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!!!

Almost finished with Home Study--

Our meeting with Kelly went very well last week. We were able to hand in all the things she needed with the exception of one...the septic tank letter. After checking with the county on getting one we found out that because we have lived in our home for over 5 years (5 1/2 years) we would have to get the tank pumped first and then we could get a letter...Oh well I am sure it probably needs to be pumped and for $350.00 we have been able to find several people willing to do this for us. So we will wait a few weeks and get this done. In the meantime Kelly will be working on the official Home Study report. Oh yeah, one more thing, there is a little concern over our tax return...it seems that we are at poverty level. Not that we didn't know that, but to have someone tell us that was a little strange. So please pray that with Ronnie now having a steady income that our income will not be an issue.

Grammie go get Arturs...

Today as Maddox and I were coming home. Maddox asked "Is Arturs sleeping?". To which I replied "No, he is in Latvia, remember?". To which he replied "Grammie go get Arturs!". How I wished it was that easy. I wished we could just jump on a plane fly to Latvia and bring him home with us...We continue to get all of our paperwork together for a final meeting with Kelly on Thursday. Hopefully after that we will be able to file our dossier with Latvia.

Arturs & Jessi

Arturs, Brian & Bro. Jerry

Who is teaching who? and what?

Meeting with Kelly

We finally feel like we are getting somewhere. We have had our 2nd meeting with Kelly (the lady who is doing our Home Study) and have filed our I600A. I had no idea of all of the paperwork that was involved. Ronnie, Mark & I have been fingerprinted, had our background checked (GBI, FBI and waiting on Homeland Security appointment), had physicals, employment checks, done a financial statement among many other things. All of this is just part of the Home Study. Wow...

E mails from Arturs

I am able to keep in touch somewhat with Arturs via email. Here are some of his emails:

hy JoAnn how are you!!!
I everday reed my bible!!!
I want faster go to Amerika!!!
dis time go so long!!!

Each email fills my heart with joy and I so want to tell him we are trying so very hard to get him back here with us, but I also know that there are way to many things that can happen. For that reason we have decided not to say anything to him about us adopting him until we know that we have been approved and are on our way to Latvia.

God is in control!

Things are going very slow with the Home Study process. Not because of anything they are not doing but because of this crazy time in our life. Due to the fact that the economy is not doing so well right now, Ronnie has decided it is time to give up on the cabinet shop. If people are not buying new homes, then builders are not building. If they are not building they do not need any cabinets...Ronnie has taken a job with E R Snell. This is going to be a huge adjustment for all of us. But we know that God is in control and that we must trust Him. We will proceed with the Home Study as we can...of course the money is a huge issue at this point. We know that if this is God's will then he will provide!

What direction do we take?

We found out today that Arturs is free for adoption and that he would like to be adopted into our family. We have prayed through it and feel that adoption is what God wants us to do. We will begin our Home Study and go from there. We are totally depending on God to help us with this. A few months ago we did not even know where Latvia was and now we are adopting a child from there!!! God is so amazing!!!

Arturs & Bro. Dan

Arturs & Bro. Jerry

Arturs & Ronnie

Arturs & Maddox

Missing our little boy

Things have been very quite and lonely around our home since Arturs left for Latvia. All of us are missing him. How can you fall in love with someone in such a short time...our family is so sad. We are not sure what God's plans are for us concerning Arturs, but we do know that he will always be a part of our family. We are praying about what God wants us to do...

Arturs at the airport getting ready to return to Latvia.

This is Ronnie and I at the airport when we met Arturs for the first time.

Arturs leaves for Latvia...

Wow, I cannot believe that 5 weeks have gone by so quickly. We have been so busy, between the holidays and doing things with Arturs and Maddox time has gone by so fast. Arturs left for Latvia today. Ronnie, Jessi, Maddox and myself took him to the airport. It was a very hard and sad time for all. We are not sure if we will ever see him again but we do know that our lives are forever changed because of him!!!