What's Really Been Going On... :-)

We feel that we start every post the same way…”It’s been a rough week.” I guess that’s because this has been a rough month. Rough might be an understatement… It has been, without a doubt, the most emotionally, spiritually, and physically draining time of our entire lives.

In our last post we mentioned that we were visiting other adoptable children before making any decisions about Darina. The caretakers and director at the baby house noticed that Darina was growing very attached to us and would get upset on the days that we wouldn’t come. For this reason, they asked that we not continue visiting Darina until we had meet the other adoptable children and made our decision. Another director in Pavlodar didn’t want us to have permission to visit both orphanages at the same time and therefore took a long time to sign off our papers. For almost two weeks we were basically stuck in our apartment missing Darina and desiring to meet these other kids.

Finally, our papers were signed and we took the long, and we mean REALLY long, drive out to Kachiri (The other Pavlodar orphanage for children ages 4 to 12). The trip out to this village took only an hour but the entire road is unpaved. If you’ve ever been on Indiana Jones at Disneyland you might have an idea of what we experienced for an hour on our way to Kachiri. We met the adoptable children and they were sweet, playful, and healthy. But, in all honesty, we had a difficult time feeling connected with these children in the way we instantly felt connected to Darina. We left the orphanage in tears feeling hopeless and confused for our situation and devastated and heartbroken for having to leave these precious children behind. Nothing could have prepared us for how horrible it feels to look at a child, created and loved by God, and have to leave them behind. We came home that night and talked about options. We could proceed with Darina, knowing that there is no way to know how or where she may be in the future, or we could go home. Both decisions would be difficult ones to make. If we adopt Darina there is no doubt that she would be the love of our lives and a blessing to us and those around her but the unknowns of her medical condition provokes fear. If we go home without her, we fear that would regret it and throw away an opportunity to change her life and to enrich our family. After talking to each other and receiving counsel from our families we decided to spend more time with Darina before making the decision to come home. We are thrilled to see her again after being separated from her for two weeks now. We will be seeing her tomorrow morning so your prayers for our interactions with her would be more appreciated than you know.

After our meeting with her and with the director tomorrow, the timeline of the remainder of our trip will also be clearer. We are anxious to get back to our lives and we know that our loved ones are also anxious to have us back. I (Kari) would love to thank my students for their sweet prayers and for the encouraging words that they wrote down for me in a book before I left. There is something about child like faith that is so powerful in trying times like this is.
Much Love from Kazakhstan

Sometimes when we pray it helps to have pictures. Here are a few more from our last visit with Darina.


Cuddling with Darina after her nap


This never gets old...for her :-)


We know that it gets old looking at a million pictures in the SAME room but this is the only place we are aloud to go in the orphanage.