to let us know that she would not be in the office the next day or the whole next week and she was calling a day early with her update. Yet again, no real update.

We have made some friends on a Yahoo Group we were invited to join and a few couples are running into some similar communication issues that we are running in to and are seeking assistance from others in the adoption agency. We all believe this will not speed up our process, however, it will help families who are going through this process after us.

Our church has been doing a daily devotional calling "Building our Legacy" and it is a 40 day study that was written by folks in our church. Bottom line is it is leading up to our biggest building campaign ever, however, the devotions and the whole study has truly blessed Kristi and I through all of the delays in our adoption. The day we found out our LOI could take up to 5 months to process, we were in the middle of studying the Armor of God in Ephesians 6. What a perfect time for that study!!!! As Satan was firing all his ammunition at us, we were putting on our Belt of Truth, our Breastplate of Righteousness, Shoes of Peace, Helmet of Salvation...and standing behind our Shield of Faith to pick up our Sword of the Spirit. We have gotten mad at God in the past 6 years and many of you know why and it would have been real easy to fall into the same trap. However, we know that God is in control and these delays are His delays. Where are we turning our frustrations too? The people who are providing the misinformation and the deceit...NOT THE DELAYS, because we know it is out of their hands and they are not delaying the process, however, it is their job to convey accurate information.

We are starting week 9...could take from 12 - 20 weeks to process an LOI right now....could be faster or could be longer. We celebrated our 10th anniversary this week...two months ago, we would have told you we would be spending our BIG anniversary picking up our son. Oh well. We will get over there when God feels it is right for us to be there. Until then, we will Trust in Him, Love Him, Worship Him, and pray that we get over there soon!

LOI update :o( 3/2/07

We received a phone call from the new program director for Kazakhstan and she basically told us that all the information we had received for the past month and even up to a week ago was wrong and she wanted to clarify the LOI process. We were told upfront when we began the paperwork, a year ago, that the LOI would take up to 12 weeks to process once Kaz had our dossier. Our dossier has been in country since MLK day. Thursday, we were informed that they have recently seen LOIs take up to 5 months. That puts us leaving in June!!! We were heartbroken and angry - I felt like punching a hole in the wall and Kristi laid in the nursery holding a blanket and just cried. So now they are telling us that there will be no other updates until our LOI reaches the U.S. and they call us to tell us to order our plane tickets, get our visas, and start packing. However, they will continue to call us and tell us that there is no update - great!

If this drags on any longer, I guess we will be heading back to the outlet parks and turn in ALL of the winter clothes and get some more spring clothes and start getting summer clothes now. We first heard about our child at 6 months of age...now our child is about to turn 9 months...we may not see our child for another 3 months!!

Please pray for us...we do not understand and are having a hard time finding God in this process, especially since we have been through so much in the past 5 years