Finally some news!

So after nearly a year…we got an e-mail from our caseworker!  Woo Hoo!  As I have mentioned before this will be the first time South Africa has ever adopted their children internationally before.  That being said, all of the agencies in South Africa must be accredited before any other country can adopt from there.  I am not sure exactly how it looks on their end, but it is my understanding that there is a large stack of applications and paperwork from all of the agencies there waiting to be accredited.  We have been told to expect delays.  Delays are not much of an issue for us right now as Drew has just started a new job and taking off for 4-6 weeks for travel would be doable, but difficult.  Our trust is in the Lord and that he knows exactly when the best time is.

We did, however, get a more encouraging e-mail today.  I am not sure I fully understand it, but the news is as follows.  An affiliate from our agency (Wandisa is our agency) just spent 4 hours in a meeting with a Dr. Mabe (not sure exactly who this is, but he seems pretty vital) last week.  She stated that the meeting was “pleasant” and that they went through Wandisa’s fee schedules and made “positive progress.”  She reported that “once we have finalized these issues, he will approve the social and administrative aspects that the Act and Regulations deal with.”  Also, Dr. Mabe apparently invited Wandisa to dialogue with him at any stage and join hands with him in regards to the way forward.  Finally she quoted Dr. Mabe saying, “he will shortly approve the Fee Schedules, allowing us to immediately move ahead.”  All this sounds very exciting to us after such a dormant year.  We are expecting to receive another update soon and the adoptive families have been invited to call for a one-on-one chat if they have any questions.  Drew is planning on participating.  I look forward to a much more active blog as it seems this process is finally underway!

Celebrate with us as we thank the Lord in prayer for the update, and continue to pray with us for the child(ren) who will be placed with us.  Our latest prayer is that God’s glory would shine through this child/these children and be revealed to everyone who comes in contact with him/them.  We ask that even now our sovereign Lord is drawing them and preparing a way for them to come home to us.  More specifically I pray Isaiah 53:12 For you shall not go out with haste, Nor go by flight; For the Lord will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

 

Brief Update

So,  I was finally able to pick up our police clearance Wednesday.  I immediately walked over to the county clerk to get everything sealed.  We were really hoping that we could get some sort of flat rate for all our seals.  We needed 23.  Unfortunately the girl I was working with was not up for that.  She said, “Who told you that?  It will be $5 per document.”  At this point I was willing to stand on my head and do tricks to get everything done.  She hesitantly sealed each document proclaiming that typically for several documents you have to bring them between 8 and 11 or else drop them off and pick them up the next day.  Thank you, Jesus, for some cooperation, however hesitant.  The documents are now on their way to Nashville as I left them at the Post Office Thursday.  Here’s to hoping we get them back with the great seal of the state on them in a timely fashion!

Ready to Go, but waiting on competence.

So, I gladly received word from Drew today that after two weeks of waiting for our police clearance to arrive in the mail, it has been waiting on us to pick up since May 22.  Seems like if they wanted us to pick it up they wouldn’t have told us they would mail it to us…?  I quickly dropped my plans for the afternoon to rush downtown pick up the clearances and go to the court clerk and FINALLY have everything county sealed and prepared to send to Nashville for a state apostille.  When I arrived at the police department the employee knew exactly who I was and immediately grabbed our clearances.  Could it be so easy?  NOPE.  On my way up the elevator I began reviewing our clearances.  Drew’s was perfect.  Mine, on the other hand, referred to me as “his.”  I called our caseworker who informed me that I should have it changed for it would not suffice in South Africa.  I returned to the Police Department only to be told that the person who needed to make the corrections and sign it for me was already gone for the day?  It was 2:15.  Mind you the previous visit we couldn’t get our clearances because the person who needed to sign them was out for the day and wouldn’t be in until the following Tuesday.  Do these people even hold normal office hours?  A little frustrating, but the employee today told me to come back for it tomorrow.  Too bad we have literally WASTED $6 in parking for three of what will be four visits to the police department for a simple police clearance.  I am certain my frustration with this is clear, however, I would like to point out that we are still extremely confident that the Lord is working for his glory.  He has a perfect child picked out for us and is faithful to our prayers for this child.  We are not discouraged, only delayed.  The plan, for the moment, is to get the clearance tomorrow and mail it to Nashville ASAP for the apostilles.  When Nashville returns the dossier to us we will then take it to our adoption agency for copying and shipping first to their corporate office in Grand Rapids then to South Africa.  Our adoption itinerary predicts 6-9 months from that point to our referral which is when we will receive a picture and health records of a child to be adopted!  We are so close we can taste it.  Cannot even wait.  The boys pray for their new brother every single night without fail.  Brooks told me tonight that we need to send with our dossier a paper for our new brother with his name on it so he will know he is to be a Burnette!  What a sweet understanding he has, even now at only four years old,  for God’s call to adoption!  Our prayers are that this will translate to him his own need for adoption by our Father in Heaven and subsequent acceptance as a son and heir to the throne!

We are Back in Business!

So, as we expected, we have already had some minor delays in getting our dossier completed.  The dossier is no easy task to begin with.  Add in a few user errors and inevitable road blocks and before you know it a one month process turns into a 6-8 month process.  So we began our dossier making great timing.  We busted our tails to get everything completed and doled out to the designated people who needed to help us.  We planned to collect all the documents then take them downtown to get a county seal then drive the same day to Nashville to get an apostille on everything.  Drew suggested we take everything by our case worker at Bethany to have it checked before we pay for the county seals.  Much to my dismay I took the extra time to drag the kids to the adoption agency and have her look everything over.  24 hours later we discovered a multitude of mistakes.  Thank goodness we let her check it!  It took at least another week to get things corrected.  Once we did, we went by the agency one last time for a triple check and our case worker advised us that the agency’s South Africa liason had been in meeting all week in South Africa concerning international adoption from there.  She advised us to hold onto our documents until further notice in case anything changed.  We received a call a couple of days later notifying us that in deed some things would be changing as we waited for our affiliate agency in South Africa to get accreditation.  Because South Africa has never adopted children internationally before, none of their agencies are affiliated.  This process was expected to take until June.  Therefore the agency would not accept our paperwork until June, at the earliest.  This was a bit of a disappointment until we remembered that this would allow us a little more time to gather our funds for the upcoming fees.  Before we knew it we received a call from our case worker that we should go ahead and finish our stamp and seals and get our paper work sent off.  That is where we are right now.  We are getting the last few time sensitive items together to get everything county sealed this week.  Woo Hoo!

Now, for a belated update on our Ukrainian visitor!  Nastya was with us for two and a half weeks when she finally arrived in Knoxville.  There was a slight delay due to the swine flu in Ukraine and illness among the orphans as well as some governmental trials.  The Ukrainian govt decided to halt all international flights leaving Ukraine for a short period.  Nastya finally arrived in Knoxville Christmas Eve.  We picked up Nastya around 2:00pm and with plans to attend the Christmas Eve services at church we only had a few short hours to get acquainted.  We decided not to take Nastya shopping immediately.  We also decided to have her attend service with us in the clothes she came in.  It was very important to us that Nastya feel welcome.  We did not want to make her feel like she wasn’t good enough by making her clean up and shower before taking her to church.  Due to the holidays we decided to take the risk that it would be a few days before we could get some clothes for her.  The Lord blessed us with an overwhelming response from our church.  Westlake provided our family as well as the entire group of host families with suitcases, boxes and boxes of clothing, gift cards, and cash.  Our families were very gracious to Nastya matching our own children’s gifts with gifts for Nastya of both clothing and toys.  We realized very quickly how challenging the coming weeks would be with the incredible language barrier.  Nastya did not seem to mind that we did not understand a syllable.  She continued babbling in Russian as if we were fluent.  For some reason it did not occur to us that the Russian language would not only be difficult to learn, but illegible as, unlike Spanish and French, it has completely different characters that make foreign sounds.  We quickly discovered a free online translator that would allow us to type in english and translate it to Russian then would provide Nastya with a Russian keyboard to type us messages on.  This certainly made communication easier, but you overestimate the knowledge of an eleven year old orphan.  As Nastya would type, if her words were misspelled they would not translate.  More times than not her messages to us would include one english word in the middle of a long sentence of broken Russian.  She would spend 3o minutes or more trying to convey one simple message to us, nevermind that as the days passed her messages grew more and more obstinate and argumentative in nature.  We had an independent, rebellious teenager on our hands.  The first sign of trouble was trying to get Nastya into the shower for the first time.  The discussion began with a typed message of “You need to get in the shower and get some pajamas on to get ready for bed.”  Upon reading our message Nastya replied with a long strand of incomprehensible Russian.  We quickly figured out that showering was not in her plans at any point in her visit to America.  A couple of hours later, we finally got Nastya showered and decided this may be a battle only fought when necessary.  The first night in our home, Nastya slept wonderfully.  We awoke her Christmas morning and literally drug her downstairs to discover her gifts.  She was delighted and blessed to see that someone would care this much for her.  We were very intentional in telling her that our love for the Lord had led us to bless her the way he had blessed us.  The next of our frequent battles started Christmas evening.  We had received some very pertinent wisdom about these children before their arrival that setting them up in a room to themselves might feel more like a tomb to them than a sanctuary as many of them had never spent a single night in a room alone, rather a room filled with beds and other children.  With that in mind and having two boys, we decided to set Nastya up on an extra twin mattress beside of our bed.  Nastya’s second night with us she decided this was not ideal for her.  She persistently requested to sleep in our bed with us.  Mind you she is and 11-year-old girl.  We continued to insist that she had to sleep in her mattress on the floor.  (Hers was actually a real twin mattress and not a blow-up mattress) She complained that her bed was hurting her back and she needed to sleep with us .  We informed her that her mattress was the same as ours and we would not be buying her story.  She continued for the next week and a half to wake me every hour on the hour to let me know how uncomfortable she was.  You cannot imagine my frustration when I would finally nod off (for the hour) only to be awakened moments later by a Ukrainian poking my shoulder with her finger saying “Broooooke, Broooooke”  Finally after 8 nights or so with only minutes of continuous sleep at a time, I was falling apart.  We gave Nastya an ultimatum.  I told her if she woke me up even one time I would make her sleep in the guest bedroom because I HAD to have more sleep.  That seemed to do it.  Steve, the coordinator of the Kharkov to Knoxville project offered to take Nastya for a day and give us a short break.  We obliged.  After 45 minutes of chasing her around our home and receiving a few blows from her, Steve managed to convince Nastya that he would be bringing her back to our house at the end of the day.  She finally agreed to go with him.  He pulled into the driveway of the translator and Nastya proclaimed in perfect Russian “Finally, someone who speaks Russian!”  We made several trips to the gym with Nastya to swim in the pool.  She thought that was fantastic!  We finally took her shopping a few days after Christmas.  If you have ever shopped with an opinionated teenage girl, you have our empathy!  That was an adventure in itself.  During her stay in America Nastya experienced all the finer things: ice skating at the Icearium (thank you to the women in my bible study whose gracious daughters agreed to meet us!); A group-wide visit to Dollywood; A fun annual New Years Eve party at our dear friends home; A game night at our house; A group wide movie night in Russian; a visit to Morristown including a quick trip to my uncle Otis’ farm to see the miniature cows, the horses, and most importantly his dog.  To sum it up in a long sentence:  We were truly blessed to have the opportunity to host Nastya for two and a half fruit-eating, dog visiting, teenage tantrums, come-to-jesus-meeting, ear-piercing (yes I said ear-piercing, we had no idea she did it!!!!!), gift-giving, most meaningful and memorable weeks.  God showed us the true faith and acceptance of a child as we watched our children love her in a way that was even difficult for us.  We watched her reject them and their love time and again and time and again they returned to her loving her in a way only a child and our heavenly father can fathom.  It sounds like a mess, but I am not lying when I say we were blessed beyond measure by this experience and have every intention of trying it again after a short hiatus to obtain our next child from South Africa.  Thank you Jesus for the opportunity to see your children the way you do and share your love for us with Nastya!

Kharkov to Knoxville

We have hesitated to report this in our blog, but are certain it is applicable preparation for our adoption!  We have volunteered to host a Ukrainian Orphan in our home for three weeks during the holidays.  We go to Atlanta to pick up Nastya December 22!  How this came about:  Drew received word about the Kharkov to Knoxville project a few months ago.  The deal was, the host family should be able to pay for all travel expenses necessary.  Since we are in the middle of our adoption, we knew this wasn’t for us.  We just didn’t have the money to spare as the cost was predicted between $1500 and $2500.  Considering our heart for orphans we, as did many others involved, presented the project to our Sunday School class.  Within the day all the funds for the project had been anonymously donated and most all children placed in host homes.  We received a call from the project organizer about a month later stating that there was one last child, Nastya, a twelve year old girl who still needed a host home.  Drew phoned me immediately.  I was on a treadmill at the gym when I received his call.  Drew informed me of the situation.  My initial response was, “Drew, I would love to host this child, but I will not want to send her back!”  He agreed then proposed, “Brooke, wouldn’t you rather her get to spend a wonderful Christmas here with us than not get to come at all?  What if this is God preparing us to adopt a girl from South Africa?”  WHAT!!!! I immediately started to cry and had to get off the topic.  So, this is where we are.  We are eagerly awaiting Nastya’s visit.  We have some anxiety about the language barrier as she is not expected to speak any English.  It may be a long awkward ride back to Knoxville from Atlanta!  Please let us know if you have any suggestions or if you speak any Russian!  We are, however, delighted to be blessed by such a project.  As  Nastya will arrive with only the clothes on her back, we look forward to taking her shopping for some clothes to take back!  If I remember correctly we have been told we can send her back to Ukraine with two 20lb. suitcases!  It should be fun helping her fill them up!  We  are praying for patience and wisdom as we hopefully show her God’s grace and love for her as his own daughter!  We are also praying and preparing for the possibility of having a girl as part of our referral from South Africa!  Keep us in your prayers as well!

Woo Hoo!

I just finished the 8 hour online Hague Training Course!  Believe it or not, Drew (please forgive me for throwing you under the bus), my non-reading husband, finished his this morning at 11am, before me!  I love seeing him so motivated and passionate about the same thing I am!  A brief update.  We finished our Home Study interviews the week we started them (almost a month ago)!  The completion certificate from this Hague Training will complete our Home Study and if I understand correctly (which I rarely do) officially start the clock counting down to our referral!  We also got an e-mail from our social worker that there are four families working on their dossier and we make the fifth.  I am certainly not sure about this, but that would seem to make us 5th in line assuming everyone’s status remains unchanged!  We are so excited!  The home-study interviews went extremely well.  Basically, we need to get a fire extinguisher.  Not really sure where to buy one, I am assuming at Home Depot, Lowes, or Wal-Mart!  This is such an exciting adventure for our family.  As a matter of fact, I may have mentioned this before, but Brooks mentioned at the dinner table a few weeks ago, “I wish my black brother was here to eat dinner with me!”  Seriously, God is just that good to us!  Brooks has come so far!

Adoption Lesson #1: “Home Study” does not neccessarily mean in your home.

We started our home study today!  Yay!  It has been slow until now, but I have a feeling things will begin to pick up a bit.  So our home study started at 9:30 this morning.  We got Brooks off to school and I got back just in time to get Moses up and ready for a perfect meeting with our caseworker (I guess that is her title).  9:35…9:45…10:00…10:10…no word, no one… So, Drew calls Bethany and says, “We were suppose to meet this morning at 9:30, right?”  Our caseworker says, “Yes, but that is okay.  Things happen.  I understand.”  Drew is thinking, what?  He says, “Did you have trouble finding our house?”  She said, “No, it is suppose to be here at Bethany.”  Needless to say we were late, but we did get there and begin our interviews this morning for our home study.  It was really neat to hear Drew answer some of the questions about me and to think about when we met and got engaged.  I think my favorite response was when he said that he really appreciates what I do with the boys and how I let them be boys.  He confirmed that he thinks I am doing a good job.  I was fighting back tears.  I think no one noticed.  Thank goodness Moses was there for me to focus on.  He did great, by the way.  Much easier to just have Moses at those meetings than both boys together!  So, when we finally got around to it, the home study got off to a great start!  We still don’t have a grasp on the time frame, but were encouraged that once the home study starts things should start rolling.  Really excited as we are truly leaning toward two children now!  We will have to wait and see what God has in store for us.  We will be blessed even if it is just one!  Praying for him/them all the time.  Even Brooks in his sweet prayers remembers his new “black” baby brother.  As a matter of funny, he just said at the dinner table last night, “I wish my big black brother could be here.”  At least he’s accepting it!  We may have to work a little on his differentiations.   Who knows maybe he knows something we don’t.

…A Family Began!

More than six years ago I envied a college roommate who had just returned from one of multiple mission trips to South Africa.  After some prayer, I decided to make the trip myself.  When informed of my plans to go on mission to South Africa, my family panicked.  My parents were not interested in sending their baby girl to a “third world” country with no one they knew.  The amount of funding it would take to make the trip was more than my family could or was willing to pay for a trip to such a place.  Defeated, I continued attending the meetings and increased the amount of prayer I dedicated to this subject.  I returned home from college on Easter break to find an Easter Basket filled with African memorabilia and a check for the amount of money I needed to make the initial deposit and save my spot on the airplane.  In the weeks of prayer my parents had received my tax return for the exact amount I needed!  Even they could not say no to such a provision from God!  While preparing for the trip, I fervently prayed that the Lord would let me focus on nothing more than his will for me on this mission trip.  Specifically, I prayed that the Lord would close my eyes to anyone of the opposite sex that might distract me for the duration of the trip.  The trip was a huge success.  I was most certainly ministered to as much as, if not more than anyone we served in South Africa!  It wasn’t until the 22 hour plane ride back to America that I noticed Drew.   Drew was a trip veteran having just completed his third successful trip to South Africa.  Midflight, I opted to move myself to the seat beside Drew.  A forward and uncharacteristic move on my part.  After at least 12 hours of talking through the night about every topic imaginable it was apparent that Drew was more than just another guy.  Nineteen months later, we were married and two years later we started our growing family.  Now, five and a half years later, we have two sons, Brooks and Moses and have begun the process of adoption.  We discussed adoption and prayerfully considered it for about a year before we finally acted on it.  We made an appointment at Bethany to discuss our options.  In the weeks before the appointment as we prayed, we felt led by God to adopt from South Africa.  Upon research we discovered that South Africa was a country closed to international adoption working only to place children with families in their own country.  We continued to pray about it as I emplored Drew to try and pioneer South African adoption for us and others.  While I was praying Drew was contacting lawyers in South Africa.  With no luck, Drew informed me that it just didn’t work like that and most of the countries were appalled at the thought of allowing Americans to adopt their children.  They felt it reflected poorly on the country’s ability to care for its own.  We continued our prayers unsure of how everything would pan out.  In our first chaotic meeting at Bethany, Brooks and Moses in tow, we were asked which countries we were interested in adopting from.  Knowing it was probably hopeless, we briefly described our call to South Africa and opted for Ethiopia, another African country.  You can imagine our joy when we were told that at that exact time a pilot program was being established with South Africa.  Our year of prayer and discussion was God’s year of preparation for us to adopt from South Africa.  We were just told last Tuesday that we have, in fact, been accepted into the pilot program for South Africa.  We were the twelfth and final family chosen in a group that was suppose to be only 10.  At this time we are finishing the extensive application packet with Doctors appointments, finger prints, background checks, and ethical essay questions.  We continue to pray that God would prepare us and our family for what is about to come out of South Africa this time!