Aren't My Fingerprints Forever?

Today we endured more adoption bureaucracy!! Recently an adoptive family suffered the misfortune to be stuck in Kiev with their new children because their "fingerprints expired" and US immigration would not let then bring their kids home until they were fingerprinted and background checked again. Learning from their dilemna, I checked my I-171H file and found that our fingerprints expire in November. So, I made an appointment with the USCIS for this morning. After racing through rush hour traffic for over an hour, we arrived at the appointment and asked for "permission" to go to another USCIS office to be fingerprinted again. They gave us the letters we needed, and we proceeded to the other office in Aurora, waited in 3 more lines, filled out more forms, and were fingerprinted again.

I asked the fingerprint technician, "How do my fingerprints expire? Aren't fingerprints forever?" She explained that the USCIS discards peoples' files after 15 months if there hasn't been any criminal activity in the file. Hmmmmm. Don't most international adoptions take more than 15 months? Throughout this complicated adoption process I've wondered how it could be streamlined. It's not like solving global warming, but fixing this would be a good start!

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Yes, we're still waiting. The SDA has had our dossier for 14 business days, but who's counting? They have 20 business days to either accept or reject it. But sometimes they only take 5 days, and sometimes they take 40 days, so there really isn't anything special about the 20 day marker. But we're hoping to hear something soon.



The dossier of a new friend, Aimee, was submitted to the SDA on August 21st, 5 days before our dossier was submitted. On Tuesday they received notice that their SDA appointment date is September 24th. Yes, that is two weeks notice. Yikes!! It sure would be nice to travel before the weather gets too cold.



Tanya and Luba's new parents are in Kiev now, and tomorrow they have their SDA appointment to request permission to adopt the girls. Please pray for Joy and Ken to have a successful, uneventful appointment. You can track their adoption progress via their blog - see the link in the right margin of our blog. It's titled "Rae Family Adoption."

Life in the slow lane

Things have slowed down for Heidi and me here at Internat Longmont. It's a bit surreal! Gone are the sounds of kids running through the house and the sounds of doors slamming. We are enjoying the respite and change of pace as we await word on whether or not our dossier will be accepted by the SDA. For those of you not "in the know" about the process, the SDA has 20 days to accept or reject the dossier. We hired a very smart lady who knows what the SDA likes, so chances are, we will be accepted. Of course, waiting for word from the SDA can be agonizing.

We have talked with Zina twice this month. She is back from summer camp and in school at the internat. She is fine and missed us tremendously. She told us that Rimma is back from the sanatorium. She is doing well and will not have to return. Both girls are reunited and curious about their "documents", which means, their registration. Karen Springs did a good job this summer explaining to Zina that we have no control over her documents, that it is all up to her director now. Please pray for R & Z's hurried registration. Once registered, they still have to wait for a year for international adoption by us.

Our UOO camp was featured in our local paper, The Longmont Times Call, this Sunday. Check out the story at http://www.timescall.com/communityTC/news-story.asp?ID=11138
Make sure you check out their slide show, too: http://www.timescall.com/multimedia/20080907_UKRAINE/ The photos will melt your heart!

Meanwhile, Heidi and I went on a mini-vacation to Ouray, Silverton, and Telluride Colorado this weekend. We left Thursday after work and stayed until Sunday at a little Bed & Breakfast in Ouray, Colorado. The highlight of the trip for me was renting a Jeep and 4-wheeling over Imogene Pass. We took this picture at the summit, just a tad over 13,000 feet.

Empty House

Well, the girls are gone and the house is empty. We are still in a bit of shock over Tanya and Luba. We will be fine, though. We realize that this is God's plan for them, us, and their new family. We don't want anyone to feel awkward or upset over this. Please continue to send comments and e-mails, we love hearing from all of you! We will take a few days off and not post to regroup. The phone call to Zina this weekend will surely raise our spirits. I'm sure we will be ready to post then and tell you all about it.

~ Felix & Heidi ~

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
~ Psalm 34:18, NLT

Blessings in 3's

Three wonderful things happened yesterday, despite the fact that Tanya and Luba will be leaving.

1. My dad turned 68. The Lord has blessed him with another year of good health and he is still kickin' it old school down in Louisiana (correct pronunciation for those of you north of the Mason Dixon line is Lew-zee-anna).
2. The family that adopted T & L's brother flew in last night. We are so happy for the girls to be reunited with their brother. This is the first time in three years that they have been together. The family has never seen the girls in person, having been refused a visitation by the orphanage, even while they were standing outside the grounds asking. We welcomed them with open arms and asked them to spend the day with the girls. We are sad inside, but ecstatically happy for Tanya and Luba. They need to be with their brother.
3. OK, hold onto your seats...WE GOT OUR DOSSIER SUBMITTED TO THE SDA! Woo-hoo! Next stop...appointment day!

God continues to laugh at my silly little plans. So, I'm gonna kick back and let him run with it.

Letting go

Thursday, Tanya and Luba will be boarding the plane, back on their way to the life that they have known for the past few years. For 10 weeks the girls have had a great time and have encountered many new experiences. One of my fond memories will be the time I spent teaching Luba how to ride a bicycle. I am glad to have put that permanent smile on her face and I get to see it often. Hopefully, we have made a huge impact on their lives and things will never be the same again for them. Nor will accepting mediocrity or failure be an option for them. I believe that they have a different outlook on life now.

We will not be going to Mariupol to adopt Tanya or Luba. They have a little brother who was adopted in the U.S. and we have learned that this couple has been working to adopt them and reunite the family. They have their dossier in Ukraine and seem to be close to traveling. We even talked to the family's facilitator today and we will be contacting the family soon. Frontier Horizons called today and broke the news to us. We had been trying to find the brother all summer, but we were unable. It wasn't in God's plan.

Don't be disappointed for us, something didn't feel right recently. All along we got lots of "maybes" to our big question, but maybe wasn't good enough for such a decision. I believe God was laying the indecision on all four of our hearts because we couldn't see his big picture for all of us. Combine his plan with the fact that other children we have met just want to be with us so much, and we get it now.

It is the right thing to do to let Tanya and Luba go and let another family bring them all together...It is God's plan. Wow, funny how all things return to our blog title!

Farewell dear Tanya and Luba...may all your dreams be realized. We hope you will never forget us and we will be praying for you every night. Don't forget the man who taught you how to ride a bicycle. He will never forget you, you will always have a place in our hearts. God bless you both.

The last week

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile. The UOO camp ended last Friday and we were recovering. The kids had a blast and they arrived safely at home. Needless to say, we miss them all.

This is the last week that Tanya & Luba will be with us. They leave for Mariupol next Thursday, the 28th. There have been some interesting developments with them over the past few weeks that we will discuss in future posts. Stay tuned for details. We will be sad to see them go home, too. Our nieces Shannon & Jessica and nephew Drew arrived Tuesday to visit us for the summer. Their mom and dad, Sally & Gary, arrive today (Thursday). The house is full again!

Zina called us this week. She borrowed a cell phone from a friend and dropped a call to us. Heidi returned the call to the phone number that came through and it was her! Heidi said that you could "hear tears of joy" from her. She is fine and she will return to the Kherson internat sometime at the end of next week, probably the 28th. It seems schools starts for all of the orphans Monday the 1st of September. We will call her next weekend when she gets back to the internat.

Our facilitator is holding our dossier after talking with the SDA. It is moving so that is good news. We hope to get submitted in early September.We haven't been forgotten after all!

All for now, enjoy the picture of me with Vasya, Vitalik and Zshenia at the airport last Friday. This was to be our last picture together, kudos to our friend Kari. We all three bonded during the camp like no others. I hope to see them all again soon when we next travel to Ukraine.

See the 9-news story about the 2008 UOO camp here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VBcqaDd4Ic