Where Are You Going?

That's the first question people ask when you say you're adopting overseas. They expect you to answer China, or somewhere in Central/South America, even the "common" Eastern European countries are nodded at as if they know all about where your child will be from.

But if you say "Kazakhstan" people look at you funny. Very funny. Then they try to pronounce it back to you, which is funny. Very funny. To you.

It's a "-Stan" country, formerly of the USSR, but it's so much more than that. We claim America to be the great melting pot, but Kazakhstan is a beautiful blend of people-groups. It's the one country where we don't know what our future child looks like.

She could have dark black hair, and beautiful Asian features. Kazakhstan shares it's eastern border with China.

Or, she could have blonde hair and deep blue eyes - the descendant of a Polish or Scandinavian intellectual who was sent to Kazakhstan to work in the coal mines by the Communist regime.

Or, she could have reddish-brown hair and brown eyes, and people will never think to ask if she's my biological daughter or not, because she'll look just like me.

The country is a little less than 1/2 Muslim and a little less than 1/2 Russian Orthodox, and it has a hint of Protestantism. Yet, there are no holy wars here. These people are trying to survive and thrive as their country changes repeatedly in their own lifetimes.

Old men can remember before there was a USSR that engulfed them formally in 1936, when they were small boys. Their wives remember before "criminals" were sent there to work. The highly educated that threatened the Communist governments. And the "Virgin Land" program in the 40's and 50's that brought so many Russians that there were soon more non-native inhabitants than native.

Then independence in 1991 left a country of confusion. Many people left - going home to what they still remembered, or what they had heard first-hand stories of from their own parents.

What was left was a country struggling to find it's identity. Struggling to find even it's common language. Forward motion came, as it did for the Clampets, in the form of "black gold". Kazakhstan, the world's 9th largest country, sits on a huge reserve of oil. The first pipeline was completed in 2001, the second had a majority completed in 2006.

It's been a slow and steady climb for this new Republic (the President is elected, but most power is held by the Executive Branch of the government). Their money is increasing in strength (the Tenge), the children are being taught Kaz in school as their primary language, Russian is being regulated to a secondary language. 19% of the population lives below the poverty line, but the literacy rate is over 99%.

These are numbers, statistics that can perhaps help you envision the world that our daughter lives in. And that's important for sharing with our family and friends. But they don't clearly represent the people. It's what I love most about reading other PAP's blogs - seeing their pictures and hearing about the lives they encounter.

It's my primary reason for keeping this blog. I want our child to be able to see the people she came from, and the heritage she has.

And that life transcends data.

~Lone Butterfly )i(

And We're Off!

Most PAPs (Potential Adoptive Parents) like to put out a timeline for when they expect everything to happen. I’m feeling like it’s a little to early for that.

Ideally, we would like to travel to Kazakhstan next July, August, or September. But that is so dependent on so many outside factors, like the Government and our homestudy Social Worker, that who knows!

Tuesday we mailed off the application to our chosen Adoption Agency. Even that took a bit longer, because Husband and I really wanted to make sure we had done our research on the Agency for this country (checking references, the Better Business Bureau, independent groups, etc).

We’ve also been reading lots of blogs from families that have recently traveled to Kazakhstan. That has been really helpful, as we’ve seen many different experiences and have been able to extrapolate the commonalities. Husband and I will go back and read some again, after we get our Letter of Invitation and we know what city we’ll be traveling to.

One of the rather unique aspects of Kazakhstan is that we’ll be traveling blind.

That means that we won’t know who our child is before we leave. We will be invited to come to a city and visit their Baby House. At the Baby House we’ll be presented with 1-5 little girls, and we have to choose one. This is the part which scares me the most, but every single person I’ve talked to (or read about) has said it’s not once it happens. The child God chooses for you is plainly obvious.

Traveling blind means, also, that there is a small possibility we won’t have a girl in our age range. We can then either adjust our age range or adopt a boy. Husband and I are comfortable adjusting up to 4 years old, and if God chooses another son for us, that’s okay also. (We have his name picked out, too!)

This isn’t as likely, because the reason most issues crop is that the infants haven’t been in the system long enough (Kazakhstan requires a 6 month time between being entered into the system and being “adoptable”.) Children who are already 2-3 years old tend to have been in the system since they were infants, so the 6 month wait has long since past for these little girls.

So – from here, where do we go?

First – the Agency will contact us.

Second – we’ll begin our homestudy. This is at least 3 visits with the Social Worker. One in her office (both Husband and I), one in our home (includes the Caterpillars), and another in her office (separate interviews for me and Husband).

Third – we’ll begin collecting our Dossier documents and get fingerprinted by the FBI (ooooo – fun!)

Even though we are still at the beginning, it’s nice to be able to DO something. I hear it gets much harder when you’ve done all you can, and you’re waiting on others to move your documents along.

Keep us in your prayers!

~Lone Butterfly )i(

God's Grace

Grace – it’s a word that means so much, in so many different ways. I’ve often heard the quote: “Mercy is not getting what you deserve, Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.”

It’s here that Husband and I begin the process of adding to our family. With two sons, we’ve decided that God has a daughter in store for us. One who is already here, simply without parents and brothers. B-10 and CW have been involved in the discussion, and are beyond excited about having a little sister, one who they can hug and love and adore.

I often am amazed by how God constantly uses our past experiences to prepare us for our future. Because the caterpillars saw me as a surrogate mother for an infertile couple (I carried their genetic child to term and gave birth), it is completely normal to them to understand that sisters don’t have to come from inside Mums. Sometimes sisters come from somewhere else – and they are still OURS.

I know that through that same experience, God prepared my heart to accept another woman’s child as my own. Fully and completely – with no distinction. What a wonderful God we have.

After countless hours of searching, we’ve tentatively settled on the country of Kazakhstan. We intend to adopt a girl between the ages of 2 and 3 years old.

I’ve spent about 8 hours working on what seems like 6 simple pages of paperwork and one government form. Here is where my heart grows heavy. Can we do it? Can we spend the next year preparing and waiting and waiting some more – just to bring our new caterpillar home sometime next fall? Will we grow weary along the way?

Of course we will. Weariness is normal in any situation that requires waiting. Waiting for the paperwork to be filed and approved. Waiting to get FBI clearance. Waiting to hear what the Social Worker has to say about our home. Waiting to be invited by the Kazakhstan government to enter their country. Waiting to be allowed to travel. Waiting for court dates. Then waiting to bring her home.

But through God’s power, we will do it. And our daughter will come home. Someday she will be our Grace. Our beautiful daughter.

But for now, she is God’s Grace. And He will sustain us through the next year, all of us. The four parts of our family that live here, in the Southern US – and the missing piece of us that lives so very far away.

~Lone Butterfly