Archive Post: Quick Thoughts

Quick thoughts

We have tickets with United Airlines leaving Knoxville on December 7th and arriving at Kyiv Ukraine on December 8th.

We are under $10,000 needed to complete the adoption and seeing God work on a daily basis.

I have added a page answering about why we need a dentist referred here.

We have been purchasing stuff for the trip and I went ahead and purchased an American football and a rest of the world football (aka soccar ball) to take with us to the orphanage.

Tourist stops I would like to make include Chernobyl (not up close), Crimea, and Odessa. Not sure I will make any but who knows!

I am still planning on taking a swim in the Black sea even though it will be December. I may never make it back!

We will probably be switching the website to a blogger hosted account soon because it makes it easier to post pictures, video, and allows easier comments. I hope to start answering some of the many questions asked soon.

Very busy here.

Steve

Archive Post: Two Milestones Reached

This week we have reached two milestones on our journey. The first is that we have finally booked our airline tickets and the second is that we have now gone under the ten thousand dollar mark in our funds needed category!

I'll have Steve post later about the airline details. I know some of you are interested in the details since you are getting ready to do the same thing!

As for the money...Praise God! and thank you to all of you who have been so generous and self-sacrificing. Your gifts mean far more that you'll ever know.

Balshoi spaceeba! (Russian for "Huge Thank You!")

M.

Archive Post: Entry for October 15, 2007

Lists of things to be thankful for...

I enjoy lists! Do you? I like the feeling of getting to cross items off and knowing immediately what to do next. But I have never left the country and certainly not for over a month! So making this list is the tricky part for me!

Steve is constantly list-making lately; lists of outdor projects, people to contact, indoor projects and even a wish-we-could-do list!

Less than two months!! I'm so excited. Can you believe it!?

I am not even worrying about the finances. I admit that I was, but every time I started getting discouraged, I felt ashamed of myself when God showed up!

Steve has had quite a few of his customers give him gifts of $50 or $100 because the heart he has for these kids is just contageous! Then we were at Shoney's for breakfast a while back and the couple sitting at the next table over struck up a conversation with us. The girls told them that we were adopting three children and they wanted to hear all about it so we visited awhile and then gave them a prayer card. Out in the parking lot, the man drove up beside us and got out and handed us $100 through the window! And just yesterday, a friend passed along a $100 gift from a mutual friend of ours whom I haven't seen several years. So, I am not worried. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and He will provide! Praise be! and this is just a small sampling. Steve's parent's church members have sent us gifts as well. These are people whom we don't know but who love the Lord and care about the children and just want to help! So instead of being anxious, I want to keep remembering to be extremely grateful--to those who have reached out to us who do not know us or just want to show their love and support, and especially for whom the gift was a sacrifice financially or their time and energy. And I have not forgotten all those of you who express your love through prayer! Because I am most thankful to God who is the Great Orchestrator of this abundance of blessings!

Thank you all so much!

Now off to tackle the lists...

Melissa

Archive Post: !!!!!DATE!!!!!

Yep, I'll be needing to do my Christmas shopping early!

Our appointment date in Ukraine is
.....Drum roll, please................December 11!!!!

Who knows what will happen because of the holidays but it seems a pretty sure thing that by Christmas we will be with our newest little ones! Now I get to start the list making....who am I kidding? I already have!!

Thank you for waiting with me! Now don't leave. I love your comments! They are so encouraging to us.

Melissa

Archive Post: Blogger's Giving me troubles --and other stuff

Still no word on an appointment. We aren't expecting to hear anything until at least this afternoon going by our facilitator's pattern of emailing.

Also, I can't seem to log into blogger. (for those of you who watch our other site, www.theeimers.blogspot.com) Every time I try to sign in or post a comment to any of you, the connection "times out" and I lose it. Very frustrating; especially since I often do very "wordy" comments! Anyway, I am still watching your news but I am just reduced to "lurking". I can't post on my own site either (just this one) since I can't sign in. The problem seems to be with Blogger since "waiting for blogger to reply" is where it keeps getting hung up. Anyway, now you know.

All that said, if we get the news of an appointment date before the Blogger thing is resolved, this is the only blog that will have the news; so our faithful friends, relatives and/or prayer warriors here will be the only ones in "The Know"

And, yes, I do think it's because you're special!

Keep praying. No news on "news days" is a killer! We just really want to be able to plan!!! I mean, would it kill me to do my Christmas shopping now in case I'll be gone then? No, of course not. But it would be nice to know if I have to or not!!

I know, I know--the spiritually correct thing to say is, "All in God's timing"!

I will say that I do believe that he will work it all out for His Glory. And for that, I am proud to be a part of His plan, but I also know that there are many instances where His timing wasn't executed. Not because we can thwart His plan while He watches helplessly from the Heavens (not even close!), but I don't know why He allows what He allows, knowing what He knows. I trust His sovereignty and since this is all for Him, that is my comfort.

Still Waiting and Praying,

M.

Archive Post: Entry for October 5, 2007

Yep....Still waiting..... Any day now!

Keep us in your prayers. This waiting thing is sometimes discouraging and sometimes not so much, but the longer it takes, the harder the wait. Please pray that we will "wait upon the Lord"....happily.

M.

Archive Post: Entry for September 26, 2007

[whiney voice and sound of me slapping my forhead]:

Ohhhh, Ma-a-a-a-a-n....

I was off by a week!

Steve told me this morning that next week is the 6-week mark, not this week!

I'm still going to constantly be checking the email! I can't help it! I even fixed it so that whenever we get an email from Valentina, our computer will make a big noise. :-)
Melissa

Archive Post: Entry for September 25, 2007

Well, I am checking the email every chance I get: It is very likely that we will hear of our appointment this week!! I suppose that if we don't, we will be concerned. This is the six-week mark that has recently become the norm depsite the fact that they are supposed to respond within 20 business days. We were hoping it would speed up with the passing of summer and the end of the vacation season but so far, apparently not!

Anyway, just wanted to let you know what's up. This whole thing seems to move in fits and starts. (is that how that expession goes? I know what it means, but it doesn't make any sense at face value)
At any rate, we're still here!

Melissa

Archive Post: Half Way and Day 21

We have moved to having more cash on hand to cash needed to complete the adoption. We now have $11,900.00 in savings and $11,600.00 to go. We are now on business day 21 of our 2o day wait but that is not abnormal. The SDA has been taking upwards of 30 business days and that would put us on the day after the parliamentary elections so whow knows! Progress is being made but the entire process is characterized by mad sprints followed by even more maddening waits.

Steve

Archive Post: Prayer Cards

Prayer Cards

Well, so that we have something to talk about while we wait to post the news of an appointment date, I thought I'd tell you all that we've had prayer cards made up! Steve owns a window cleaning business, as many of you know, and he traded services with a friend who is a photographer and who was able to help us design the cards.

Our cards should be ready in the next week or so. If you read our blog but would also like a prayer card to help you remember to pray or even to share with others, then please email us with your address and we would be happy to put one (or more) in the mail to you! If you are a family member, don't bother--you're getting one whether you want one or not! HeHe.

Thanks for praying already, as so many of you do.

Need I tell you again? Probably not--but, Hey!, it's my blog!--

I am sooo excited to meet these children soon and bring them home! What a blessing!

Love to you all,

Melissa

Ps. OOPS! Forgot the email address: seimers@adelphia.net

Archive Post: Very Good News!

Do you ever just feel like dancing?!! (Okay, you Baptists don't have to admit it. *wink,wink*)

Last November, we made the decision to go ahead and pursue this adoption. January saw us begin the paperwork, then February, March, April... In May, we were finally able to send the dossier (paperwork) to the translator in Ukraine. In June, we sent updated papers for the expiring ones we had done back in January. July was spent eagerly anticipating getting submitted and then, in early August we were told it probably wouldn't happen untill after the September elections....

But....

WE"RE IN!!!

We went to the bank the other day to get 27--yes, 27 documents notarized! we were trying to get all of September and October's documents updated at once to save the shipping fees. Steve forgot to go to an appointment about updating our backround checks (saved $75). He got online to look up something about the paperwork and saw in the email this message:



Hi, Steve!

Finally good news – we managed to submit your dossier today. ... it’s there and in about a month or so your dossier will get its registration number and an appointment date (usually now within 3 months).

Best regards,

Valentina

Steve wept. My jaw dropped. We were totally not expecting this! This puts our travel time likely to be over the holidays. probably most of December and some of January. We are soooo thrilled!

Now, this doesn't mean you can stop praying but you can surely add a praise to your list!!!

Thanks for lifting us and these children up to God in prayer. It means so much!

Melissa

Ps. If you need a reminder or just want to know how the prcess goes from here, click on this link to our family blog where I have it all listed:

http://theeimers.blogspot.com/2007/08/whats-next.html

Archive Post: Yard Sale Complete!

Baked goods at the yard sale. My mom also put out coolers of sweet tea and water just for free drinks because it was so hot. I had made cupcakes and brownies and sold all but one brownie and 3 cupcakes...well four, I guess, I forgot about the one Ivy swiped. It is hard to resist sprinkles and icing when you're two years old!

Yard Sale

I am sooooooo glad to be done! I am beat and a bit sunburnt, but our yard sale raised 250+ dollars and Hannah raised over $20 of it herself with her little entreprenurial streak that I am sure she has inherited from her dad! I guarantee she didn't get it from me!

Hannah had the idea to do a magic show but since she only has one trick that she can do really well, ( disappearing coin) so she did that one over and over free of charge for each and every customer all day long. She even made herself a jar marked "donations" or as Annette said, "Dalmations". She loved the opportunity to help us get her brothers and/or sisters and I loved seeing her do her little performances!

Thank you to the several of you who donated items for sale! I feel so good to have my garage back!!! Yahooo! So glad to be done. (or did I mention that?) Yard Sales surely are a whole lot of work!

By the way, this week also brought another generous gift! This time from one of Steve's customers! You know who you are....Thank you sooo much!

I am not kidding but Steve woke up that day feeling so down about this money thing. We had just heard from another adoptive family their report of expenditures--it was a lot. Somewhat more than we had expected. I think they spent a bit more freely that we will but still.....Anyway, that day--that day---Steve's dad called to say that this donation had been made. Let me tell you: it was the same way last time we were feeling discouraged. God keeps looking after us. What blessings he gives!

Archive Post: Yard Sale!

I don't know who this guy in that picture is, I just liked the photo and swiped it for this post. Hope he did well selling all that stuff though. It looks like prime college-guy furnishings there...

Well, we have a bunch of money to raise! Nothing new there! Maybe you've noticed that the thermometer on the home page has marked more funds received (praise!!) but also more funds required! ( Eeek! ) How did that happen? I guess that is the nature of international adoption. Aaargh! (Aaargh. Is that a word handed down to us from the pirates or did the modern pirate legends steal it from the Charlie Brown Peanuts comic strips? Such an appropriate way to express in a few letters both frustration and something else...not quite sure what...) Anyway, with the extra days there in Ukraine for the passport thing comes extra expense. We are looking at the possibility of making two trips or perhaps one of us staying and one coming home for a bit. That would be nice in a way. We'll wait and see what works for others, though.

At any rate, no matter how this cashes (what an appropriate word) out, we need more dough! Lots of it! So we are planning a yard sale for August 18th. If you live in the area and have anything to donate, please let us know! Also, put a word in for us in your prayertime for the weather that weekend, if you don't mind! ;-)

No new news on the dossier; I guess it didn't make it in this week. Not that we were expecting it to. We always hope, though.

Melissa

Archive Post: 10 more days in the Ukrainian sunshine

Well certain opponents of adoption in Ukraine have struck again!

They have added another 10 day waiting period for passports. This new wait is in addition to another 10 day wait period for the finalization of the court decree. Our stay will now likely be over 40 days. I thought when I re-did our budget yesterday I was set now we need to plan for another $1,000 in cost!

Many anti-adoption rules have been implemented this year without legislation and that clearly violate the civil rights of Ukraine's most vulnerable citizens. These young orphans have a right to be registered for adoption, a right to be offered for adoption, and a RIGHT TO BE ADOPTED. Please pray that the elections of September 30 will be favorable to the Ukrainian orphans and that the wild disregard to their rights will stop.

Steve

Archive Post: Status Update

Melissa has been doing most of the posting but I thought I would share a few things. First of all Ukraine is still crawling along and not much is getting done! Tonight I finished up an expense log of our adoption thus far. Here are a few highlights:

Total costs of adoption: $32,735.04

This has slowly (quickly I mean) been climbing as time keeps dragging and in addition the American dollar is extremely weak and this is causing prices to climb.

Total costs paid to date: $9,235.04 of which $7,911.77 has been paid in cash and $1,323.27 is a non-interest acruing debt to our first aka fired MD.

Total cash on hand: $10,684.39

In addition, we have purchased a vehicle and made improvements to our current home that will accomidate the size of our new family amounting to $7,013.87. We have saved the funds needed to cover the lost income for the 4-6 weeks we are in Ukraine. At this time we are $12,815.61 short of what we will need to complete the adoption.

I would ask you to pray that these three needs will be met:

1. The $12,815.61 will be provided to complete the adoption of these lost children.
2. That we can find a dentist who will choose to partner with us to help bring our adopted children's teeth up to where they should be when we return.
3. Most of all please pray for our children who are in a desperate and untenable position and and that the SDA in Ukraine will accept our dossier.

Thanks,

Steve

Archive Post: Entry for August 1, 2007

I saw this quote on the blog of an adoption friend today. She wrote it over a year ago and I am not sure if it was original with her but I will give her credit anyway!

"A child doesn't have to grow under your heart to grow in your heart."
-Leslie L.

Thanks, Leslie for this little phrase. I think I will put it in a picture frame or something. We are still waiting for word of submission. I guess it didn't happen this week...there is always next week!

Archive Post: Entry for July 26, 2007

Steve scheduled a call with our consultant yesterday to discuss our options. From what we have heard, it has been extremely difficult to get anything submitted. So, because of this, we wanted to see what we should expect as well as to make sure we aren't just spinning our wheels in Ukraine.

The conversation was helpful and mildly encouraging. It still is an unknown as far as when things may start happening for us but she assured us that it will eventually happen. she said that especially for us, who are young and willing to take three, it should be smoother. I hope she is right!

The election is coming up at the end of September and that is when Cathy (Our consultant) expects things to start moving again. It seems that the trouble is that there are all these social workers but no supervisors and that it is a case of the fox guarding the hen-house mixed with while-the-cat's-away-the-mice-will-play where nothing much gets done.

So, we pray! If you know Steve, then you know that having no control and depending on a system that you have little to no faith in is very hard for him! He likes to get moving and get done. He also is anxious for the children and the expense and hassle of having to keep re-doing paperwork to keep our dossier updated untill its submission. Please remember him especially.

Melissa

Archive Post: Bad News, Good News

Well, what looked like a real possibility of submission for us fell through for us this week. Disappointing, to say the least! We had heard that we could expect our dossier to be submitted today but found out that not only would that not be possible, it is unlikely to happen within the next month or two. This is discouraging to us because it means re-doing a bunch of our paperwork. In fact, Steve is leaving Nashville right now where he has just finished getting our updated physicals apostilled and fedExed to Ukraine--AGAIN!

We were encouraged to hear that someone donated $500 toward our adoption expenses this week. What a blessing that God reminds us that he will supply as we need it. It would please me if he would supply it all at once so I wouldn't worry but then, I wouldn't learn how unnecessary my worrying is! I think of the verse in Hebrews that says that we are to "endure hardship as discipline". This is something that is hard to do at times but if God wants me to learn something best learned through trials, then I want to get started right away learning my lesson so I can move on!!

We are so impatient. Impatient to meet our children, impatient to raise the funding, impatient dealing with paperwork, impatient, impatient, impatient! I heard a quote from someone once, though that said, "Never pray that God will teach you patience; He just might do it!" Of course I am joking. I do want to learn patience! But learning can be hard. Right?

As always, Pray for us!

Archive Post: Entry for June 29, 2007

I went to Walmart today to do my grocery shopping and they were making room for the school clothes (Yikes! Already?). This means a bunch of racks of super cheap clothes. I first spotted a couple of pairs of sweatpants for $2 each and then I saw a three-piece outfit for $4 and further on found some t-shirts for $3. So I bought some things in several different sizes. Mostly all boy's stuff (that's a first for me!) since we have girl's sizes up to 7/8 pretty well covered around here! We can take these clothes with us when we travel and anything that doesn't fit our kids we can donate to the orphanage there.

We laugh sometimes about a couple of different things; one is that even one boy in this house would be a major change from the Barbie and My Little Pony messes we are usually cleaning up. And the other is that if we go to Ukraine where boys outnumber girls 3 to 1 and come home with all girls we'll know God just plain doesn't trust us with boys!

Melissa

Archive Post: Making Headlines...kinda

Steve and I started out our married life in Jamestown NY. The newspaper there, The Post Journal, printed the jist of an article that Steve sent to them. The reporter added some information from our website, too. If you would like to see this article then here is the address: http://post-journal.com/family/articles.asp?articleId=17082

After a brief stint in Arizona, We moved back to NY to live in Fredonia where Steve's family lives. The newspaper there printed the article too, this time without much alteration. You can read that article online as well. The address is: http://observertoday.com/family/articles.asp?articleID=13799

So that makes us kind of famous, I guess! But not so famous that we take it for granted. Just famous enough to still feel the need to brag. LOL!

Melissa