Waiting for a Referral

Hello All. We are still on track to travel a week from Sunday! God has done some wonderful, miraculous things in these past three weeks. Here's how awesome he is; 1)Our letter of invitation was not faxed on time and we needed that before we could get our visas. On the day we got out letter faxed, we got our visas issued...no delays at all. 2) We think we've found an amazing child care program for the few hours a week that I will be teaching. References have said that the lady who runs the program has made a huge difference in their child's life. Finding someone so wonderful who will take a child part time at a reasonable price is a total blessing. Plus, she's right here in Ladera Ranch.
God has proven himself faithful which is why James and I have faith that we will be leaving on the 24th of August. But...in order to leave on time we will need God to intervene yet again. We cannot travel until we have confirmed that there is a baby girl available in our specific region. Currently, the orphanage director has a very ill son and has not been working for about a week. Our agency cannot check on available children without her there. This is our dilemma. We are praying for the health of this young boy and are also praying that the director can return to work so that we can confirm that we will be traveling on time. We also need to make our flight reservations as soon as is possible. Thanks for your prayers! We'll keep you posted when we hear of a referral...hopefully on Monday or Tuesday.

Preparing to Travel

Hello All,
James and I are just about a week and a half away from leaving the US for Kaz. We have been busy getting all our travel items ready and I have been working around the clock trying to get my class room and lesson plans completed. We are waiting on our letter of invitation to actually be faxed to our agency so that we can get our visas. That is the only big stress at the moment. We can't book our flight until we get that letter. We are also waiting on our referral. We may or may not get a referral before we leave. We might just have to wait till we get to Kaz to see Ava's sweet face.
Praise Reports:
- We praise God that it looks like we will be able to make my cousin's wedding in October with the baby!
- I am feeling very little anxiety about traveling which is a huge deal.
- James should finish up his big project at work just days before we leave.
- We have such wonderful family and friends who are supporting us and praying for us.
- God has taught us so much about himself through these last few weeks...he is sooooo in control.
Prayer Requests:
- That we get our visas and can find a reasonably priced flight to Kaz.
- A safe and smooth experience in Kazakhstan
- That Ava would adjust well to her new Mommy and Daddy.
- I will sadly be missing the wedding of one of my very best friends, Jessica. I pray that she a beautiful day and feels how much I love her and her husband to be.

Love you all...hope you and your families are well.


Brandi made Ava a beautiful quilt. Her son, Sawyer, has a matching one :-)

We're Done!

Today James and I signed our final papers in preparation for leaving to Kaz. After finding out about our travel date on Saturday, we've had to get finger printed, Dr. checkups, visa pictures, marriage license, and the list goes on. James is especially happy that we are done since he deals with all our paper work. We received our Kazakhstan survival guide last night and read over it with much excitement. We are learning more and more about how this adventure is going to play out(And it will be an adventure...I can be sure of that) Our agency still needs to receive the fax of our Letter of Invitation before applying for our visa so pray that they get it very soon. Stay tuned...
Kari and James

Total Miracle!

When our agency called to tell us the wonderful news I was in total and utter shock! I didn't fully hear what our director was saying after he initially told us that our travel date was three weeks away. I called him today just to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. He told us that it is a MIRACLE that we received our letter. They have never seen an LOI (letter of invitation) issued in August for an August travel date. He also said that there were many applications before ours and somehow ours was pushed forward. I am so thankful I can't even express it! What have we done to deserve this amazing blessing? God's grace is so unbelievable. I just wanted to share the goodness of God and his ability to do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine." I know that we are not done with this journey yet, but I do know that whatever happens from here on out is in God's hands one hundred percent. He is so faithful to hear our hearts.

We have been invited to travel!

Hi friends and family. We are thrilled to be sharing this news with you all. Today we received our letter of invitation from Kazakhstan. This was the last major piece in this adoption puzzle. The date that we were given is at the end of this month!!! It could be after that depending on a few different things (but not too long after). So...we will be on our way across the world to meet our daughter in just a few weeks :-) We should receive our referral any day.
We received the news today as James and I were at the pool with our dear friends Emily and Darren who came to visit us for the weekend. We were able to call James' Mom who was soooooo excited and ended the night discussing what names my parents want their future Granddaughter to call them. What a great, great day!
God has blessed us and guided us in ways we don't even understand and we are so thankful for his constant hand in our journey. Now, instead of praying for paper work and approvals, we can focus on prayer for Ava as a person and for our travel details. We are almost at the end of this adventure...Praise the Lord. Expect many updates on our blog in the next few weeks. Thanks, as always, for your love and support. Ava is blessed to be coming home to such open arms.

For those who are faithfully checking our blog...

For those who are faithfully checking our blog...this is for you! We have nothing new to report other than the fact that everyday that passes means that summer is closer to ending, which means we are closer to traveling to meet our baby. We are now expecting to travel in September once all Kazakhstan officials get back from their summer holiday. Please pray that we will travel no later than September or October. We don't want to meet further delays when getting into the Christmas holiday season.
But, instead of focusing on what is NOT happening I wanted to take a minute to focus what IS happening:
1) God has encouraged me through a friend of a friend who is beginning the adoption process with her husband. Although many couples our age are starting their families, James and I do not know anyone who is starting their family in the same way we are.
2) I can hopefully soon say that my best friend has given birth to a healthy baby boy...Sawyer Smrekar!
3) James and I had the opportunity to take a weekend trip to San Diego to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. We enjoyed what will likely be our last anniversary as a childless couple. I just have to say how thankful I am to have a husband who has been so completely excited and on-board with this adoption which is something that has been a dream of mine since I was a young girl.

Here are some pictures for you all! Hope everyone is doing great! We will hopefully be emailing you with a more exciting update very soon.


Anniversary Dinner


James painting Ava's letters with love :-)


Some books and stuffed animals that await her!


We also got to catch a Padre game on our weekend in San Diego.

100% Approved

A few weeks ago our 4 1/2 year old niece informed James and I that if we were going to have a baby girl, we needed to buy her a coloring book. Well, in hopes of being approved this week, I picked one up. AND...we found out today that Kazakhstan has officially approved the Letterneau family to adopt a baby girl! We are thrilled. As we reported earlier, things become terribly inefficient during the summer months so we may still be about 10 weeks from traveling. Our approved paper work is now in the region in which we will be traveling. We cannot share where this is yet but we are excited about traveling to this specific region. We've heard great things about it and about the health of the children that come out of it. We are so thankful for getting to this point. We are anticipating the next month or two to be slow but who knows...HE could surprise us :-) Thanks for the continued prayers for things to keep moving along smoothly.