Today is Easter here in America. Last year we were in Ukraine during the Easter holiday for both our countries. The Ukrainian Easter date was a week off from the American Easter date, so we got to celebrate Easter twice! Through the off chance meetings and connections while we were there, we ended up with a church family for our stay in Zhytomr so we got to do the whole Easter thing while we were 6,902 miles away from home, and had a wonderful day with our church family that is now on the other side of the world this year.
We still talk about our 47 day journey last year to bring K & M home and although the adoption process can have its stressful points, there were a lot of great memories from the trip. It's funny how you can travel to the other side of the world and in a matter of weeks God provided us with all that we would need materially to complete our adoption, a church family and friends. We still keep in touch with them and follow the weather (it is cold and buried in snow over there, so I'm not minding 81 degrees here in Texas today....).
While we didn't always understand the words being spoken (our translators were awesome but there is only so much they could capture and pass along....) but the heart for God that they had was awesome, and it showed in the way they lived their lives. We were in a world that seemed totally different (different language, alphabet, currency, metric.....) and still cared for and welcomed. Hopefully everyone will feel that way when they walk into a church or spend time with a Christian today. It's not the talk, it's the walk.
Welcome to our blog! We are so excited that you would take the time to follow our adoption journey! Thanks for coming along for the ride as our adoption of Kayleigh and Michael was completed in May 2012 and as we embrace our new world of parenting five teenagers!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Super Dylan
Today is Dylan's 15th birthday. It's hard to believe he's getting that old (he certainly is getting tall!). When we looked into adoption the doors opened for us to host Kayleigh, and as she had a younger brother in Michael, we ended up being blessed with two new awesome kids into our family. We had gotten to know Kayleigh from the hosting trip but didn't meet Michael until we arrived at the orphanage in Zhytomr a year ago (hard to believe it's been that long!).
We still laugh about when we met Michael. As usual they had to send kids to go find him as he was always out in the woods around the orphanage. When he came into the office he ended up standing next to Dylan and everyone kinda just stopped talking and started looking. It was uncanny, they looked like real brothers! In the year that we've known and had Michael, it has been awesome to see what has literally been a total transformation. What started as a quiet boy who kept to himself and never smiled has become a strong, confident and happy boy. He is very warm and outgoing, excels in sports and has a really good group of friends. He has really been a huge blessing to our family.
I credit Dylan for a lot of this. When you have kids and adopt, it's not just you adopting or taking on the responsibility for parenting your new kids, it falls on the whole family. Dylan has been the best big brother in the world with Michael, took him under his wing as a brother from day one, and has truly helped him become one of us. He really embraced having a brother (he always had wanted one....) and that big brother / little brother relationship has really meant the world to Michael's emergence.
We know that Michael have 2 older brothers back in Ukraine but know so little about them. We pray that they are well and hope that they will know in their hearts that their younger brother is in a family where he is cherised, loved and cared for, and has a big brother here to watch over him. He couldn't be in better hands!
We still laugh about when we met Michael. As usual they had to send kids to go find him as he was always out in the woods around the orphanage. When he came into the office he ended up standing next to Dylan and everyone kinda just stopped talking and started looking. It was uncanny, they looked like real brothers! In the year that we've known and had Michael, it has been awesome to see what has literally been a total transformation. What started as a quiet boy who kept to himself and never smiled has become a strong, confident and happy boy. He is very warm and outgoing, excels in sports and has a really good group of friends. He has really been a huge blessing to our family.
I credit Dylan for a lot of this. When you have kids and adopt, it's not just you adopting or taking on the responsibility for parenting your new kids, it falls on the whole family. Dylan has been the best big brother in the world with Michael, took him under his wing as a brother from day one, and has truly helped him become one of us. He really embraced having a brother (he always had wanted one....) and that big brother / little brother relationship has really meant the world to Michael's emergence.
We know that Michael have 2 older brothers back in Ukraine but know so little about them. We pray that they are well and hope that they will know in their hearts that their younger brother is in a family where he is cherised, loved and cared for, and has a big brother here to watch over him. He couldn't be in better hands!
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