Second Day With Sergiy

(Monday 8/4) The day started late. Everybody slept in from a very long day before. I had Sergiy help me make ranch-style scrambled eggs with toast and fruit. I don't think he had ever made scrambled eggs before. He had told us the previous day that he likes his eggs with sugar! I'm pretty sure he won't be getting them that way while he is with us.

The boys played Wii for awhile before heading out to Valleyfair. We got some lunch at McDonald's, where the boys played in the playland. According to the sign, they were too old to be in there, but oh well.





Thankfully, the weather cooperated for our day outside. Most of the day was cloudy, which is perfect when you're at an amusement park.





Just as I suspected, Sergiy was fearless on the rides. He went on everything with reckless abandon! I've been there with American kids his age that were too afraid to go on some of these rides. But not Sergiy.





Once when we were walking I saw some teen girls looking at something and screeching then running away. I went over to see what it was, and here it was this mouse, a young one as it turns out. Of course, Sergiy was wondering what I was looking at, and he came over and as soon as he saw it he snatched it up lightning quick. His reflexes reminded me of our cats. He had no qualms about picking him up. Of course, one can get into trouble without a little discernment, so we will be working on that while he's with us.



We stayed until the park closed. We were literally the last ones out because they shut the barricades at the entrance behind us as we left. The reason was because we were waiting in line at the go-carts and it was taking forever. We were the last ones on. The park was closing before we even got on them!

Our day there was an unforgettable one for me. I am glad we were able to bless Sergiy in this way. I don't know what the future holds for him, or if we'll be able to adopt him, but it will be a day that I will always treasure.

First Day with Sergiy

(Sunday 8/3) The day started with a 4:45 AM wakeup call at the hotel in Minneapolis (MSP). I got on the airport shuttle at 5:30, in the air by 8:00. Flew 2 hr. 15 min. to Sergiy's city, and met him and C. at the gate. It was nice to finally meet her and to visit a little, but we didn't have much time, as they were a little late getting there. It is a big airport. It was also nice to meet Sergiy. :-) BTW Sergiy informs me that his name is spelled Sergiy not Sergei. So sorry. I'll fix it on the blog soon. I was very surprised at how well Sergiy speaks English. Only occasionally does he have to pause when he is trying to explain something. C. and her family have been paying to have Sergiy tutored in English back in Ukraine, plus he has lived with them since June 19.

On the plane ride back to MSP, we visited, looked out the window, looked at the map of the US to see where we were, ate, goofed off, looked at a book about Odessa that I brought, etc. I have heard from many that Sergiy likes to joke and that is definitely true. He likes to pull your leg.

At the airport, Nancy and Mark met us. Nancy had a banner made, which embarrassed Sergiy. But I think he liked it, though. ;-)



We took the airport shuttle back to our car at the hotel, then headed over to the Mall of America, which is right next to the airport. It is an enourmous mall, I think the largest one in the US. I believe there is a larger one in Canada somewhere, but MOA is in this Phase II thing to add on, to reclaim the title of the largest shopping mall in the world.



Anyway, they also have a small amusement park in the center of the mall. We wanted to do a test run to see how well Sergiy handles rollercoasters and such before going to Valleyfair. Let me say he is fearless and loves them.



The MOA also has an aquarium, so we got to see sharks and stingrays and other sea critters. We also got to pet some stingrays and little sharks. He loved that.





By 8:00 we were all tired out, so we got a quick supper at Boston Market and headed to our niece Sabrina's house. We are staying with her and her husband while we are here in MSP. Just as we expected, Sparkle was glad to meet Sergiy! Sabrina and her husband are the ones adopting from Chile.

Mark and Sergiy are getting along well. This morning Sergiy was jumping and laying on Mark to wake him up.



Today, we all slept in, will be heading over to Valleyfair for some "serious" rollercoasters. Unfortunately there is a 30% chance of thinderstorms or rain showers today. I hope the weather cooperates.

Look for Me

I'll be wandering around the airport looking for you!

Mitchell Bound

This afternoon, Nancy, Mark, and I will drive up to Minneapolis. Tomorrow morning, I fly out to bring Sergei to us. For a variety of reasons, we will actually be flying in and out of Minneapolis rather than Sioux Falls. We will spend some time up there doing some tourist things, such as the Mall of America and Valleyfair amusement park. On the way home, we will be stopping through Lake Norden, so Sergei can meet some relatives, then back to Mitchell on Tuesday night. If I have internet access, I'll post during the trip, otherwise it'll have to wait till we get back.

Sergei Is Coming

A few days ago I blogged about the surprise we had regarding Sergei. Sergei is being hosted in the United States this summer by a very special family. I mentioned how the situation is so confusing, and I was able to get it figured out. I think.

I called the person at Frontier Horizon and introduced myself, explaining our relationship with Sergei, and how we were very surprised to learn that he was being hosted in the US this summer, since he wasn't on the list to be hosted.

Apparently, FH had made arrangements for some other kids from Sergei's orphanage to be hosted for the summer. But suddenly the orphanage director said that they would require Sergei to be hosted as well. So FH had to scramble to find someplace for him to go, and they didn't know how to reach us. So they turned to the family that hosted him last December.

Fast forward then to early July, when out of the blue, the family tracked us down. They are so kind and are a wonderful Christian family. Together, with FH, we worked out a plan to have Sergei come see us. So this Sunday, I will be flying out to their city to pick him up and bring him back. He will be here for a little over two weeks.

We were able to talk to him on the phone for the first time. Just to hear his voice was so precious. He knows some English, and is learning more every day. We will have a very full schedule for him. I don't think he will get bored. I will be taking several days off from work.

Sparkle is anxious to meet him. So are we!

"Walking" With Sparkle

Well, we've had Sparkle for almost a month now. We are new to this dog ownership thing. Of course, she needs to go on "walks" several times a day. You could say Sparkle "walks" in the same sense that a housefly "flies" - seemingly random and not straight for very long. Nancy and Mark are out of town for a couple of days, so I get walking duty. This is how it goes:

Me:	Sparkle, do you want to go out?
Sparkle:	Is it time to go out?!! Is it?!! I'm ready! Let's go now! Hurry up! Open the door! Let's go in the car! I want to go in the car! No?!! OK! Let's walk in the street now! Stop! I hear something! Someone's pulling out of their driveway! Let's watch! I smell something! Over here! Hurry up! Now let's go over there! I'm going #1... no, yes right here! Hey look at that! Hurry up! Let's go over there! Did you hear that?!! It's a dog! He's on the other side of that field! Let's go through that field! No?!! Wait!! There's some tall grass! I want to eat some! Now let's go! Wow smell that?!! Let's go see! It's a dry turd! Let's sniff it! Ow! Don't yank so hard! OK hurry up! Stop! What was that noise?!! Oh well let's go! I'm going #2 right here! What's the matter?!! All finished! Hurry up! Hey there's a grasshopper! Let's catch him! Wait I smell something! Let's go see! Here it is! It's a dead toad! And so on.
Me:	I want to go home.

Next week, Sergei can take her on walks. Oh, did I mention that Sergei's coming to visit us? More later.

No Longer a Children Donor

Found some hard numbers on 2008 Ukrainian adoptions. According to Yuri Pavlenko, the Ukrainians are having success at encouraging domestic adoptions over foreign adoptions. So far in 2008, for the first time, there have been more domestic than foreign adoptions.

	Domestic	Foreign	Total
1st half of 2007	821	893	1,714
1st half of 2008	1,010	642	1,652

The government also reports that 834 children have been placed into foster care so far in 2008.

2.5 thousand children adopted by new families
All about Ukraine Blog

Lazy Boy

Man, I'm lazy updating our dossier. It just keeps getting more and more whacked. Ideally, we wouldn't see any red or yellow in the spreadsheet, but as you can see there is plenty of it. We actually do have some updated documents in hand, but I haven't sent them in for the apostilles or sent them over to Ukraine. From reading other blogs, it looks like there is time for that when we get a submit date, so we should get some warning. For now, I'm just gonna save the money. To date, since July of last year, we've spent $4,700 on these adoptions, and we have absolutely nothing to show for it yet. :-(

If you want the spreadsheet for yourself, you can get more info here and a link to download it. There have been 37 downloads so far.

Flip Side

We American PAP's moan and groan about how long it takes to adopt Ukrainian orphans. Anybody that has followed Ukrainian adoptions since the NAC days, then the SDA, knows that the adoption process has several times been halted as the Ukrainians review the process, make adjustments, and start up again.

From my perspective, the SDA is kind of this black hole, doing things that are difficult to understand. Today, I was glad to find this surprisingly candid forUm post from 2006 that featured Yuri Pavlenko, the Minister of Sport, Youth and Family, which is the parent organization over the SDA.

He gives interesting tidbits of information, such as (paraphrasing):

• They are not sure what happened to all of the missing reports by American families that Americans claimed were filed, but Ukrainians didn't have them. (One of the reasons that foreign adoptions were halted was because the SDA was complaining that foreign families weren't sending their reports they committed to).
  
  
• In 2000, there were 2,200 domestic adoptions. In 2005, there were 1,500.
  
  
• 18% of Ukrainian families want to adopt.
  
  
• 3,000,000 Ukrainians want to become adoptive parents for 93,000 orphans.
  
  
• The problem is not the Ukrainian people, it is the government that is not letting them adopt, taking up to 6 years.
  
  
• Pavlenko would like Ukraine to ratify the Hague Convention. The banning of middlemen in the adoption process is their workaround for now.
  
  
• They have a 10-year plan to move kids from larger orphanages (300 kids) to smaller orphanges (50 kids) in their area of birth.
  
  
• 3,000 Ukrainian families have applied to form family homes, but the government has only approved 600.
  
  
• Orphanage directors support orphanage reform.
  
  
• The government is turning to the private sector (business) to help with orphanage reform.
  
  
• The government regularly performs inspections of the orphanages. Pavlenko says that the number of violations is decreasing.
  
  
• 10 to 15 kids living in a room looks horrible to foreigners. And "it is horrible."
  

I'm sure many would argue with him over his views, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

Ukraine's Minister for Sport, Youth and Family Yuri Pavlenko on Current Situation in the Orphanage System and the Adoption
forUm
October 5, 2006

Finding Family

Came across a newspaper article that includes Heidi and Felix Rogé. The Rogé's are currently hosting, and, like us, are waiting to get their dossier submitted to the SDA. (That is NOT them in the picture)

Finding Family
By Amber Baker
The Reporter-Herald, Loveland Colorado
May 10, 2008

"God Made It Easy"

If you are interested in Ukrainian adoption stories, you MUST read this one. If you are working on an adoption, and the hassles are getting you down, go back to it.

Here is a snippet:

"Would you like to meet her?" our translator asked. Chris nodded. One of the women in the room left to find the girl.

I realized at that moment there was no turning back. How could a couple introduce themselves to a child and then reject her? That would be heartless.

The door eased open. Tanya was, as they described, gorgeous. Someone in the room instructed her to sit down. She hung her head, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

One look at Chris and I knew she would be our daughter. If it's possible to see the moment someone falls in love, I had watched it happen.

Through an interpreter, we inquired about her interests. One of the handful of people in the room asked her about her dreams for the future.

"I want a family," she answered, barely above a whisper.

A Chosen Family: Where Love, Longing and Need Meet
By Kim Hone-McMahan
Beacon Journal, Akron Ohio
May 11, 2008

Ditto on that Scanner Thing

In Michelle's blog post "Thank God for scanners", she mentions that she scans all of their dossier documents.

We did the same thing. It is the way to go. The first time you work on a dossier, you really have no idea what you are doing. Our facilitator, Oleg, has templates of the documents on his website. Those are indispensible, but after you get them filled out like you think they should be, you will invariably find that something is not filled out just right. What we did was scan the documents as we got them ready, BEFORE the apostilles, then emailed them over to Ukraine for review. Oleg and Dima looked them over and emailed us feedback for things to change. Most changes were little, but apparently very important. The medical forms were especially troublesome. They took several rounds of revisions until we got them right. I can't imagine actually mailing the documents back and forth to get them right. Ick. Once they gave us the thumbs-up, we sent them to the SD Secretary of State's office for apostilles, then UPS'd the originals over to Kiev.

As I blogged before, our documents in the dossier are expiring. We are slowly replacing them with updated versions. I'm kind of dragging my feet on getting them sent over, though, since there is cost involved and it seems needless at this time. There is very little hope of getting our dossier submitted this year, even though we are wanting to adopt older kids.

Blogrolls

Just got done changing the links in our blogs to blogrolls. I was finding that it was just too time-consuming to check the various blogs for any updates. Now I can tell at a glance if there are any new posts. It took a bit of effort, though, to get that done, that's why I didn't do it sooner. There are some blogs that don't have what they call "feeds", so they don't update and they show up at the end of the lists.

If you're a blog author on Blogger you might consider making the change as well.

I also rearranged the order of the links so that those in Ukraine or about to go are near the top, since from looking at the blog traffic it looks like those are the blogs that most people jump to.

"A God Thing"

"After 3½ years of paperwork, squabbling and travel, the family has adopted Simon and Sarah, Ukrainian orphans."

Adoption experience of a family in Bend, Oregon.

New Language, New Culture, New Family
By Sheila G. Miller
The Bulletin
June 15, 2008

Sparkly Clean

Sparkle got her first bath last night! Now she is sparkly clean! She also got a sparkly new flea collar! Do you like exclamation marks?!! Sparkle likes exclamation marks! Life is one big exclamation mark when you're a little doggy!

Hosting Confusion

A few days ago we had a nice conversation with... THE FAMILY HOSTING SERGEI FOR THE SUMMER!

What a mess of confusion.

Frontier Horizon thought we weren't interested anymore because... we didn't adopt him. Sergei thought we weren't going to adopt him because... we haven't come over to get him. The family thought... I'm not sure what. They were as confused as anyone. They just suddenly found out that Sergei needed a host home because "that family from South Dakota isn't adopting him." We found out he was being hosted for the summer by the same family that hosted him last December and we didn't know their intentions. Ugh.

Then they made the effort to track us down and called us. Thank you thank you!

Those of you that know Sergei will understand, I'm sure, that anyone who spends time with him will want to adopt him. By all accounts he is such a great kid. It came as no surprise to us that the host family is interested in adopting him, or maybe I should say was, after talking with us.

Now if you were in our shoes, what what you have said to them?

This is what we said: We want to adopt him, but Ukraine is so unpredictable that we cannot guarantee Sergei that WE will be able to adopt him. If you wish to proceed with adopting him, please do so. I've blogged about this before. What if we don't get that referral? It's possible. Who knows. You know us, if it were up to us, we would have been there last May to get the kids. But it isn't. In telling them to pursue him if they wish, it is not because we don't care about him. It is just the opposite. He will have more of a chance at being adopted if the other weren't able.

I must say that the family was very gracious and kind. And if you're reading this, which I expect, please know that we very much appreciate the concern that you have for Sergei. We both have a desire to see Sergei in a family of his own, no matter which one it is.

One other thing we are excited about is that there may be a possibility to meet him this summer. The host family would like that. Please pray for that option for us.

Wanted: Home for a Doggy Orphan

Once again I have been shirking my blogging responsibilities ;-) Mark has been bugging me to blog about the new addition to our family. But first...

We spent the long 4th of July weekend at the Skoglund family reunion in Lake Norden, SD. We stayed at John and Shirley Larson's Bed & Breakfast on the shores of Lake Norden. The picture in the corner was looking out our room's window. We highly recommend staying with them when you're in the area. We took the WaveRunner and tube along and gave rides to the relatives that wanted to.

Here's a picture of Mark at the Lake Norden spillway.



Here's me, on the left, in a quartet singing the hymn, To God Be the Glory, with David, Doug, and Dean. Thankfully, we don't have audio, because the tenor stunk!



Nancy and her 3 sisters grew up on a farm near Lake Norden. Their parents have passed away, and the farm has been sold, but her sister Valerie and her family still live on a farm there. Seems like there is always cats and kittens at the farm.



As part of the reunion we went on a wagon ride.





Now about that doggy...

Mark's cousin Sabrina took in this little dog from a family that didn't want her anymore. Her name is Sparkle and she's three years old. So she brought her to the reunion hoping to find someone to adopt her. Well it just happened that Mark has been bugging us for a dog, and we were wanting to get one anyway so that the kids we adopt from Ukraine would have one... So, now, Sparkle has moved to Mitchell. She joins our two cats, Patches and Bootsie. Here's a picture of Sabrina giving Sparkle to Mark to take home!



Sabrina and her husband, Boyd, have started the adoption process for adopting 3 kids from Chile.

Lewis & Clark & Scouts & Tornadoes

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I haven't posted for awhile. I just got back from spending a week with Boy Scout Troop 75 at their annual summer camp at Lewis and Clark Scout Camp, near Yankton, South Dakota. The camp is located along the shores of Lewis and Clark Lake, which is really the Missouri River with a dam on it.

I took 342 pictures at camp this year. Yikes! The one at the top of the post with the sailboat is at the camp's waterfront. Here's a couple of Mark making a stool.



When we started all of our adoption paperwork, we were thinking that we would have the kids by now. I would like to see Sergei be a Boy Scout. I hope the adoptions will happen soon so that Mark will be around and also have time to help him out.

I would make a terrible reporter. Before I left I wanted to blog about the tornado down in Iowa at Little Sioux Scout Camp that killed 4 Boy Scouts and injured many others. It was just downriver from this camp between Sioux City and Omaha.

The tornadoes that were in Iowa could have easily been in South Dakota. Last year, in May, two tornadoes crossed the river from Nebraska into South Dakota only 5 miles east of our camp. We didn't have any boys there at the time, but one of our troop's adult leaders was at the camp then and saw the tornadoes first-hand. Here are some pictures of those. How would you like to be in a sailboat and see that coming at you?

"Grew Into My Heart"

One of the websites I've linked to over there in the Other Links section is Karen Springs. She is involved with a project called The Gift of Adoption. Take a look at her website for more information and lots of pictures.

Karen is involved with CBN WorldReach, a ministry of The Christian Broadcast Network (CBN). In this video you will see Terry Meeuwsen, an on-air personality at CBN.

The Gift of Adoption
Uploaded by emmanuiltv

They Really Do Roam Here

If you've ever seen the movie Dances With Wolves, you may remember the buffalo hunt scene. There was a time when there were herds of thousands of buffalo that roamed freely on the plains of America.



The vast herds are gone now, but there is still a place where buffalo roam, and that is in Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

We visited there last Friday before my mom's wedding. We hosted their California guests on a sightseeing tour. If you're ever in the area, Custer State Park is a must-see. Here's a picture I took of some buffalo.



Buffalo meat is available for eating in the area. It is leaner than beef. Here's Nancy at a buffalo buffet!

Got Me a New Dad

Well, well, well... Just got back from a big weekend. Mom got MARRIED last Saturday. Wow it's hard to believe. Andrea has been single for oh, I don't know, almost 40 years now. Then Mac comes along and sweeps her off her feet! Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. MacMillan.



This also means I have a new step-dad and new step-brothers. Never had bro's before so that's kind of neat. One of Mac's sons, Mike, was there, so it was good getting to know him.

I'd have to say that was a good way to spend Father's Day weekend.

The wedding took place in the gazebo at the Black Forest Inn in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The wedding was informal, with a few of Mac and mom's friends and classmates from California and South Dakota in attendance. The Black Forest Inn is on US 385 between Lake Pactola and Sheridan Lake.

I'll post a few more snippets from the trip later this week. I'll leave off with a picture of us. I wanted to wear a tuxedo but the groom would have none of it!

A Tough Choice

I hope you understand that I can't go into details, but recently we wrote a letter to Valya introducing ourselves and telling her that we would like to adopt her. She received the letter last Friday. We described our family, included pictures of ourselves and our home, and letters and pictures from her friends Lena and Tanya that were adopted by the Tolly's last year.

We had been praying for her for a long time and this opportunity. We have found out that Valya has 5 siblings, with occasional contact with a brother, and infrequent contact with her mother. Please pray for her and us as she decides if she would like to be adopted. According to the orphanage director, she is adoptable.

The other thing that concerns us is the SDA. Will they let us adopt her? We will do all that we can, but really it is out of our control. It is a helpless feeling. So much uncertainty.

Dimples and Roses

Our friends in Ukraine sent us some new pictures of Valya. Here's one of them.

It's Official: Birth Rate Too Low

There's a lot that could be discussed in this little news article.

Current birth rate too low to overcome demographic crisis
forUm
May 29, 2008

Yuriy Pavlenko, the Family, Youth, and Sports minister, says that Ukrainian families need to have a minimum of two children to overcome the demographic crisis in Ukraine (see my earlier blog post).

He mentions the current Fertility Rate, which is 1.33, up from 1.20. He would like to see it at 2.0 (which was the U.S. rate in 1999). Interestingly, even at 2.0, there would continue to be a demographic crisis. See discussion of Replacement Rate here:

"The TFR required for a closed population to eventually reach equilibrium in size ranges from 2.5 to 3.3 in developing countries and is near 2.1 in many developed countries (2.075 in the UK for example). However, it may take several generations for a change in the total fertility rate to be reflected in birth rate, because the age distribution must reach equilibrium."

I also posted earlier about the cash benefits that families receive for babies. The news report lists the amounts as: $2,400 for the first baby, $5,000 for the second, $10,000 for the third and each following baby.

Interestingly, he also reports that, contrary to what I noted in my blog post, the birth rate in "problem families" did not increase because of the monetary payments.

Flower Girl

I was glad to come across Josh Via's blog post that describes the funeral for Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter Maria. Maria was a five year old girl from China that the Chapman's adopted and, tragically, was run over in their driveway and died. I avoided mentioning it before, but the description of the service is incredible. One thing that stood out to me was that she was buried in the dress she would have worn as a flower girl in her sister's wedding.

Steven has a tremendous heart for orphans and adoption. Besides being an award-winning recording artist, he is the founder of Shaohannah's Hope, which is a foundation and resource for people that need help with adoption. If you need financial assistance for an adoption, you can apply for a grant.

UPDATE: There is more coverage and pictures of the memorial service here.

Flying's a Wizz

For those of you going to Ukraine to adopt: There is a new airline coming to Ukraine that will offer flights between a few select cities that they claim will have cheaper tickets than the train. The Kyiv Post is reporting that WizzAir will fly between Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Simferopol, and Odessa. They are based out of Hungary, so presumably they will have flights from Hungary as well. 'Course, if you have luggage, or want something to eat, it'll cost ya.

Slippery Slope

Oh how fun, our dossier is beginning to expire.

Ukraine considers the documents in our dossier good for one year. When it gets submitted to the SDA by our facilitator, they must have at least 6 months of lifetime on them. Therefore, allowing for mailing to Ukraine, EVERY document will be required to be refreshed about every 5 to 5½ months.

We are just reaching our first deadline. Our homestudy will expire on June 14. I emailed our social worker today to get an updated one.

Since we started this blog after the original dossier was sent over, I never had a chance to blog about our original dossier. I'll do that now as we go on so you can see what documents there are in it.

PS: If you're also in our situation, I have a spreadsheet to help you track your dossier dates here. There have been 30 downloads to date.

"Blah blah blah"

South Dakota and Mitchell are in the news again this weekend. Mitchell, the home of George McGovern and his McGovern Library, hosted Bill Clinton and Barack Obama over the weekend.

Bill Clinton spoke at Dakota Wesleyan University on behalf of Hillary, and Obama spoke on Main Street in front of the Corn Palace on behalf of... himself.

The Clinton family and Obama have been criss-crossing the area trying to drum up support. Neither of these candidates will be getting my vote, though. Even if I had no other reasons (I do), their pro-abortion stance is enough to turn me off.

South Dakota and Montana have the last elections of the presidential primary season. It is interesting, that, for years, South Dakota has tried to have the earliest primary election to try to attract interest in our state. But now that it is last, it is getting all of the attention.





UPDATE: It's ironic that the battle for the Democratic presidential candidate comes down to George McGovern's home state. The whole Democratic superdelegate mechanism was put in place, according to Susan Estrich, to ensure that no more unelectable candidates like George McGovern end up on the Democratic ticket!