Here We Go Again -Our Journey of Hope

As many of you know, when we started in February 2005 the process to adopt from Kazakhstan, we had hoped to adopt 2 children. By the time we were ready to travel in June 2006 the "rules" regarding adoption of 2 unrelated children were changed or being enforced and we found out days before we traveled that we would only be allowed to adopt one child. As the time approached to return to Kazakhstan in September to bring Matt home, we became aware that it might be possible to adopt a wonderful little girl, who's Kazakh name translates into Hope, whom we fell in love with while visiting Matt during the summer. With a lot of help from our agency and definitely some divine intervention, as September wore on we started to have more faith that our dream would come true and it would be possible to complete our family with this little girl, all the while knowing that it was possible that another of the many families that had fallen in love with her might be able to give her a home before we could.

We got word yesterday, October 26, that we should prepare to travel by next Wednesday, November 1, to return to Kazakhstan to complete the adoption process for our daughter. While we are quite excited, it was also quite a shock. We were under the impression that it would be a couple of weeks before we traveled. Debbie had just sent her passport to be renewed and we just gotten a contract on our house (yes, we very unexpectedly found a great house and land for our growing family so we are also in the process of buying and selling a house) so it's been a whirlwind 36 hours of getting new passports, arranging travel and starting the mortgage process for our new home purchase. Nevertheless, all seems to be working out and the "must-do" items for the day have been done. As it stands now, we should be on our way to Kazakhstan next Wednesday. We look forward to sharing our experiences in Astana with family and friends once again.

Enjoy the ride!