Kotlas Baby Home

I know this is late in coming, but here are some pictures of the Kotlas Baby Home, where our boys are currently residing.



The sign outside of the entrance.



Part of the playground (outside the entrance)



Looking out towards the river



One of the play structures on the playground



On the wall in the stairwell, made from fabrics, ribbons, paper, etc



An indoor garden that the children get to enjoy & sometimes help out with watering





Standing in the doorway of the room where we met our boys for the first time after they left for lunch (we wore blue shoe protectors while inside the building since we didn't have 'indoor shoes' with us to change into from our 'outside shoes'.

 We are still waiting for papers to get processed before we can take everything to Austin to get apostilled and send off to Russia. 

Please continue to keep us and our boys in your prayers.  We won't have any contact with them until the adoption is finalized in Russia, so we are just praying that they stay in good health.  Please continue to pray for their caregivers as they take care of our boys.

Rachael has updated our Baby Registry with Wal-Mart if you are interested in helping get some things that are needed.......








Life is settling down...

Okay, life is finally settling back to 'normal'. School has been in session for a week and a day and we can get back to doing what we need to in regards to bringing our children home. We have been given the phone number of a family that fundraised 100% of two separate adoptions from Russia, both of them being sibling groups. I called and left a message this afternoon to get ideas and talk with them about their experiences. I am looking forward to getting some great ideas!

On another note, we have decided to put my car up for sale and use the Dodge minivan God gave us back in May. It is an older model than my car, but will hold more people and stuff. If you know anyone who would be interested in a 2000 Chevrolet Prizm, let me know (rlarkins@pdq.net).

Please continue to pray for our children and their caregivers, our fundraising and the paperwork that we need to complete. Right now, we need $680 for Buckner (Home Study part 2), $750 for US Immigration, $160 for fingerprinting, $3,500 for Buckner (Agency fee part 1). Overall, we estimate that we will need $40,000 before we can send our Dossier to Russia (that includes all fees and travel & hotels/meals/etc in Russia)

We are OFFICIAL!!

I got THE PHONE CALL today around 1:45 this afternoon from Joy, our Home Study social worker informing us that we are Officially Approved to Adopt up to 2 siblings from Russia!!!

After some crying, writing information down and trying not to break down, I called Chris at work to tell him the GREAT NEWS!! Since he could tell I was (or at least had been) crying, he thought something was wrong, but was excited once I told him about Joy's phone call.

We have been waiting and praying for this day for about a year and God has been faithful. We really appreciate all of our family and friends that have been praying with and for us during this time. Please, Please continue to pray for and with us as we begin the next step.

From here, we need to submit a written financial plan (just saying that God will provide isn't good enough) for financing this adoption process. We estimate that we will need about $40,000 by the time we are ready to go pick up our children. Yes, that is a huge amount of money! And no, we are not exactly sure where it will come from. The nice thing about Buckner is that you pay as you go. If you don't have the funds for the next step, you wait until you do. The down side is that most of the paperwork that we will need to complete is time sensitive. So, we need to have as much of the money as possible (or all of it) collected before we begin the Dossier paperwork. Once we send the Dossier to Russia, it could be as quick as 4-6 weeks to get the referral from Russia. Apparently the referral process is not as long as we had originally been told!!

Right now, we need about $7,000 to start the next step: submitting the USCIS (immigration) form and get fingerprinted, paying the first half of Buckner's agency fee and several other miscellaneous fees. Now that our Home Study is complete, we can start applying for grants with various organizations (unfortunately most of them prefer stay-at-home, homeschooling moms).

Anyway, we are really excited!

Please continue to pray for our children and their current caregivers; our financial situation; school (starts on Monday and I am NOT ready yet); we have patience during the rest of this process.

Almost done with Home Study stuff

Chris and I met with a psychologist yesterday morning for our "Psychological Evaluation" that is required by Russia. We each spent 1 hour talking with him while the other was working on 3 different tests/written questionnaires. We stayed an extra hour to finish the paperwork so that it would all be done. Last night, we completed an on-line Parenting Inventory and sent the results out in today's mail. Now we just get to wait for him to write up his report, score the tests and let us know the results. We are becoming quite good at waiting...

This afternoon we met with our family physician and went over the "Family's Opinion of Possible Acceptance of Child with Minor or Correctable Medical Needs". We did make some changes after talking with him and listened to his recommendations. He did agree to most of what we had originally put down, which didn't surprise us.

We each have one book finished and report written (The Connected Child by Dr. Karen Purvis). I am still about half-way through the second book (Adopting the Older Child by Claudia Jewett). Chris will read it after I am done. Then only one book left to read and report on: Raising Adopted Children by Lois Ruskai Melina.

Once we finish the books, we can send in the papers (after keeping a copy for our records) and our part of the Home Study will be done! I hope to have it done within the next two weeks, but Chris' deadline is the end of July. Once all the papers are in, we just wait for the 'Official Approval to Adopt from Russia'.

Please continue to pray for our children and their current caregivers.