Counting Down

On April 22nd, our updated documents arrived in Riga, Latvia and were delivered to our Latvian Lawyer.  We had already emailed our homestudy and it was due out of translation on April 23rd.  My gut feeling was that we would have our referral before the end of the month with travel in mid May.  I kept thinking how awesome it would be if we flew to Latvia on Mother's Day...well, on April 24th, we were given our court dates of May 15th and 29th, which means we fly out of Jackson on...Mother's Day!  Our official referral came on Friday the 27th and we immediately signed and returned, as well as emailed the Director of Children's Ministry to accept our referral.  So now, we have airline tickets booked, we have a room in Riga for our first night, an apartment in Liepaja for 14 days, and then an apartment for 3 nights back in Riga. 
Rita seems very happy with this change in her life.  I think Lera is happy.???  We are happy and excited to begin this journey.  We don't always understand 'why us'.  We are just glad we were chosen for this amazing opportunity!  The girls are such a blessing.  It is exciting to discover aspects of their hearts, to feed their hopes and dreams, to begin this life journey together with them.  Another adoptive mom wrote recently about feeling sad that she had missed so many of her adopted child's 'firsts'; but then she realized, even though the child was a teen, she still got to experience so many of the 'firsts' she enjoyed with her younger children, just with an older child!  I, too, look forward to many firsts! 

A Long Time Coming...

Much has happened in the past few weeks.  We have been been poked and prodded, tested, stuck, and questioned extensively.  And the verdict is...ADOPT!  A second opinion says, ADOPT!  And now, our agency has issued our renewed homestudy, I received it on 4/12, had them apostilled that afternoon, and shipped it to the Lindell's on 4/13.  It's rather interesting that Chris and Julie will be the one's to take these final documents to Latvia for us...we met them in Atlanta for the Christmas 2010 hosting.  We were hosting Emily and they were hosting her foster sister, Val, for the second time.  The girls communicated off and on during the hosting period and we thought we had 'lucked out' on our first hosting experience.  Everyone was sure we had found our daughter...even Emily's statements and actions said so!--until she got back to Latvia!!  Chris and Julie were supportive as we dealt with the heartbreak of 'losing' Emily.  Now, as we get ready to make our first trip to adopt Rita and Lera, Chris and Val will be making their 3rd and final trip to Latvia to finalize Val's US immigration status.  They will hand deliver our documents to Daina. 
We just got an email from Daina that our updated homestudy, which we emailed to Daina on 4/12, will be out of translation on 4/23, the day she should get our originals.  Then, all that is left is for the documents to be notarized in Latvia then delivered to the Childrens Ministry office.  Next should be our referral...
And again, we are tied with a Georgian family... this time it is Ken and Heidi Fletcher.  The Fletchers are adopting Lera's biological sister, Ksenija.  We were informed that we would all be in court together since the girls have to be adopted at the same time. 
So now it is time to reveiw the checklist of things that are needed for the 1st trip.  A handful of forms, income tax summary page, gifts for about 5 ladies and 2 men, gifts for the foster family, clothes for Rita and Lera, and a large sum of cash in the form of brand new $100 bills that can be exchanged for Lats and Euros.  Thankfully, the few fundraisers we had done last year plus selling some items we no longer used, have funded trip #1 (minus that pesky little thing called Airfare for 4!).  But, God will provide for that also.  Hopefully, in a little over a week, we just might have our referral.  Could we really be at this point?  It's been a long time coming, but maybe it's just about time!