There's A Girly Room in my House!!!!!!

My mom came in town this weekend and we got to work on creating Oksana's room. I never thought I'd see the day that I'd purchase pink paint! We love the results :).

Oksana's bed is a day bed and has another bed underneath. She is currently in a crib and we will have a crib for her too before she gets here so that she can have that security if she needs it but we hope to transfer her to this bed as soon as possible.

Here is a close up of her letters. We bought them at Hobby Lobby and then painted them white and stenciled brown and pink polka dots on them. This is my favorite part of the room!

This is her window with tulle draped over it. I had to close the blinds for you to see the tulle otherwise the light went right through it.

Here are the hooks we found to drape the tulle on. They were in the garden section at Hobby Lobby so they aren't supposed to be for windows but they sure are cute and I got them for only $1 each!

We still need to paint her dresser white but Larry is waiting for it to warm up a bit. The lamp and the mirror were both 50% off at Hobby Lobby! I love a good deal!

These are the drawer pulls that we will put on the dresser. They were also 50% off at Hobby Lobby! Can you tell that mom and I had fun at Hobby Lobby?!

As we were working this weekend I pointed out how strange it felt that a little girl half way across the world had no idea that a group of people were working hard to give her her own room. Now all we need is to have her in it! I hope she likes it!

A Glimpse into Oksana's Life

Many of you have probably heard me talk about Ellen. Ellen adopted her daughter Nina from Oksana's orphanage back in December and in fact Nina and Oksana were best friends. I'd like to share with you a portion of her blog (with permission) that gives you a look into Oksana's baby house and her heart. This was written in December of last year, before we had ever even considered international adoption or seen Oksana on Reece's Rainbow's website, and I think it will help you understand why we are in such a hurry to get her:

Let me start by saying that Nina's orphanage is a good one. From what we have been told, it is one of the best orphanages here in Eastern Europe. The doctor at their orphanage is wonderful, she really cares about the children, and the workers are also all very caring. At least in the small ways they can and know.

Nina's house (this orphanage is made up of several houses) is getting remodeled. So as I walked inside, neither the doctor's office nor the room where we visited before were available. As a matter of fact, as I walked in I wondered where in the world I would visit her. So I walked straight to her room, as far as I could tell, it was the only one with children. My guess is that the other kids have been moved temporarily to the other houses.

I walked in, and all the children in Nina's groupa were playing in the big playpen. Some of the kids saw me and tried to get my attention. A little girl with CP (this was Oksana -Erin) saw me and started to cry, reaching out to me and calling me "mama." Talk about heart wrenching.

The workers found themselves in a predicament, so what was their solution? They brought a little table and a chair with a stool for me. I realized then, they were going to have me visit with Nina right there, in that room, and please ignore the other children because any attention I give them makes them very agitated.

When I visit Nina I bring toys for her in a bag, along with candy and snacks. Nina knows this, and of course wants to play. Imagine doing this in front of the other children. Do you see my dilema? I can't give her candy and not the other kids! I can't give her a snack and not them! The little girl, Oskana, kept crying for me, or for a mama, and even though it was Russian I underestood what she was saying, "I want a mama! I want a mama!" And I know the workers were telling her to stop, that I was Nina's mama. So she cried some more, "I want a mama too!"

I wanted to scoop her up, to give her a big hug. And how I wished I could have found her a mama, and tell her, "See! Here is your mama!" I decided maybe it would be a good idea to blow bubbles for all the kids. Oskana stopped crying and loved the bubbles. So did the other kids, and Nina. I realized Nina was confused, why was I not playing with her? And I really did not want this to become a question in her heart, "Is she here for me or for them?" Her little face was really confused. Not jealous, not throwing a fit, but I could tell she did not understand. Bubbles were great, but with the children so spread out it was taking me a while to go around the room and get enough bubbles for all of them.

A little girl rocked and rocked herself. Okay, I just don't know how to describe this, she violently rocked herself against the playpen. She was hitting it hard. The workers kept asking her to stop. Obviously having me there was causing her some distress. Rock, rock, rock. She wouldn't stop.

I had to leave the room, me being there was too much for these children. These children who desperately want a mama. They do not understand "She is Nina's mama." All they know, is that I am someone's mama, and why in the world won't I get them and pick them up.

The things we get excited about....like fingerprints!

Who ever would have thought that a little piece of paper promising an appointment to get fingerprints would bring such joy to a household! Today we found out that we will be traveling to Memphis to have our fingerprints done on March 3 at 2:00! Some of you are wondering what in the world the big deal is. Realize that this is one more step, and a pretty significant one at that, closer to bringing Oksana home. Therefore it is a big deal!

By the end of the month....

There are many things that we are working towards and are hoping will happen by the end of the month. We've been told that our homestudy will be ready by the end of the month. That will be a huge step forward! I'm hoping we will see a draft even earlier. In anticipation of that homestudy we are working hard on grant applications. While completing these I came to realize that just about the only thing you don't reveal about yourself in the adoption process is your underwear size! We have 2 churches helping us get grants so we are hopeful that we will see at least something come through to help us out.

We went ahead and sent out our i600a so we could get everything rolling through immigration even though we need our homestudy to complete that process (are you seeing how important the homestudy is?!). We heard back from them last week and hope to see something in the mail by the end of the month letting us know when we will have our fingerprint appointment (we will have to go to Memphis for this). That will be another good step forward because with the fingerprints and the homestudy we will only be waiting on our I171 that will give us approval through immigration and is also the final piece of our dossier.

This month will also give us great progress on getting Oksana's room ready. My mom is coming in town on Friday and we are going to have a weekend of painting and decorating! I'll post pictures when we are finished.

This month has only 2 weeks left in it but those 2 weeks have great potential for big strides in getting us closer to bringing Oksana home!

Button!

Check out the beautiful button that our friend Lu made for Oksana on the right under our family picture. If you click on it you will be taken to our giving page through Reece's Rainbow. Underneath it you will see that you can add it to your blog to help spread the word about Oksana! Please consider adding this beautiful button to your blog to help us bring Oksana home. Thanks so much Lu!!!

Anticipating the Wait

Everyone has told us that the process of an adoption is a "hurry up and wait" process. The good news is our "hurry up" is almost over. We had our final homestudy visit (he said we passed :), we will finish our 10 hours of training this week, and our homestudy should be written and in our hands by the end of the month. We've also collected all of the dossier documents that we can at this time. Once our homestudy is in hand we will send it off in order to get fingerprints through immigration. This is where the "wait" aspect comes in. We'll need to wait for an appointment for our fingerprints....then wait for our I171 from immigration giving us approval....then we send our dossier and wait to be approved...then we get a travel date....and then we wait to travel. Do you see the frequently occurring word there?! If you've experienced the wait please tell me I will survive. The thought of my little girl in an orphanage one day longer kills me. At least when I was working on the homestudy and the dossier I was actively working to bring her home but what will it look like to just wait?!

Psalm 27:14
Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.

Psalm 33:20

We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.

Psalm 37:7
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

Being Blessed

Larry and I have been considering adoption for a long time but I must admit that we had never considered an international adoption. The number one reason for that was cost. I'll admit I needed to work through that before I was ready to jump in with 2 feet. Once I realized it was clearly what we felt God asking us to do I jumped, and oh how thankful I am that I did! Let me share with you what has been happening on our behalf that has blessed us in ways we never could have imagined:

-a couple who we have never met gave $1000 toward our adoption because they wanted to see Oksana get a family
-a bake sale is being organized, all with the purpose of helping us bring Oksana home
-a friend who does photography as a side business is going to ask every customer she gets for the next 2 months to donate to our adoption instead of paying her
-a relative of ours won money and gave half of it (totalling over $300) towards our adoption
-one couple was so excited to help us that as soon as we announced our adoption plans they wanted to know how to give and had to wait for our giving page to be set up through Reece's Rainbow!
-fellow missionary friends featured us in their newsletter appealing to their supporters on our behalf. The head of the orphan ministry at their home church asked to talk to us and there is a good chance that we could get a large grant because of that contact.
-we've been able to see Clayton (our oldest) display a heart for the orphan not only through his excitement about Oksana but also through his desire to give half of all of the money he got for Christmas toward our adoption

I am so thankful that the amount of money it will take to get Oksana home didn't stop us from moving forward. We have been blessed beyond measure by the people who love us and love Oksana. It's been a privilege to watch God move on our behalf and we can't wait to see what He does in the future to help us bring our sweet girl home!