How we do it: Part 3

Here's an easy one:

(I know, smarty-pants--there are two yellow ones.
But one of them has a flaw so we can still tell the difference.)

Drinking glasses.

When we had only two girls in the house, I decided that my friend Heather's mom had the right idea. If you are just using your cup for water, you shouldn't need a new one every time you fill up.

So, we get our cups in the morning, letting the old ones go into the sink, and then continue to use the same cups all day. The kids know to choose cups of different colors so as to keep things obvious.

Think about it, with six kids at three or four cups each (low estimate) of water per day...well, you can do the dish-washing math yourself. :-)

How we do it: part 2

First of all, I need to tell you all very frankly that I am NOT an organized person by nature! In fact, for those of you who have suggested such, all my family and childhood friends are laughing their heads off at the suggestion!!! Thank you for making them so gleeful. :-)

I have spent my life disorganized. I don't know about ADD. I refuse to label myself like that; it is probably way to extreme anyway. I will say that I have had to carefully think of ways to cope with my tendency to wander the house aimlessly working while somehow managing to accomplish nothing. I was, until the last few years, a moderate hoarder. Until I met Flylady, I never threw much away. I couldn't resist a good deal-- and If I found one, it made me hold onto that item forever. I know I am not alone!

I am much better now. (I am not as good at this as my sister in law, Lynn, but I am trying!) I resist bringing anything into my home that will just be clutter. Kitchen tools must multi-task! I like simple, clean lines. I will go without for a long time waiting to buy exactly what I need rather than buying things that might work. (you know how that goes; they never get used!)

My house is not, I repeat: NOT in perfect order. In fact, most of the time, it is not in order at all! There are often toys everywhere and the change of seasons swamps me with clothes. Right now, there is a laundry basket of clothes on my living room couch for me to sort through and on the floor My Little Ponies are threatening to take over that space. (I am coming back to add that the ponies have taken the living room.)

I do have the blessing of knowing that for a brief period of time each day, all the menial daily work that a small child can do has been done! That is why I love my jobs system. I can do the projects, like the clothes, attacking the laundry mountain, vacuuming and the like and have somewhere otherwise neat to begin.

Okay, I just wanted to say all that because If any of you ever drop by unannounced, I don't want you to be surprised by the actual state of things!
The End.

Today's topic is homeschooling.

I have had a lot of requests for how I handle this one. This is another area that I have had to compensate for my lack of organization in. My biggest blessing that has helped me so much this year is that Steve built in a bookshelf on which I can store our books. I used to keep them all over the place. One shelf of this is dedicated only to our daily books. Now, each morning after work and breakfast, I can easily grab that stack of books and put it on the table in the kitchen where we do school.

We try to start at 10:30 am. Usually,we get one main and one partial or light subject done before lunch. For instance, today, I began by reading three chapters (they are short chapters) of our "Pilgrim book" to the kids before we began. After that, we got started on Math.

I have six kids but only four are officially in school. Ivy and Vitali have worksheets they sometimes do and they listened to the reading time but they are free to go and play at any time. Three of the kids are in first grade work. (Max, Misha and Annette) Hannah is in fourth grade.

Even though three are in first grade, I purposely keep them on different pages. I found out early in the year that if Misha didn't know the answer, he had no problem looking at Max's paper to find it! Annette learns quickly and other than a little help along the way, she can get through her work on her own once I give it to her so she accomplishes more ground than the others each day.

So, how do I do it? Again, I have to compensate for my lack of organization. Here are some things I do. These may or may not work for you but they do for our situation:

1. I do not grade papers. What?! Yes, I do not ever grade papers. I used to try but just didn't get to it! So, what do I do? As each paper is finished, I look at it. I circle incorrect ones and send the kids back to fix them. If I notice that one child has trouble with a particular concept, I may give an extra worksheet with that concept on it. I do not keep a grade book and never put a letter on the tops of the pages. I home school independently and am not required to submit grades the the school system . I set for the kids the standard of 100% comprehension of concepts and so I do school with that in mind.
   
2. I do not do lesson plans. I know that I will not follow them! Nor will I get around to keeping them up so my method needs to compensate for that. Instead, when I get our books at the beginning of the year, I count the pages. I figure out how many pages need to be covered each day in order to reach the end of the school year having covered the required 180 days and finishing the books. So maybe I have a general all-year goal--but I don't call it a lesson plan.
3. I sit at the table while the kids all work there. I don't do anything else. I can't. The boys need me too much anyway. We take a good sized break at lunch time for me to do a few things and during that time, the kids go and play. Also, if I don't sit there with the kids, it is too easy for me to say, "I'll help you in a minute" and then never actually do it! (Keep in mind that homeschooling does not run from 9:00am-2:30pm like formal schools do.)
4. I don't get out much. I try not to sabotage our schedule by planning lunches with other friends or going shopping or doing errands. I know myself. If we don't just sit down and do it the same way every day, it will get pushed aside and forgotten!
5. I kill two (or three) birds with one stone. Like yesterday when I had Hannah use her Bible memory verses for handwriting practice and Annette write on her language paper about George Washington after skipping to that section in her history book and having her read about him.
   I call it 'sneaky' but it does help them retain so much more.
   

If I think of more, I'll post it on here. for now, that is all I have. I just want to say though, that these things make me most consistent at the school stuff. Sometimes I can add more and sometimes, like on Wednesdays, for instance, we do a lighter load. My methods work for me because they are basic and affect only the core structure of how I work and allow me to build on them with relative ease.

Any questions? Ask! I am sure I left things out.

Melissa

How we do it: part one

I think a good place to begin is with a disclaimer: I am not an expert, just a mom. I have six kids but I'm still new at it! My current methods have evolved and are subject to change at any time. What works for me,may not work for you so I will try to explain my reasons for my methods as I go.

It seems to me that the best way to go about this is to do it in installments. I will put all I can think of about each topic that comes to mind in individual posts. Then I will label the posts with the topic "how we do it" so that the posts can be gathered together with one click later on.

Also, if you think of anything you want to ask about--about the topic or other topics that interest you--please say so in your comments and I will try to answer them in this series of posts.


And without further ado, the topic of the day--

I debated about what to start with and decided to begin with my favorite thing instead of saving it till last. Our job system.(Vitali, age four, unloading the dishwasher)

It is important to begin at the beginning. I did not bring home three Russian-speaking boys and expect them to clean the living room the next week. I counted it as helping around the house if they didn't miss the toilet, for goodness sakes! We had a lot of work to do with the boys to get them to obey us (another topic--not sure if I'll do that one or not...) and it was all consuming for three weeks at least. Then for the following three or four weeks we were mostly consumed, followed by a couple more weeks that eventually and gradually morphed into days at a time where we would go to bed smiling and not completely exhausted. This period of time would certainly have been a recipe for failure for any attempt at structure in the area of housework. One day, after the storm had lifted and I was able to look around and survey the wreck of my routines, I was inspired with what is now our job system.

I should say that I rejected all ideas I had seen up until this point knowing that charts, rotation schedules, and the like would be disastrous failures for me. I needed something that required no maintenance on my part. No stickers to buy, no "Oh, yeah, it's Monday and I forgot to update the chart" business for me!

An adoption friend, Leslie, posted on her blog how she made a list of all the daily jobs she could think of and required the kids to each choose four a day to accomplish. I made mine a variation on this technique.

First, I started out like Leslie, I made a list. My children were all eight and under so the work needed to be appropriate for their ages. In making my list, I divided up some jobs. Like for instance, CLEAN THE KITCHEN overwhelms me and I knew that none of the kids could really do the counters yet anyway. So I divided that room like this, SWEEP THE FLOOR, and TIDY KITCHEN FLOOR, and CLEAR THE TABLE (breakfast). None of these jobs is all that hard in and of itself and I knew that could be key to our success.

Next, I got my supplies. Enthusiasm gave me focus and I put magnetic tape and magnetic adhesive sheets on my shopping list. Then, I typed, in easy to read capital letters, each separate job. I cut out and stuck these onto individual pieces of magnetic tape. In the end, I drew pictures on the tape too since only two of my six children could read English! Like I said, No maintenance for me!

Also, Most of the kids didn't even recognize their own names in print and in the interest of clarity and color, I had wallet sized pictures of the kids printed and I cut these out and stuck them onto the magnetic sheets. Even the littlest two. Can they clean the living room? Not alone, but I can go in there and do the job with them and be investing in my future and theirs too. One day, they'll surprise me and do the work themselves! For now, I am resolved to be joyful with their imperfection.

Each morning, and this has been fine-tuned, the kids do their Morning Routines: clothes on, teeth brushed, beds made, and THEN are allowed to go and choose their jobs for the day. This gives incentive to hurry and get the MR done so as to pick the favorite jobs! The oldest two each pick three, the middle two pick two, and the small ones are supposed to pick one. (They don't always pick and then they don't always do the job since their success depends on me helping but I am just planting seeds with them right now anyway) They "pick" by taking a job-magnet and placing it under their picture, like a mini to-do list.
When each job is done, this method still allows for a closing action (like putting a star on a chart or marking something off of a list does) giving a sense of done-ness. They simply take the job from under their picture and return it to the space above. When they are done, There is nothing under their picture.

This week, I added a feature. I put a star sticker on the main jobs or "big" jobs. I made a new rule that each of the four older children needs to pick at least one "star" job with his/her other jobs. This makes sure that the last picker isn't left with the biggest jobs. This was a stroke of genius. :-) It has smoothed out that wrinkle very well.

Obviously, I homeschool and we are home all day. We do these jobs in the morning but no one here needs to be out the door at 7:00am. This system may need to be tweaked to have separate morning/afternoon sets of jobs, maybe on different colored papers. (Pick yellow in the morning and blue in the evening, for instance).

We don't do jobs on Sundays, but we sometimes do an extra job each on Saturdays. It varies. I told the kids it would. I also told them that I may say in the evening, "would you please_________" and still expect a willing helper. I haven't had anyone say, "But Mo-om, I did my jobs this morning!"

And, I mentioned being joyful in imperfection when it comes to the littlest ones. This applies to the older kids too! One job in the list is "Surprise". That is one that is an unknown until it has been chosen. (Usually, it is unknown to me, too. And I scramble to think of something!) This gives me the option of getting something small done that I may not need done daily but that needs done that day.

Max loves to get "surprise". The other day, Misha and Max were doing all their jobs together and for the surprise job I gave the task of helping me clean my room. (poor bedroom, it can get so neglected!) this is what my bed looked like when they were done:

Perfect? No!

Done? Yes.

H a l l e l u j a h !!

Melissa

How We Do It: the teaser

I have had a bunch of requests for me to let you know how we handle all these new challenges in parenting. I want to answer that but I am not sure I can get to it till later in the week. Until then, I am thinking on it and trying to notice the main things as well as the things we do without thinking about it.

One thing I'll tell you right now that works great is our chore system. I'll show you pictures of that when I post. The other thing that comes to mind is to admit right now that my housework, despite the chores, suffers! I have had to come to terms with that fact. In fact, before the boys ever got here, I planned on it. Life is stressful enough without worrying too much about what I just can't get to and still stay a sane mom!

Melissa

school time

Some of the kids at the kitchen table working on schoolwork this morning.
Max (he wears the patch for lazy eye), Misha in the back, Ivy near the wall and Annette's shoulder and knee.

School started out rough for the boys, especially Max, but now they are doing well. Max and Misha are both in first grade books. I am trying to push Max through as fast as possible but he really started from scratch. He couldn't add or subtract at all. He didn't understand much of anything. He seems to have it now and things are really moving along for him and for that I am grateful! He is picking up reading pretty well but has trouble with the changing vowel sounds of English. Once he gets that down he'll just take off, I think.

Misha does pretty well at his work too. His handwriting is especially nice. He knows it and is proud to work at it, tongue sticking out with the effort. :-) His reading is choppier but he seems to have the vowels down and may overtake Max soon if Max doesn't pick them up fast enough!
(Max has the problem of having learned to read in Russian/ Ukrainian and is un-learning that at the same time as learning English letters.)

It is funny that they don't call their Math book "Math" they call it the "Giraffe book" because of the giraffe on the cover and their language book is the "Skunk book" for the same reason. They both groan when it is time to start school but they both usually ask to do more pages at the end of the day. They really enjoy sitting down to a task.

Vitali was so proud because I got out a "real" school book for him today and taught him to carefully trace the letters on the special lines. He was beaming! Ivy is working on learning to write her name and Vitali was so proud to be doing something she wasn't doing yet. He is really starting to "catch up" to being a four-year-old as far as his maturity goes! (that said, "maturity" still sounds like a funny word to use to describe Vitali!)

Sorry for the long hiatus in postings! I will try to do better!
Scroll down below this post and see the new pictures in the post below.

Melissa

Fun

We enjoyed a fun weekend full of costumes and fun! Look at the boys on their first Lawn-tractor-engine-train ride!

Look how excited Misha is. Like a 10-month-old seeing his favorite toy or food!

Vitali rode "his" pony very proudly

Misha was a policeman. It suited his "authoritative" nature perfectly!!
(the others just call him bossy)

He is!

Spidermax.

Borscht recipe

I have had several requests for the borscht recipe that I used. Unfortunately, I didn't keep it. I also didn't stick to it very well.

I can tell you how I found it online, though.
First, I looked for Borscht recipes with a search engine. Specifically, I looked for one I could do in a slow cooker. I ended up cooking it on the stove anyway because school was very demanding of my attention that day and I never got a free moment in the 2-3hour window of time that I should have been cooking! Such is life... anyway, I digress.

After finding a bunch of recipes, I compared them with my favorite borscht ever. And, that, interestingly enough, I had at a Ukrainian friend's house here in the States! Anyway, she told me that there are differing versions of borscht; that some have pickled beets and some regular (I think) truthfully, it could be that some have cabbage and some don't. ANYHOOO....

I knew the basic ingredients and what I didn't want: anything pickled! I also knew that it should cook a long time to really be good. So, I chopped veggies, tossed in some leftover potroast pieces and cooked away. In the end, I added more beef broth. When I served the leftovers, I added even more. We thought there were too many veggies. Not that we don't like veggies but just that we like the borscht a little brothier. (spell-check says "brothier" isn't a word; what do they know?)

I hope that helps!

Melissa

Family picture.

I had all the kids draw a family portrait this morning for our school time (yes, we had school on Columbus Day! I forgot. And we wondered most of the day until Max's calendar activity on his math paper where the mailman was!) . It was fun seeing what the kids came up with. I mentioned before that Misha just usually draws whatever Max does but this time, he couldn't see Max's drawing very well from where he was and despite his initial concern of "How?", he dove in and got started, his tongue hanging out with all it's might!

This is his final product:
The thing that cracks me up is how well he portrayed his view of everyone. From left to right, Steve is in the back row (the black chest is chest hair. The shorts are swimming trunks. Misha is our sensory one, remember? The chest hair is a very prominent feature to him; He calls it prickly!); next is me, Mama. LOL!!! What's up with my hair?!! I am holding an ice cream cone and a flower. I also look like I am wearing Ukrainian-style tall boots!

Ivy follows me, her hair being the only in the picture that actually hangs down. Interesting, since her beautiful, long hair is really her signature feature. Max is next (after our house) and wearing his eye-patch and a sword. I think he also has a peg-leg. He wears an eye patch every day for a lazy eye. Next are Hannah and Annette. I am not sure which is which. I do notice that one of them has a big mouth. Hmmm...

Misha is that bald guy at the end. We asked him why he had no hair and he just said, "Me nee (not) I-want-it hair." And that was that.

My favorite is Vitali. He's the one in the water in the foreground. We have been having a cycle of misbehavior from him this past couple of weeks and, even though today has been a very good one, Vitali was in the water because, according to Misha, "Papa said get out of the water to Vitali and Vitalik Nee listen."

I just loved all the little clues into his mind in that picture! Hysterical how much of his own personality I see in his drawing! I am so glad I did this today.

Have a great day!

Melissa.

PS. I am just about to post all the kids' work on my regular day-to-day blog that I call "Life Here". If you want to take a peek, come on over!

Ukrainian night at our house!

We had a Ukrainian night at our house recently. The boys were sooo excited!! Especially Max. He ate at least three bowls of Borscht, the most well-known Ukrainian soup there is. Beets give it and everything in it a slightly odd pinkish-red color. It has vinegar and/or lemon juice and that gives it an acidic taste which is softened when served with a dollop of smetana (sour cream).
Steve made my day by stopping on the way home from work at the international foods store and buying some other Ukrainian yummies: Sandora brand juice, a cold sausage and even some candy made in the very same factory that we lived over when we were in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where the boys are from!
I did my best at phonetically spelling everyone's names in cyrillic. If you read Russian, you may find that I messed up. Doesn't matter, no one seemed to notice!
We had leftovers on Sunday night. Max was so excited he could hardly stop hugging me! Very gratifying for a mom. :-)

Melissa

QUEEN is Awesome!

Well this is one post I never thought I would write. QUEEN, the UK rockband performed at Freedom Square in Kharkov this last week and raised over 800,000 gr which is nearly $200,000 US dollars. The money was donated to the Green Forest Orphanage. This is the home where we adopted our boys. This is a massive amount of money for this orphanage.

Here is Queen live in Kharkov singing "We are the Champions!"



God works in mysterious ways!

A major thanks to QUEEN!

Nine Years Old!!!

Today was Max's first birthday in America. Phew! Am I glad that is over!!! Just kidding! (sort of)

Max has talked of nothing else for the past month. "My Bootday soon, yes?" "27 my bootday, yes?" etc...
He has spent the last three days carrying around a composition notebook and writing lists of 27 random things, mostly our names, and asking me how to spell them all! I can promise you that I was about as ready for the big day as he was!!!

His favorite color is pink. It's funny because that is also my dad's favorite color. He wanted a pink cake but decided to opt for a dinosaur cake instead. I ended up making a volcano with rubber dinos prancing about all over it. They didn't seem to mind the hot lava one bit! A purple mountain and red lava icing, bridge mix boulders and one of those packages of sugar letters that say "happy birthday" that Max saw and asked for, a package of cheep-o dinosaurs and we had a fancy looking cake to make any first birthday party a fun one!

Three blows to blow out all the candles.
It's alright; he's had a lot of wishes come true for him this year.

It was hard to get pictures of the gifts because everyone
would crowd in just as we snapped the shots!
What fun!

Annette's gift to Max...Oh look! just what she always wanted!

Misha picked out the perfect gift. A gun that lights up
and--Heaven help us--Makes rapid fire shooting sounds.

Pra Dedushka and Misha.
(That's Great-Grandpa to us English-speakers.)

Hannah read the card she wrote to Max.

The Birthday Boy

All tuckered out.

Melissa

Going Well

Things are going well here. The kids all continue to get along as though the boys had always been here. for the most part, the kids divide along gender lines only for certain times of play. The boys play cars, the girls talk dolls, that sort of thing. In general, we see them play together most of the time.

The weather has suddenly cooled just enough to draw everyone outdoors and we have started school a little late the last few mornings while I let the kids take advantage of the perfect fall mornings. Our driveway is on a hill and while this is something I used to regret, now I am grateful for it! The kids have spent many hours riding bikes down that hill! Remember Max's sneakers?

The last few days I have noticed the wagon hitched to the back of the play tractor. the wagon is full of dry grass clippings. Hannah tells me it is their hayride. Max is the usual driver and I have seen up to three kids piled into the back of his trailer depending on whether he is going uphill or down. :-)
Vitali and Ivy play most of the day together. They fight like little kids will, but they also love to be together. They are so funny! We just love the entertainment they provide! Here are a couple of pictures of today's lunch. Peanut butter and silly sandwiches.


Life is good. We are blessed. So very blessed. Praise the Lord!

Melissa

anyone know how to read children's drawings?

I know that there are clues in children's drawings as to how they are feeling about different areas of their lives. I am not worried but I was thinking this morning as the boys trouped out to show me their artwork that Max always draws the same things. Misha always draws his own rendition of what Max draws. I think I know how to read Misha--extreme follower(?)

And to me, Max looks pretty happy with life in general.

These are some of Max's recent works. I haven't selected only my favorites, just a random sampling. And other than that cute little monkey, these are all very typical for him.

A church, a rainbow, a smiling sunglass-clad sun and a big tree.

A very freaky-looking smiling sun (I don't think the freakiness was intentional), a house, some trees, birds in the sky...

I love this one. It's a monkey. Hard to see but so cute.

Here is something typical for him: Christmas-themed pictures. Even in the orphanage when we went to visit him, he was always drawing presents and Christmas trees. That is Grandfather Frost (Like Santa) flying overhead, and of course, the ever present smiling sunshine.

Another house. Ours. I am pretty sure he drew this picture just to have a place to put that American flag. He loves American symbols. He also loves the Ukrainian flag, but rarely draws it.

This is Hannah. I think she needs to brush her teeth. :-)

Here's what I know:
Even though Max is eight, his coloring is more like someone younger. When he colors in a coloring book, he has only this past month or so started coloring things color-correct. In other words, his pictures before might have a purple sun, a blue cat, or one pink and one orange arm, etc...

He draws smiles, bright colors, rainbows and sunshine. I am guessing he's pretty happy in general.

He draws homes, houses, and churches. I don't really know what to make of this except that he always seems to draw them with a happy environment.

In a coloring book, he will usually choose pictures of a big animal with a smaller one, father son, sister brother, mother baby, etc...

So, If you are learned in this area (or even if you are not), give me some feedback! I'd love to hear what you think. I will consider anything you suggest. Like I said, in general, he seems pretty happy and content. He really seems to be enjoying family life. He's kind and gentle and loving particularly to the little ones.

Venting but smiling

(Vitali: Age four. Cute. Trouble. Yes, that is a capital 'T'.)

I woke up weary this morning. No one to blame but myself for staying up too late. (I got a new book at the library.) I am promising myself a quick nap this afternoon...we'll see.

Vitali has been trying my patience lately. I think he has five-minute-willpower. And that is a generous estimate. For instance,

Me, the other day: "Vitali! Don't bang on the walls with your hammers. That is the third time this morning I have had to tell you." It was 9:30am. "You may not play with your hammers any more today."

Time passes. approximately four minutes. Vitali and Ivy are arguing.

Vitali: "I had it first!!!"

Me: "What?"

Vitali: "I had it my malleto!"

Yes, you guessed it. 'Malleto' means 'Hammer'.

Arrrrgggghhhh!


He was cute last night, though. I was singing with my little malinkees (small ones) in their bed. Vitali loves to sing along. His rendition of this one, complete with arm motions, is so .... so .... so "Vitali":

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
little ones to Him belong; they are weak but he is MUSCLES!"

Off to get ready for school today...
Melissa

Ugliest Camel Ever!!!

I am downloading some of the video from our trip and this is a video we took at the Kharkov zoo. This camel was a monster!

I know you are not supposed to feed animals but in Ukraine you are encouraged and expected to feed the animals otherwise they might not eat at all!

Fish story

A few weeks ago we went for our first time to our church's annual kid's fishing rodeo. We didn't think the kids would last the three hours from the first cast to the weigh in but at 9:00, nobody wanted to go home! For ten dollars total, we all ate, had a fantastic family outing and each of the kids took home an adult sized fishing pole for free!

The boys especially had fun and have been asking to go again. We took them this evening (Steve's idea) and had fun again. Would you like to see some of our pictures?


Vitali was pretty interested in the worms. Especially when it looked like they might be planning an escape!
Annette also enjoyed them. She has kind of sneaky grin here because she is getting ready to show Misha the worm that is in her hands.

Yes, he still freaks out about worms, apparently.Steve made him hold one. Misha always throws a fit before trying new things or even old things that he doesn't like but is proud of his accomplishments afterwards. See his dirty hand?

Steve, Vitali, and Misha peeking over, and through, the railing on the dock.

We did a lot of waiting....Watching our bobbers.... And replacing nibbled worms (Steve's department) .....I heard someone say once that fishing is called "fishing" for a reason. If it were easy, it would be called "catching".

We didn't catch anything.
Ivy and Annette started entertaining themselves by playing "house" with the little plastic lures in Daddy's tackle box.


Since our efforts were fruitless, we went over to Calhoun's, an on-the-water restaurant where people feed the fish below with starchy goodness left-overs from their plates. The carp that feed there are always lurking and are huge. This is one of those places where fishing can almost be called "catching".

After impressing the kids by reeling in a big carp, Steve helped Max pull one in too. Hannah also got to pull one in and they really enjoyed the challenge. Max posed proudly with his Dad so I could take a picture of his fish.
The kiddos are all tucked into bed and sleeping soundly and that is where I am heading too!

Thanks for sharing our fishing adventures with us!

Answering Questions on Fundraising for Adoption

We get a fair amount of email asking about fundraising for adoption. I often start to answer these and then got lost in day-to-day life and don't finish. I am going to try and answer more questions on a regular basis. I am also going to try and lose that 20 pounds I gained during the adoption. We will see how both of those work out!

I hope that those of you in the process of adopting get something from this.


Tips on Fundraising for adoption

#1 For us the process of adoption was a "spiritual" journey. I am not talking about the esoteric things you see on TV but of a knowledge so deep about what we needed to do. Our pastor has a saying "If you know your why, you can live with almost any how." We knew our "why" in such a concrete way that we were not going to let anything stand in the way; especially a lack of funds.

#2 When raising funds for adoption the "why" is very important. If the "why" is you this makes things very tough. Very few people want to help out white, middle income, American adults achieve a dream of adopting a child. However, if that "why" is a lonely, lost child in a vile orphanage in Eastern Europe that faces a near certain untimely and unseemly demise, many people will be moved to action. For us our "why" was about changing three young children's entire earthly and potentially their eternal destinies.

#3 People are not DONORS! We talked about what our objectives in pursuing adoption were with anybody who would listen. We did this not in a way that expected them to open their wallet but in a way that we hoped they might see the need of 150,000,000 lost children and be moved to do something to help at least one. For us that did not necessarily mean partnering with us but more of making them aware of how deep and wide this problem is. There were many people who partnered with us financially and others who did not and that was fine. There are many good and worthy causes that are deserving of support and it is essential to realize this.

#4 Car washes, lawn sales, card sales, etc are not necessarily the best means for raising large amounts of funds but they show people that you are serious about funding your adoption. The goal for us in these type of fundraisers was to share the "why." There is a saying "God helps those who help themselves," this is theologically inaccurate but people do tend to help people who help themselves.

#5 We were totally sold on the idea. We cut every bit of fat from our budget. I shopped our insurance, we started using a gas rebate card and paid it off every month but saved the rebate, etc, etc. We had already saved a fair amount of our own money for this endeavor. We changed our lifestyle and cut out most of the recreational activities like going out to eat, movies, etc. (not all, but most.) These things helped prove to those around us that we were serious about what we were doing.

#6 We used a regular website for fundraising and not a blog to share our main objectives and had a fundraising thermometer on the site. One of the most important fundraising tools was this prayer card. We had 1,000 printed up and gave them out freely. This card was very, very important to the successful funding of our sons' adoption.

#7 The greatest percentage of our fundraising monies were direct monetary contributions. We were given small to very large gifts from several individuals. When you are looking at a direct budget of ~$40,000 plus the cost of accommodating three more children and up to two months of lost income; the costs were staggering.

In the end, we had saved out of our own pockets enough to cover all the lost income, make the necessary improvements to our home, purchase a larger vehicle and pay for a significant amount of the adoption costs. Different family members, my customers, church members, friends and even strangers gave generously. Since we have been home others have given even more that has been used to help pay for medical expenses, etc.

As you can see the success in fundraising for our sons' adoption came from individuals who chose to invest in us as parents for three young children. I cannot stress this enough; fundraising for adoption is not a technique! Techniques are cheap and manipulative. Absolute genuineness is required for a successful fundraising effort. For us, the words of Martin Luther summed up our hearts desire best, "God help me, here I stand, I can do no other." There were no outs, we were "all in" and fully committed.

I hope some of these ideas might help.

Best Regards,

Steve

Misha Telling His Story of Fighting the Ukrainian Boogeyman!

By special request here is Misha telling his story about his fight with multiple Ukrainian Boogeymen.



Steve

Op-Ed by Steven Curtis Chapman

Here is an op-ed Steven Curtis Chapman wrote on adoption for CNN.

Here is the location of the original story

FRANKLIN, Tennessee (CNN) -- According to UNICEF, there are 143 million children in the world who have lost one or both parents.

In America alone, there are half a million children in foster care, and approximately 120,000 of these children are waiting to be adopted. In many countries, children are too often orphaned or abandoned because of poverty, disabilities and disease; every 15 seconds, a child loses a parent because of AIDS. These are staggering facts that can seem overwhelming and discouraging, but I believe that God has a loving plan for each child, and that plan is you and me.

Caring for these children is not the job of governments or institutions; instead, it is the job of families, people and communities. As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us. Mother Teresa would constantly remind those who worked with her that the Bible clearly teaches that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. So in a very real sense, caring for orphans is a chance to meet the person of Jesus in "the guise of human suffering." This is an invitation from the heart of God to know him and to experience his love.

Nine years ago, my wife and my eldest daughter, Emily, traveled to Haiti on a mission trip. Having been exposed to extreme poverty for the first time, Emily returned home with a determined passion to make a difference in the lives of at-risk children.

Only 12 years old, Emily went on an all-out campaign to persuade us to adopt. She bought a book on international adoption with her Christmas money and would read it to us regularly. She began fervently praying and writing letters to Mary Beth and me, encouraging us to consider giving a waiting child a home. Emily knew God was leading us in the direction of adoption; however, Mary Beth and I were not yet convinced.

My wife and I had always supported the idea of adoption, and as Christians, we understood the importance of loving and caring for others. But what I had not yet grasped was that adoption is a physical picture of what Jesus has done for me. I did nothing to deserve God's love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God's family.

My wife and I began moving toward adoption with fear and trembling and asking all the questions people ask. I remember Mary Beth crying herself to sleep at night saying, "What are we doing? I can't do this." However, God kept reassuring us that this was the direction he was leading us. It was a huge journey of faith for us.

In May of 2000, we found ourselves in a hotel room in China's Hunan province, welcoming the newest member of our family, Shaohannah Hope. From that moment, we began our journey into the world of adoption, orphan care and Shaohannah's Hope.

We went on to adopt Stevey Joy and Maria. Recently, our youngest daughter, Maria, passed from life on this earth and is now safely in the arms of Jesus. We have been completely overwhelmed by the love and support of so many during this time of deep, deep sadness. Through all that we've experienced, one thing we still know is true: God's heart is for the orphan.

In our travels to Latin America, Africa and Asia, we have visited many different orphanages. If you look past the surroundings and into the eyes of the children, they all have the same look. They seem to convey, "I don't think this is what I was made for. Where do I belong?"

These children are crying out for the hope of a family, for the hope of community, for the hope of a permanent love. Our mission, and the mission of our adoption charity, Shaohannah's Hope, is to show hope to these children and to mobilize people, families and communities to be living examples of God's love for them.

We started Shaohannah's Hope in order to connect willing families with waiting children, but the reality is that there are many orphans who cannot be adopted. Even though we may not be able to bring them into our homes, we still have the opportunity to show them the hope we have.

If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world.

We can each do something, whether it is donating, adopting, fostering, mentoring, visiting orphans or supporting families that have taken in orphans. You can change the world for an orphan

A great Summer in the Water!

Our children have benefited from several of our friends and from our close proximity to the lake in that they have had loads of opportunities to swim! Shallow backyard pools to pools with deep ends and even those with diving boards, it doesn't matter to the kids! Water is water and there are a million ways to enjoy it!

We spent yesterday afternoon with some friends in the pool and I was reflecting back on where we started and how much has changed in six months since the boys have joined our family. from Misha and Vitali being terrified of bathtubs to Misha being unable to handle the stimulous of his first time in a swimming pool:
To this:
Our Friend Danny even gave Max and Misha a few little swimming lessons! Max managed to float a bit. Misha wasn't so hot at it but did really well diving and swimming with his face underwater.

Vitali had to take a nap for a while but when he woke up, he was ready to go!
Max has loved the water right from the start. He'll spend all day playing in the backyard in a foot of water! All boy!

Our first load of school books arrived today. The school year here starts next week. Hard to believe it, isn't it?!