Monday, July 31, 2006

No Place Like Home

There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

When all is said and done, I see very clearly how special and wonderful it is to be back home. I wanted to see my boys and dogs and cats and I wanted to understand my world again. I think about my girl... she's got a lot of hard days ahead. There are very few familiar things to grab onto by her. She's asked to use the computer a bit... to see Russian sites (specifically Tatu, a Russian music group) and she's asked to call her Russian friend who was adopted last year... just to hear Russian, I know. She's holding it together for now.

My heart knows it will be Ok, but unlike me, she can't knock the heels of her slippers together to "get back home again." The hot air balloon gondola is really gone and she's in Oz now to stay. We all pray it will be even better than the "Oz" of her dreams.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Coming Home

God is indeed very very good! Our 3rd ticket has manifested! We are scheduled to fly on Saturday, July 29th. We have met several families along the way and we expect many of them to be on our flight. At the embassy today, there was so much joy... we all know the feelings that flood our hearts ... we have all had difficult journeys of one type or another that has brought us to this moment.

I think about our translator in court who reminded me that all those days and weeks and even hours in court are part of the birthing process... the labor that adoptive parents must work through and endure.

It is well... it is well with my soul.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Getting Out of Dodge

Two tickets confirmed for Saturday - just need one more!

We are in a nice apartment about 20 minutes walk from the Kremlin.
City is buit in cocentric circles. I did not realize that Moscow is
very old... much older than St. Petersburg.. and yet, all I see here
is very modern interiors ... very classy... very metropolitan.

More later... I'm on my PDA in a small café. Kind of a pain 2 type...
how can so many stand texting... 2 slow 4 my brain.

Monday, July 24, 2006

Good News/Bad News

Good News!
We've finished everything here in St. Petersburg. Tomorrow (Tuesday), Lily's international passport will be delivered along with 3 tickets to Moscow to finish the U.S. Embassy side. You would think that would be a snap, but there are still a few hoops to jump through even for the U.S. (sigh) In any event, we have been given the OK to travel home on Friday, the 28th. We are ecstatic... a whole week early... that is, until we got the bad news...
 
The Bad News!
There are no seats available on any Lufthansa flights between Friday and August 3rd. That can't be God! So, get you prayers ready folks, we gotta get the message to the airline that they do indeed have 3 seats for the Brown Family on Friday! I can't imagine the toll on Lily to languish in Moscow. Thanks in advance to everyone! Don't know how accessible a computer will be once we leave St. Petersburg... so keep us in your thoughts... and hopefully the next message you see here will be direct from my PDA .... over the ocean, on our way home!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Hermitage and Tears

From one incredible St. Petersburg sight to another. Today, we did a whirlwind of the Hermitage Museum and Winter Palance. Not only are there paintings, of course, but the rooms themselves are works of art... in some cases, quite gawdy works of art... but truly, it is all beyond a Westerner's ken ... to understand that there were people, actual royalty, who might have turned to one another and said, "let's go home, honey!" Every inch of every room has been touched in some artistic way, from ceiling to floor. For example, in the throne room, the inlaid wooden floor (13 different types of wood) is a exact mirror of the bas relief designs in the ceiling. Amazing. Another room, well, hallway, has over 50 Raphael copies (from the Vatican) of scenes from the bible in order ... on the ceiling... along with every inch of wall is painted in decorative blocks, swirls, and tromp l'oeil.

Afterward, Mike headed to the hotel home while Lily and I had some more girl time window shopping. But, despite the fun we had, when we got back to the hotel and I suggested she call her friend, Irina, to say goodbye, I think it struck Lily in a way it hadn't before. She is really leaving and "goodbye" in English is so permanent and final sounding. It's not "da svidanya" or "auf wiedersehn" that both have a promise of seeing one another again. She broke down and there was little that I could do but give her space, soothe her, stay with her, and let her know that it's all right to cry. She will need to grieve, and this is just beginning.

Peterhof


Here's one of the most amazing parks attached to the Grand Palace of Peter the Great. With over 100 fountains and 400 jets, it is the center of all fountains and all without pumps!

We had a grand time touring the park, with views of the Gulf of Finland and a short excursion through the "cottage" - which only had 30 rooms... small scale for the royalty. It was given to one of the daughters. I haven't quite figured out the lineage... need a family tree cheat sheet. :-)

Tomorrow we go to pick up domestic passport and apply for International one... hope to have a real sense of our schedule for rest of week. Lily goes in and out of sadness and joy... pretty stressful time for her I think. More later.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Domestic Passport Updated

Friday, July 21: Update on Domestic Passport... we were successful with meeting the "chief" and she is more than happy to make sure Lily's domestic passport will be ready on Monday at 1:30 pm. Hurrah! With that, we should have a 24 hour turn-around which means we "should" be in Moscow on Wednesday... If Alex has his ducks in a row there, we could ... maybe, maybe, maybe be home by Friday... please make this priority prayer number one for us as we do not want to "visit" Moscow all weekend (at $350/night)...

All is well. Today was a great day... we had lovely ride on the canals and then went to a Georgian cafe for dinner after a good walk. Tomorrow, we are off to Peterhof and we have invited one of Lily's friends, Valya, from the orphanage (girl with curly hair in the graduation pictures from our first trip). Hope to post some new FlickR pics this weekend.

Have to try the "next" level up tomorrow to get Lily's domestic passport expedited. Let's hope for the best! Everything else went great... have her adoption certificate and new birth certificate. Had fun going CD shopping with Lily while Mike stayed home. Then we went to a great restaurant called the Cafe Art Deco ... highly recommend it to anyone looking for reasonable eats but classy decor. It's 10:30 at night, but it looks and feels like 8 pm ... so hard to get used to these long days.

Introducing Liliana Victoria Brown


These are the people who made all the difference in our court appearance: (from left) Ludmilla, our translator (She was totally familar with the process and was an excellent coach. Her English was impeccable.); Julia, our agency representative (She was calm and steady through the whole process, a strong supporter); Lily (who cried and cried during our first break, about two hours into the proceedings - that should have only taken an hour); me (who had the dubious honor of being the "first speaker" for our family in in front of our judge); Mike (who was like a rock throughout the process); Ludmilla V., the social worker from the agency (She was extremely supportive our petition and even when things got dicey, she spoke and firmly confidently that Lily should come to our family); and finally Grigori, the new orphanage director (His testimony probably had the most impact as he confirmed the importance of children being in a family, no matter the age). God bless them all.

Yesterday, we did not walk into court until 2:30 or so (we were scheduled at 1 pm) and then, did not finish until almost 6 pm (I felt so badly for the family that was scheduled at 2 pm and had to wait for our hearing to end!).

The judge, Svetlana, was very serious and very concerned about every detail. For some reason, she got it into her head that there were too many oddities in our financial statement and began "digging" into it.... sure that we couldn't afford the child. Of course, we can't afford the child, but we have always trusted that God has the plan and He'll provide... which He has done so far. But we couldn't exactly say that to the judge nor could we explain that household expenses can vary from one month to the other. Then, because we had a designation for childcare for Kip, she assumed that he must have some serious issues to require so much money for childcare... we had to explain several times that Kip was in a private school and we had to pay tuition plus the costs of "after care" because I was at work. Eventually, we had to explain the structure of American education system: elementary school, middle school etc. Then she questioned at length whether we thought the boys were friends with Lily from the first time etc.

Towards the end, after a second break in which the judge was giving us "one more chance" to explain some things, she followed up on my comment that the boys were leaders. Then she asked if I thought Lily was a leader. When I said she had "leadership qualities" and named them, she proceeded to read from the school report that said she had no leadership qualities and therefore, it was clear that I didn't really know the girl. It was like that the whole time. It was very difficult not to just explode.

When Mike got up to do his bit, the judge questioned him at length as well, but did not like Mike's style of "storytelling" to make a point.

And all the while, I kept thinking, how would this judge every make an "immediate" decision which would then, effectively, waive the 10-day waiting period? When we got through the worst of it and Lily was brought in for her interview, Lily mentioned a grandparent and an aunt that no longer had contact with her. Oh God, I thought, the social worker had previously said there were no relatives at all. Sure enough, after Lily left, the judge trounced on the social worker. It went badly for another 15 minutes. In the end, because there was no proof on Lily's side that there were any family members, she let it go.

When we requested the immediate decision, the judge glared, but had to ask the others present what they thought. Again, the director, the social worker, even the rep from the medical establishment supported our petition. The judge acquiesced. done. It was a 2-vodka day for me... of course, being a non-drinker, I fell into blissful sleep not long after. :-0

Now, today, we go off to get the paperwork started to change Lily's records and get a passport.
Please keep holding us up. More later.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Court Date Today

Well, we are as ready as we will ever be. We have been thoroughly coached by our representative, Julia, and I have written the 7 minute speech that we must give to present our case to the judge. Our court time is 1 pm, St. Petersburg time, so that's 5 am Eastern Time... it's quite possible the decision has been made by the court by the time you read this today. Julia said that either Mike or I could speak... so Mike looked hopefully at me to do the "honors." I'm OK with that really, but it does make me a little more nervous today.

Julia picked up Lily yesterday and we had a nice evening together. We had a small problem when we discovered we needed pictures to show in court from our last visit here in May. Sometimes, you gotta thank God even for technology! I had my jump drive and we were able to download some of the FlickR pictures to my portable device here at the hotel and Mike found a photo place to print from it. Hurrah for that.

Oh, and my suitcase finally came yesterday evening... or rather, I had to go out to the S.P. airport to pick it up. Unfortunately, the someone had rifled through the bag and one of our intended gifts was stolen. It could have been worse... apparently it was a man since he wasn't interested in any of the jewelry or girly gifts, just the leather wallet.

Today, the last thing we will be asking the judge to do is make an "immediate decision" in our case. If that is done, then the waiting period is waived. That is, of course, our prayer. May my next post introduce to you our new daughter!

Monday, July 17, 2006

We Have Arrived!

We arrived in St. Petersburg, Monday, the 17th around 8 a.m. on the Midnight train from Moscow. The train trip was uneventful besides getting used to sleeping on a sliver of a seat and hearing the toilet flush periodically through the night. :-)

The weather is quite cold (which we didn't expect) and so our little tour in Moscow was brief just because we weren't dressed for it. We did get to walk Red Square however, see the Kremlin, and even placed a coin in the grotto behind the Kremlin that promises our return ... hopefully, next week with our Lily along!

Our most difficult moments actually happened at the Moscow airport. We stood in line at Passport Control for about two hours. A group of Pakistani men in front of us had big problems with their passports. I felt badly for them, really, since it was clearly a racial issue. About an hour into our wait, another planeload arrived (from Italy, I think) and that group turned a simple line into a crowd and somehow, we got pushed back even further. Sigh. Then, when we finally found our way to our luggage... you know the story... one of our bags was missing.... and who's? Mine, of course. So, we filled out the paperwork and they promised our bag will be delivered here to St. Petersburg... but not yet. I may have an excuse to go shopping!

Our rep will be going to the camp tomorrow (Tuesday) to pick up Lily and to bring her to us here at the hotel to spend the night since the court time is early on Wednesday. We have been given a long "cheat sheet" of things to remember to say (and not say)... please do pray for us.

It is very strange to be back in St. Petersburg... we were so cavalier tonight as we went out to find our favorite restaurant that we didn't even bother carrying a map. It's supposed to be cold and rainy here the rest of the week. This may be yet another excuse to go shopping. Ha!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Over the Ocean

We are on our way. We arrived at the airport in Philly , no problem. Thank God, we were earl! Flight was overbooked... we were offered $1200 Euros if we wiuld fly the next day... what does that smack of? Howwmany challenges will we encounter on this trip before we bring this girl home?

Please pray for papers... I messed up & didn't have our 1040 for last year...
I emailed the accontant..hope she can fax it to agency. sigh.

We are sardined into the bavk of the plane. Gentleman next to me is returning to Germany after conference of soil scientists. OK... how many of those have u met? smile

More later... isn't it amazing? Wireless over the ocean!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Russia or Bust...

Well! We've been given the "go-ahead" to leave for Russia on Saturday, July 15th. It's not a perfect set-up, the paperwork hasn't "really" arrived in St. Petersburg, but the Russia rep. was given verbal verification that the "most important piece" - the referral letter - was mailed yesterday. Please keep praying that the letter arrives in time. We may actually leave USA before letter arrives. We will be staying at the same hotel which has some Internet access, so I'll be posting all the news and updates here. Thanks to everyone for your continued prayers and support. We definitely need it. :-)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

One More Chance ...

One more chance, one more day... if the paperwork does not come from Moscow on Wed., July 12, then the agency has told us they will have to re-schedule the court date... probably for September. I am heart sick... for the girl... for Lily... I can barely hold back the tears. No, I can't hold back the tears.

What is missing? I have asked the Lord this very question? What piece of this puzzle is still not in place and therefore blocking our way?

Today, I put over 200 miles on my car as I went yet again to Bel Air for notary certifications and then Annapolis for apostiles and then back to Towson for more certifications. Most of the day I was sick to my stomach and fighting a migraine... it felt so heavy, this attack on my body....

This day reminds me of those days, many years ago, when Mike and I were trying to have biological children... every day, a hope and then a disappointment. We had been so sure we were to be parents, to have children... it just never occurred to us that we would be unable to "bear" children. And that's how it feels now... it never occurred to us, when we started this process, that it would be plagued by so many problems, so much waiting, so many weeks and months. Of course, back then, our children did come... in God's time and in God's way... and I know, somehow, this girl, this child of God, will also come ... the situation will work out in a way that we cannot expect or understand now. Gotta trust. I know. Trust.

More waiting... more waiting... more tears....

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Knocking on the Gates of Heaven

We are certainly pounding on the gates of heaven this weekend as we confront yet another snag in our adoption process. How can it be? We are so close...

On Tuesday, we will find out for sure if we have the go-ahead to travel on the 15th... we are tentatively scheduled for a court date on the 19th but Lily's papers are hung up somewhere between Moscow and St. Petersburg. No papers.... no court date. If we miss this court date, then the judge, who apparently has a full calendar until the end of month, is going on vacation for the entire month of August. If this happens, then we will be delayed until September.

If Lily comes back to St. Petersburg from camp, she cannot go back to her previous facility but will be transferred to another one. This could actually generate more paperwork, new personnel, etc.

I am trying to remain calm... trying to focus on trusting God. This process is really out of our hands...

Please pray. Luke 18:1-3... persistence... patience... perseverance...

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Tone of the Mind

The phrase, "tone of the mind" was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson while journaling at the age of 23. It brings to my mind an ongoing need I have to identify and articulate my own "tone." Obviously, I am not nearly as profound or deep as Emerson but I discovered today that this phrase captures much of my intent when blogging. I am not an essayist nor do I pretend to be a great authority about any particular topic. If, by writing, however, I can get closer to a true encounter with the deeper places inside of me, then all the better. And perhaps, when I do touch the "tone of my mind," it will ring true to others and "make meaning" for them as well.

Most tones in my mind are not resounding gongs or orchestral masterpieces... this I recognize. But there is something that is driving me to write. There is a sense ... a feeling... a growing desire.

I have often said I think better while talking. That may not really be true as I am often appalled at what I say and often need to think fast for damage control. All the same, I believe I may think better while writing. It forces a clarity upon me that otherwise might get lost in the morass of a mind that is constantly thrumming, changing melodies, and often caught in repetitive cycles. Writing slows me down; talking does not. Writing requires me to "re-think" while talking throws itself on even the most unwilling listeners.

So, that's all. Just wanted to remember that I heard a tone today.


On a completely different note [smile], I send a special online hello to Sierra and Branson. Airline seatmates are truly serendipitous when traveling alone. Since becoming a Christian, I am fascinated by these "flash" encounters and oten consider them devinely orchestrated. Sierra, 10, and Branson, 13, will never know how much I enjoyed their conversation on my way to Denver on Saturday. It was fun to hear about their lives and to ovserve their spontaneous enthusiasm for everything. When Branson discovered I had been to New York and acting school, I was really golden. But the really great moment was Sierra turning to me and with total honesty, declaring, "I'd like to be in one of your plays!" Thanks Sierra. Thanks to you both for blessing a stranger with the simple things.



And lastly, happy birthday to my brother. It's been a really rough year for him and I pray the next one will hold some true recovery.