Thursday, November 1, 2007

Prologue

Hello to all of our family, friends and those who are interested in our progress of adoption from Ukraine. Our family is Felix & Heidi Rogé and we will both share, write and post updates as we journey down the "adoption road". Thank you for joining us.

We have a lot to catch you up on even though this is our first post. Many things have happened and we have neglected to post events as they have happened. We won't let this happen too much and we will get better at posting as we gain experience.

OK, where to start? Heidi and I decided to adopt from Ukraine in the Summer of 2007. When we did this (and started listening to God's plan for us and our family) a whole avalanche of help, information and people where brought into our lives. One day on a whim, Heidi found an article in another local town's paper about an Ukrainian Orphan Outreach (UOO) program of Northern Colorado. She told me about it and wanted to attend. I could not as I had to work, but she went ahead. At this meeting she met our future friends and fellow board members Eric & Angie Carmen and Clarke & Chris Stoesz. Heidi learned more about the plight of Ukrainian orphans and how this small group of UOO folks needed help. Armed with tons of information, she bounced home and unloaded everything on me that she had learned. It was at this time that we started our adoption paperwork and homestudy.

Over the next several months, our adoption paperwork plodded along and we became more and more involved with UOO. The other board members, the Stoesz's and Carmen's, asked us to join and so Heidi and I became board members in October. Here is the website for UOO.

http://www.ukraineorphans.org/

Also in October, the UOO group was excited to learn that our Kherson Orphanage trip we had planned had the go-ahead to travel the first week of December to the US. We had already made plans for an orphanage hosting trip back in the summer, but it did not materialize. Many of the children's Visas had not yet been approved. Now, we would be getting 17 kids from the Kherson region along with 3 caretakers. We would be splitting the cost of the trip with an organization in Virginia. Since we were new and had a small amount of funds, UOO would host the last third of the trip and Virginia would host the first two weeks. The cost of the tickets were pro-rated based on their stay and we purchased based on a stay in Colorado from December 5th to the 11th. Since we had planned back in the summer, we jumped into action and renewed our focus to give our orphans and our community the most memorable hosting trip possible.

About Us

My photo
Longmont, Colorado, United States
Heidi loves to play sand volleyball, sail and garden. Felix loves to fly at the local aeroclub, sail and fish.