Our first Russia trip

Well, we have made it back from our first trip to Russia! We were able to meet Kinley for the first time and visit with her for about 2 hours a day at the orphanage. We were impressed with the cleanliness and care takers at the orphanage, who made it very clear that Kinley was a favorite and well cared for little girl. She comes off shy at first but by the second and third visit she was running and jumping in to mine and Brent's laps! She definitely warmed up to us and loved all the attention and love she was getting from us.
We were able to meet with the judge on the last day in our region and set our date for court. This is a huge blessing, because it gives us more time to plan our next trip! While we wish we could bring her home with us this time we know she is being well looked after while we wait. Unfortunately we are not allowed to post any pictures of her until the adoption is finalized, but rest assure we got plenty! I think there were 200+. We were able to take a tour of Moscow while we were there and we can post some of those pictures :)

The phone (or e-mail) rings at last!

So, last Friday we were at a water park all day celebrating a belated birthday for our son. Naturally, I left my cell phone in the car so it would not get lost, stolen, wet, etc. Upon arrival to our car I found I had a voice mail from our adoption agency asking us to call them back, because they wanted to talk to us about something. We never get phone calls from them, mind you. Unfortunately, it was already too late by the time we got the message and their office had closed...for the next 4 days, since it was a holiday weekend.
Brent and I spent the whole drive home playing out scenarios of why they had called. Surely this was not a referral. It must be a paperwork issue or something else. In the back of our minds, however we couldn't help but hope we were wrong. Luckily we were packed full of activities throughout the weekend, so Tuesday really did role around fairly quickly. First thing Tuesday morning, I called the agency only to get a voice mail message. However, within about 30 minutes an e-mail popped up from our case worker. She would be out of town all week, but wanted to let us know we had a referral!!!
Wow. I started shaking and crying as soon as I read the words. Of course, I immediately called Brent at work to give him the good news. It took a while to get the rest of the information to us, including her photo and her extremely brief (and slightly terrifying) medical record. Unfortunately, Russia is notorious for misdiagnosing children, as they receive reimbursement from the government based on the number of "unhealthy kids". We had received ample warnings of this which helped with the shock value, but none the less it was slightly intimidating to say the least.
Yesterday I experienced a full range of emotions as I tried my best to process this and sort through the small amount of information we were given. We forwarded the information and photo on to a specialist who reviewed it that same day and sent us back very encouraging news. He felt she was a relatively healthy child who is just very malnourished. Again, we fully expected this as it is very common in institutionalized children.
So, after carefully reviewing, discussing, and lots of praying (thank you everyone for praying for us yesterday), we are planning to accept her and will be flying out very quickly. In fact, in the next 2 weeks!
Last night I quickly went up to her room and finished the last minute touches, vacuumed, dusted, etc. and it is officially ready. Today I went and bought bows :) We are getting closer each and everyday. The boys keep asking when we can pick up Kinley. I hope to tell them tonight and show them her picture! I haven't done it yet, because I want us to be together as a family when they find out.
Needless to say we are ecstatic about this, although I am dreading the flight :( Please keep our family in your prayers as we start making abrupt travel arrangements and as we arrange care for our boys. Also pray for Kinley's health (physically and mentally) and that she will bond with us quickly. We have no idea what to expect once we get there. Thank you all and thank you Jesus!!!

Waiting and more papers

Today we mailed off another 23 pages worth of paperwork. These were required forms for when we finally make it to court, but it was something that I could work on ahead of time so...you know me...it's done early! Kinley's room is still coming along slowly but surely. Once I can move our donation box and a couple of pieces of furniture out it will be done!
Many of you have asked for updates and right now we are literally sitting on our hands waiting for our phone to ring. This is such a hard thing to do for a control freak such as I. The only things left to do are complete her bedroom and get a physical, which we have been told not to do until right before we leave for our first trip, because they are only "valid" for 3 months.
We are so excited to finally meet this little girl that God has hand picked for our family and I find myself wondering what she will look like, what will she like/dislike, will she have attachment issues, what type of personality will she have, and about a thousand other questions. We are SOOOOO ready to meet her and while the thought of being on an airplane for many, many hours makes me want to vomit...I can't wait to fly!
Prayer requests: PATIENCE for us all!!!!! Continue to lift up Kinley as we have no idea what she is going through or has gone through. Pray for protection and good health for her. Pray for quick bonding to our family for both us and her. Pray that God will continue to lay out the provisions necessary to complete this adoption, just as He has thus far. Thank you all for your prayers and support of our family. It has been the most amazing blessing and journey we have ever taken! We can't wait to share our wonderful sons and our precious daughter with you all!

May 6 update:

I realize it has been about a month since our last update. During this last month we have mailed off our corrected documents and are continuing to wait for the official word that we are on the waiting list. The deparment of education is the one who puts us on that all important list and apparently this upcoming week/end is a national holiday so many officials took vacation to extend their holiday. Yea for holidays :) So...we will wait patiently until they return and can give us our confirmation we long for.
Over the last 2 months we have been the recipients for a fundraiser as well as a matching grant. We can not even begin to explain in words what a blessing these have been and how amazing it is to watch God literally weave a path for us, helping to make this adoption even more tangible. As a result, our family has been blessed with $18,500 towards our outstanding balance. How can we praise Him enough? How can we thank those who gave enough? We can only thank each and everyone of you for the part you have played in this adoption journey thus far: thank you for your prayers, thank you for your support of our family, thank you for your words of encouragement and advice, thank you for your giving. Brent and I hope to be able to return such blessings to other families who share the same desire to take in the fatherless child and shower him/her with the love of Christ.
Please continue to lift up our family in prayer. These are some things you can specifically pray for: Pray that we are patient as we begin this waiting period, pray for Kinley that she will be safe, nurtured, and healthy (mentally, physically, emotionally), during our time of seperation. Also pray for protection over her from abuse, neglect, diseases, etc. Pray that God will continue to prepare our hearts and her's to transition comfortably and quickly into being a family of 5 and that He would continue to provide the last of the finances to pay off our adoption in full as well as for our travel expenses. Lastly, you can pray that God will work out all of the details regarding when it is our time to travel that the boys will be looked after and that it won't be impossible to leave them! (the longest we have ever been away from them was 5 days and that was incredibly hard!)
Thank you again and we want to wish everyone a happy Mother's Day!

Our matching grant

Dear Family and Friends,

As many of you may have already heard we feel that God has called us on a new journey to provide a “forever” family to a child through the process of adoption. We have started down this path of adoption and will be excited to bring a child into our home within the next six to twelve months. We have felt led to pursue a child from Russia and are now waiting for the specific child God has for us.

This road to adoption is full of many joys and challenges, the greatest joy being the inclusion of a child into our family and the greatest challenge being finances. The costs of adoption include the expense of a home study, adoption agency, lawyers, international fees, travel expenses, etc., with the total cost ending up somewhere around $42,000.

We were recently awarded a matching funds grant to help with the expenses of our adoption through Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc. a non-profit private operating foundation. Hand in Hand will match any funds that are donated through our friends and family for the expenses of our adoption. All funds received through our friends and family will be matched dollar for dollar by Hand in Hand up to our awarded grant amount. All donations are tax-deductible.

You can find out more about Hand in Hand through their website at www.handinhandadopt.org. If you have further questions about the Hand in Hand matching grant program please feel free to give us a call at
817-466-9668 or email us at bjgib@sbcglobal.net . You may also contact Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc. with any questions you may have. They can be reached at 913-248-5015 or by e-mail at handinhandadopt@gmail.com.

Please find enclosed a grant award letter that will explain more about the matching grant program from Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc. as well as a Hand in Hand brochure explaining a little more about their ministry.
Please send all donations made payable to “Hand in Hand Christian Adoption” postmarked by May 6, 2011 to: (for tax purposes please include our name on the outside of the envelope only…do not put our name on the check itself)
Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc.
Brent and Jennifer Gibson
18524 Juniper Street
Gardner, KS 66030-9147
Thank you for your prayerful consideration in helping a child find a “forever” family.

Walking Hand in Hand,


Brent and Jennifer Gibson
817-466-9668
bjgib@sbcglobal.net

Updates :)

So, we have mailed off our corrected forms and they should arrive in Austin tomorrow to be apostilled. From there they should travel to Missouri and then on to Russia. Hopefully this will be the last of paperwork mailing for us.
Our other exciting update is that we were blessed with a matching grant from Hand in Hand. They are willing to match up to $5,000 which means if we raise $5,000 they will match it dollar for dollar, thus giving us $10,000 to go towards our adoption expenses. We are so excited and so eternally grateful for these blessings that God has provided for us. For anyone who has never stepped out in faith, we encourage you to do so. It will be the most amazing experience you will ever go through. I can't even describe the feeling it is to step out in faith and obedience alone and for each step we take, God has put a stone for us to stand on.
One last note: Our family has been corresponding with our son's school and our church leaders to see about organzing a group to help serve at our son's Field Day. This will be our first of many service projects to come. I thought what an amazing opportunity to touch the lives of 700+ kids by playing with them and advertising for our Vacation Bible School all at once. While we are not allowed to pass out any information about our church, we are planning to wear our VBS shirts and to draw attention to them. I pray that we can invite families to come and that we can share God's love and His ultimate gift of eternal salvation to children and families that might not otherwise hear it.

Blessings, blessings, blessings!

For anyone who has ever doubted God's existence, let me reassure you He lives! Our family is continuing to personally be blessed by Him as we follow His commands and walk in faith. We received notification that we will have to re-do 4 pages of our dossier, which have already been done and should be sent off to Austin to apostilled tomorrow or Friday. So praise God it was only 4 pages! We also were given the name of our Russian helper who will be our power of attorney and help us with all of our paperwork, Visas, etc.
This last week we held our second garage sale and wrapped up our Perpetual Change Fundraiser. We can not even begin to tell you how much we were blessed! Thank you does not even begin to come close to us expressing our deepest gratitude to everyone who donated, attended, and blessed us through these fundraisers. Our family is eternally grateful to each and every one of you and we want you to know that you each have played such an immense role in helping us bring our daughter home! We will be praying for God to bless you all as He has us.
We have also been trying to finish our 10 hours of Hague accredited courses, which has been a very great learning opportunity of some of the challenges we will be faced with once she gets home.
Prayer requests: Pray that all of our dossier paperwork is approved this time :), pray for patience as we begin our time of waiting, pray for Kinley to be safe from abuse, neglect, sickness, and that God would begin to prepare her heart to join our family and bond quickly. Also pray that God's timing would prevail when it comes time to travel and that arrangements would be easily made for us to get to Russia and for the boys as they will be staying here in the states while we are abroad.

bedding done and more

So, my big goal for spring break was to finish Kinley's bedding and it is done!!! Her room is coming right along and looking more and more like a bedroom each week. Our paperwork is coming along too. We are still waiting to hear back from our assigned region (the area we will be traveling to pick her up from) to see if our paperwork is officially complete or if we need to re-do any forms. If all goes well and they deem our paperwork complete then we are officially on the waiting list! Yea!! We'll keep you all updated :) Have a blessed and safe spring break!

Waiting to hear...

We finally were able to make contact with our case worker today and were told that we are waiting to hear back from our assigned region to see if our paperwork was correct and complete. Yes...that is right I said complete! It turns out that we have already done all of our paperwork as long as the region will accept it. So, we are waiting to hear if they will accept our paperwork as is or if they have any other forms they will require. If everything gets accepted then we are officially on the waiting list!!!
So, while we wait we are going to begin our 10 hours of required education this weekend. Also, we have been busy, busy, busy preparing her room (thanks to my sister). Kinley now has a crib, complete with a crib skirt and bumper pad. The blanket is still a work in progress :)
Prayer requests: Pray that God's hand will be in the decisions made reguarding our paperwork and that hopefully it will be deemed "complete". Also pray for our family and that we will have patience as we wait for our referral. You can always pray for God to begin even now to prepare our hearts as well as our daughter's heart for the major transition as we become a family of 5 and that she will quickly bond with all of us and us with her. Lastly, be in prayer for our finances as things are starting to move quickly and we are going to be presented with some very large expenses in the very near future. Pray for fundraiser that is currently in the works and that God will bless it according to His will. Thank you all for your continued love and support! This has been amazing to be able to share our journey with you!

Region assignment

Yea and praise God! We have our region assignment as of today!!! Can you feel the excitement? So, this means we can proceed with the final paperwork and be officially put on the waiting list. To top it off, as we are looking at the required paperwork, we have already done a lot of it and may not have to re-do it which means less paperwork for us! Double yea!!!

Jen has been busy working on baby girl's room...or at least her bedding. Pictures will come once it is completed, but it is going much better than she originally expected :) Also, we have decided on what her name will be. Kinley Grace Gibson.

As most of you following our blog know we have mailed out our adoption fundraiser letter over the last week. We ask that you prayerfully consider giving if God would have you donate to our adoption fund. We have been so blessed thus far in this adoption process and continue to put our trust in God to finalize the remaining finances. Thanks to each and every one of you for your support of our family through prayer, donations, and just caring for our family in general. We can not thank you enough or reitterate how much each and every one of you mean to us. We are continuing to plan for our service project and will post something ASAP.

Paperwork "take 1" on it's way

We received official confirmation from our social worker that our initial paperwork "the first half of our dossier" was mailed last Friday to Russia. I have no idea how long it takes to make it all the way across the world, but when I looked it up on-line it estimated a week. Of course with all of the crazy weather we have had lately, who knows! When it is received in Moscow, it will be decided which region we are best suited for and thus they will assign us to that region. Once we know which region we have been assigned to then we can begin working on the official dossier.

Dossiers are region specific which just means that some regions are more meticulous about their requirements than others and they require certain additional paperwork.

Prayer requests: Pray that we will be selected for the region that God has picked for us and that the region will be helpful and not over daunting with the paperwork requirements. Also pray for our family and that we can get our dossier completed as quickly as possible so that we can officially be on the waiting list to travel. This last week we received notification that we are being considered for a matching grant. Pray for God's direction in this and if we are to be blessed with this as well as any of the other grants we have applied for.

For those who are following our adoption journey and keeping us in your prayers we are truly greatful! It really does mean a lot to us to have all of your support for our family and we just want to say thank you! We pray for God's blessings for each one of you.

Our latest and greatest

I got confirmation from the Secretary of State that our packet was delivered and that she has apostilled all of our documents (which I hope means they were all ok). They are fowarding it on to our agency today :) Once they make it to our agency, as long as all of the paperwork is correct, it will be forwarded on to Russia. From there our region will be selected, so that we will actually know which part of Russia it is that we will be traveling to. Also, we mailed off our applications for grants to help fund our adoption, but we probably won't find out anything for a few weeks about those.
Brent and I are going back and forth talking about names and have yet to solidify what our daughter will be named. Of course we waited until we were 36 weeks pregnant before we picked out our youngest son't name ;)I am looking forward to my sister coming into town sometime in the next month or two so we can start working on her room. I can't wait to turn it from a storage/office to a little girl's room!
Prayer requests: Please remember to pray for our family and that God will put His hand into deciding which region we will be adopting from. Also pray for our daughter and her birth mother, that they both will be healthy and that she will obstain from drugs, alcohol, etc. You can also pray for a sense of peace for our family and that we will continue to just take everything in stride and not be overwhelmed by all of it. Lastly, pray over these grants that we have applied for. Pray that God would deliver these grants to whatever family needs them the most, whether that be us or someone else. Adoption is such an amazing opportunity and while we could definitely benefit from receiving adoption assistance, I know that our God is faithful and that He will provide the means necessary for us to fullfill his plan for our family. I would hate for another family to forfeit an adoption experience just because they are intimidated by the financial demands.

paper work...take 2

Well, we are having our first "take 2" when it comes to our mound of paperwork. At least these mistakes were made prior to us mailing them off to Austin :) Now, we only have to get them notarized...again. I did a count and we will be mailing 60, yes that is a 6-0 pieces of paper to Austin. I am not lying or exaggerating when it comes to how much paperwork is involved. That is completely ok, though. It will be well worth it in the end! Until then, bring on the paperwork!