Arturs is coming for Christmas!

We are going to be able to host Arturs for Christmas!!! He will arrive on Dec. 16 and be with us until Jan. 15. We are so excited. I will admit that there are a lot of emotions that we as a family are dealing with. We were so hoping that next time we brought Arturs to America it would be forever and not just for a visit...but since that was not in the plan we are just excited that we are going to be able to have him here with us again. Jessi has said that it is going to be really hard to say goodbye to him this time but I am not going to focus on that . I am going to enjoy the time that God has given us to spend with him!!! We are busy making plans and getting things together for him. Please keep us and Arturs in your prayers.

Hard decision

After several months of Arturs trying to decide about the adoption a decision has been made. Due to the fact that he has developed a realationship with his birth mother and she does not want him to leave Latvia, we have stopped the adoption process. This was a very difficult decision to make. We discuss it several times with Arturs and tried to make it clear to him that once we stop the process we will not be able to begin it again because he will turn 16 in December and we will not be able to adopt him after that.

Our plans are to stay in touch with him and hopefully have him visit us when he can. Our desire was to do whatever God had planned for us & for Arturs. Maybe the plan was to reunite him with his birth mother...we may never know but we do know that Arturs is a very special young man and we hope that we can be apart of his life from now on.

Prayer Concern:

Sorry it has been a while since I have updated. There has been a lot of "stuff" going on. The biggest thing and the one I would like to ask for prayer for is for Arturs. He is struggling with leaving Latvia. He wants to come but is having a hard time saying goodbye. Below is one of his emails to me...

i want go to amerika!!

but it is hard say goodbye to my famelie

Arturs does have some contact with his brothers & sister. One brother, Sasha is in the same orphanage that he is in . Sasha is 16 and can no longer be adopted.

I am asking all of you to please pray for him to have peace in whatever decision that he makes. We have reassured him that we will not be upset with him no matter what he decides. That we just want him to be happy.

Our Dossier is on the way!

Okay after a few very crazy moments we have been able to get our dossier together. Our friends Jack & Stephanie Higgins had to take some papers down to have apostilled for their adoption of Anya and so they graciously took all of our documents (38 to be exact). Then on Friday we made a trip to Acworth to deliver our documents to a couple who are heading to Latvia this week. They will hand deliver these documents to our lawyer for us; who will have them translated and then she will file them with the courts. Hopefully we will receive an invitation to come to Latvia soon. Presently it seems to be taking about 3 months to get a court date.

Finally...

Okay, we have finally finished the home study. We had to make some changes (good ones) with Ronnie's job change, so it took a little while longer than we thought. We have mailed everything in to USCIS and are waiting for an appointment to be fingerprinted by them. We have everything together for the dossier except Ronnie's passport. Pray that we will get that back soon!!! Hopefully we will get our dossier sent off by next week. Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Only Trust Him...

As many of you are aware of the last 6 months has been an incredible journey for Ronnie and I. We have lost a business, hosted a child for 5 weeks from Latvia, Ronnie started a new job, began the process of adoption...just to mention some of the highlights. Well here is the latest--Ronnie has had a job offer from a company that he use to work for...we came home and there were business cards from them in the front door, garage door and mailbox with notes to please call them. We prayed about it over the weekend and Ronnie called on Monday. After talking with them he has decided to take the job. He and I both think this is such a "God thing". The job is one he enjoyed, the money is good, the family who owns the business are wonderful and they actually came looking for him...that just doesn't happen very much in today's world! So as we are learning to more and more "Only trust Him" God is in control and although we may not always understand everything going on we must trust Him and allow Him to carry out His plans for us!!!

Please continue uplifting us in your prayers. We are waiting for the final Home Study Report (all the information is in). After we receive this we will send it in to the INS to get our Homeland Security clearance and at the same time we will begin working on our dossier to send to Latvia. Shortly (hopefully) after we send in our dossier to Latvia we will get an invitation to come there. On this first visit (1 of 3) we will have to stay approximately 14 days. Arturs will stay with us. There will be a social worker who will be checking in on us to see if we are compatible...if so she will make a recommendation to the officials and we will be able to file papers to adopt Arturs. We should be able to get temporary custody of him at that time and will be able to bring Arturs home to America with us. He will have to return for the other 2 visits, but more on that later.

We are so blessed!

I want to give God the GLORY for all the support that we have--Thank You!!! We feel so blessed that many of you are willing to be a part of this journey with us. Many of you are supporting us with your prayers, words of encouragement & finances. For you who would like to help with the finances we now have an account with Precious in His Sight, Inc. where you can make tax-deductible donations. Click on the donate button and it will take you to a sight where you can donate using either a paypal account or major credit card. I cannot wait until Arturs is here in America and you all are given the opportunity to meet this special young man!!!