No news, the wait continues...

Well, here we are. It's the middle of January and our paperwork has been in Russia for two plus months. We nave no further news but are moving forward with things anyway. We are in process of updating our home study since an original copy no longer exists here in the U.S. Fortunately we have been able to keep our social worker, Kristen through all of the changes and closure of the home study agency that we started with.

CHI did get confirmation on some of the document formatting that is required in Yaroslavl. Hopefully we will get confirmation of the formatting of financial statements soon as we are waiting to provide updated information for our home study until we have all the details confirmed with our CPA.

The Princess' and Prince's rooms are in process of being painted. The new furniture for the Royal Court will be delivered this Saturday, so we are really pushing ourselves to get the rooms ready. There is still so much to be done on the Prince's room. The Princess' is almost finished as far as update and paint..."desire pink". Yes, pink. That's what the Princess requested. His will be a combination of blues and browns - a captains and nautical motif.

That's it for now. Just a quick update. Oh... we found out that through a mutual friend that we may have a missionary contact in Yaroslavl. We are looking forward to getting in contact with them and hopefully developing a friendship and meeting up when we actually get to travel to Russia.

That's it for now. Keep us in your prayers. S&C

Paperwork Under Review in Yaroslavl

A quick update of where we are in our paperwork pregnancy: Our registration dossier is in Russia and has been submitted to the Department of Education in Yaroslavl. That means that the translation has been completed and we are under review for approval. We had a small snafu of sorts in that our "original" home study document never made it to Russia with the rest of the documents. We submitted a certified and appostilled copy but yesterday (Friday 11/21) we were notified that the copy was not acceped. We promptly mailed the only "orignal" home study document that exists to CHI; it should be in the mail to Yaroslovl on Wednesday 11/26. Please pray with us that this will meet all of the requirements and be accepted so that we may move forward to the referral stage of the process.

We also received several new documents from Anna, our coordinator with CHI. She has been diligently working on these for the past several weeks to make sure they are in accordance with the Yaroslovl region. So, now we move on to more paperwork... Oh the wonderful world of paper pregnancy. It is a glorious thing! :-)

As we are beginning our Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season we are ever aware that this may be the last Thanksgiving and Christmas with only our Princess. We are so excited to add another member but at the same time want for this one to be so very special and memorable, for next year may be extra special in an entirely different way. Thank you Lord for the countless blessings that we have received so undeservedly from you.

Assigned To Region - Yaroslovl'

We received word from CHI that we have been assigned to the Yaroslovl' Region (Yea!!!). This is a new region for CHI. We will be working with Anna and Olga going forward. They are very nice people and we are blessed in that they are both from Russia and familiar with the many nuances of the process. The dossier is in process of being translated and we will know what additional documents are required for this region soon. We are quickly learning more about Yaroslovl (http://www.answers.com/topic/yaroslavl). It appears to be a beautiful location with about 6 orphanages and two baby houses. Our Little Prince may well be in one of these locations now. Please pray with us that the immediate phase of documentation will proceed easily, expediently and accurately. Princess O thinks it is pretty awsome that we know where her little brother lives now and so do we. Love and kisses from the L3 to our Prince.

Registration Update

Just a quick update on "where we are"..... The paperwork has been in Russia for about two weeks. As we understand the process, it normally takes 8-12 weeks for it to be translated and then a region assigned. We are patiently waiting for the region assignment and then we will begin completing the remaing portions of the dossier according to that regions specific requirements.

Because of changes in international adoptions, our agency (Children's Hope International) has made several changes. We are loosing the consultant and branch manager we have been working with. Hopefully we will be able to keep our LPC for future home study requirements. CHI has been good to work with. Please keep them in your prayers too as they restructure and work on our behalf to complete our adoption.

Our Princess

This fall, our princess has decided to be a cheer leader rather than a soccer player. She is loving dance, and learning to play the piano (some day she will love that too - we hope). She is soooo excited about having a brother. She prays for him every night that God blesses him with a good night and good day and that he is healthy and comes home soon. It is difficult for her to understand why we just can't go and get him. She already has a name picked out, but we won't share that just yet. We are in process of repainting and working on the kids rooms. Her room is first of course and then her brother-to-be's room. There are all sorts of suggestions being given for that as you can imagine from an excited big sis. We are so richly blessed to have our Princess. It has been seven wonderful years... thank you God once again for blessing us with her.

An "Accidental Adoption" - Author Unknown

Have you ever noticed that you hear all the time about “accidental” pregnancies, but never about couples who’ve experienced “accidental” adoptions?

Can you imagine:

Honey, sit down. I have some news for you.
What is it?
Well, I don’t know how to put this, so I’ll just come out with it. . .I went to the mailbox today and. . .well, we got an I-171H.
A what?!! An I-171H? As in. . .we’re going to have another child?!?
It appears that way.
But how? We’ve been so careful! I put away all the blank I600A Forms. Didn’t you hide our homestudy update?
Of course I did! But don’t forget. . .there was that one time…..
What time? . . . . oohhh, that time! But it was only once and we were just fooling around. I didn’t even print clearly. I didn’t even use ink! . . . .but it was kind of fun!
giggles. . . .it was, wasn’t it! I’ll never forget how cute you looked getting your fingerprints!
So, now we’ve got our I-171H, huh? But that doesn’t mean we’ll adopt, does it? I mean, shouldn’t you see the agency or something. . .make sure that everything is okay?!
I did already.
. . . .and?
We’re five documents along.
Five documents!!! And they’re all notarized, certified, authenticated and apostilled?
Yes. There was one small scare when the agency couldn’t see the notary’s middle initial, but it showed up fine under the magnifying glass.
Thank goodness. And you. . .are you feeling okay?
I’m feeling fine. As long as I know you are happy about this.
Happy? I’m thrilled! It’s always a shock when something like this happens, but of course I’m happy!
So . . . . the Landers Household is “seven documents along”!

The Lord led us to work towards this in 2007 and we began the process as follows:
Connected with Children’s Hope International (CHI) [one of the few primary international adoption agencies that consistently maintains international accreditation, and maintains consistency in integrity], and attended a meeting.
Began the paperwork; notarization; then took months off due to Cheryl’s Mom’s neck injury; back to paperwork; notarization; filing of forms; classes on DVD; on-line testing; picture taking [interior/exterior of home, specific rooms, individual and group]; authentication work; seek referral letters from family and friends; Social Worker interviews: Steve, Cheryl, Olivia, Steve & Cheryl; forms signed; notarization; submittal of forms; state background checks; update Steve’s passport, get one for Cheryl & Olivia; follow-up meetings with Social Worker; Homeland Security background checks; forms filed; paperwork; notarization; State Secretary’s office in Austin for documents to be apostilled; FedEx to St. Louis MO; new paperwork; additional forms; notarization; drive through The Woodlands while on vacation to pick up paperwork; notarization; State Secretary’s office in Austin for documents to be apostilled; FedEx to St. Louis MO.
USA CHI Russia team reviews all 21 packets of documents; USA CHI team signs off on entire registration packet and puts it in the mail to Moscow on Friday, September 05, 2008.
When it is received in Moscow, the registration packet will be translated and made ready for Russia to determine which of the regions (the USA’s version of states) it should be forwarded to best fit our and future referral matches.
Once a region is selected by Russia, they will notify the CHI St. Louis office.
Once that’s known, we return to the CHI website and link to that region and begin that regions set of documents that are required [as each region has their own additional requirements].