Struck down, but not destroyed...

This has been one of the more challenging weeks of our lives, and Friday was the culmination of it all. Earlier in the week, we had been notified that certain officials in Russia do not want to proceed with our adoption due to some information they received in error, and the judge needs their approval to proceed. So in order to attempt to convince them to reconsider us as prospective parents, we have been asked to gather evidence in the form of all sorts of letters and reports. Some of that required extensive research, so that was my week last week. It is a very serious situation, and pretty hard to handle at times. We do not know what the outcome will be, but we know God has not brought us this far to abandon us or His own plan.

In order to get all of our documents to Russia in a timely manner so that they could be translated and given to the judge and others, we needed to mail it off to Russia on Friday. I have said several times I could write a book about Friday alone. But instead I'll write most of the details here. You may find it frustrating, or stressful - we find it a little comical - but either way, we have been reminded of God's faithfulness and His control of the situation against all sorts of odds, and that we truly are in a spiritual battle in a war that He has already won.

We had a tight schedule Friday, planned as follows:
7:50am - print out our last reference letter at SHSU
8am - meet our last reference at SHSU for notarization
from there, drive to Meridian, Texas (my thought was 'what IS Meridan, TX???'), about 45 miles northwest of Waco, to obtain a letter from the Justice of the Peace
compose a letter from Bob during the drive
drive to Austin and research some records at the Travis County Court House
copy appropriate records or beg for a letter with the information we needed
find a place to print the letter we composed on the way
notarize some documents
go to the Secretary of State's office to apostille all documents before 4:30pm
copy all documents
go to a mailing center in south Austin to mail documents by pick-up time - 5:30pm

This required approximately 6 hours of driving and 7 different locations before the 5:30 deadline.

We started out one hour late because our reference was delayed due to circumstances beyond anyone's control (hmmm - a metaphor for this whole thing???)

Linda, the nice lady at the Meridian location, had told us on the phone that they close the office from 12-1pm for lunch. So now it appeared that we were going to arrive there at 12:30, and we could not afford to wait until 1pm. I called and she said we could just knock on the door and someone would hand us the letter she composed for us.

So we got to Meridian, found the Justice of the Peace office after some searching, and knocked on the door. The Justice himself, a nice older man in jeans and plaid shirt, cheerily let us in and stated that he just plays solitaire in the office during his lunch hour anyway. So we chatted for a minute, thanked him, and took the nice letter and headed to Austin.

We made good time in spite of traffic and arrived at the Travis County location with over an hour to do what we needed to do. Bob dropped me off and headed to a printing place to print out his letter, then came back. We did our research - looked at some records we had had someone named Margaret Ann order earlier in the week (Margaret Ann was another sweet, God-sent helper like Linda), looked at some microfiche, and concluded that we did not have what we needed. So we found Margaret Ann in the flesh and asked her if she could compose a letter. She was able to give us ALMOST what we asked but was limited by what the system would allow. So she printed and certified a letter for us.

Up until this point we were happy with the amount of time we had made up and were going to make it to the Secretary of State by 4:30 without a problem. But just as we were about to leave, we noticed a MAJOR error on the document. It was now about 4pm. This was not an easy fix, and not within Margaret Ann's authority. Fortunately we did have proof of the error.

So she went to find a supervisor who could call around town for help, and Bob and I snuck out and went to another floor of the court house to find a notary for some other documents. Nice guy, but the SLOWEST notary in history - unbelievable. So I signed my part and ran back upstairs to Margaret Ann while Bob finished. Margaret Ann et al were able to correct the document - another miracle - and Bob FINALLY finished with the notary. We got out of there about 4:25.

We made it to the Secretary of State's office by 4:30 and were happy that it was all going to get done! But not so fast. When the apostille people got to Margaret Ann's documents, they were unable to apostille because she was not in their system. One worker stated that they could normally fix it and add her in EXCEPT that the people who had the authority to do so were PROBABLY already gone because it was late on Friday afternoon (so after all we had been through, now we were being subtly scolded for showing up late Friday afternoon???) She was going to leave it at that, and we were going to be stuck. But once again, God had other plans, and her wonderful co-worker Elizabeth stepped in and started asking questions like "Did you try...?"

After several attempts to call someone, they found out that the person with the authority we needed, who had been assumed to be AWOL, was just in the bathroom. So Elizabeth called and talked to Margaret Ann, who thankfully was still in her office a few blocks away and was still available, and they added her to the system and apostilled ALL of our documents.

It was now 5pm, and there we were in 5:00 Friday rush hour traffic in downtown Austin, with a 5:30pm pick up time at the mailing place in South Austin. So we skipped the Kinko's step, hoping there would be a copy machine at the mailing place. In spite of traffic, we got there at 5:20, incredibly relieved once again.

We walked in and stated that we had a package for the 5:30 DHL pick-up, and the nice guy there (failed to get his name) said the DHL guy was not coming!!! Again, unbelievable. He had called at 5:15 and decided not to come since there wasn't a package for him at that time. Our guy promptly picked up the phone and called him, reminded him that his pick-up time is 5:30, and persisted in asking if he could be there by 6pm, closing time. After several "no's" on the other end, he said, "If you promise me that you will be here by 6:30, I will stay and wait for you." BIG tip for the mailing center guy! So we talked to him about adopting from Russia, something he and his wife want to do, and left our package with him. We tracked it later and found that it was picked up after all, at 6:35pm. It has now made it all the way to Europe and should be in St. Petersburg in great time.

So God sent us just the right people at just the right time, and some of those people were some of YOU who wrote letters or notarized things on our behalf. THANK YOU for advocating for us and for our children.

So now we pray. And wait. And ask you to pray harder than ever when you think of us. Pray for Natasha and Andre and any other Buckner staff in Russia who will speak to these officials on our behalf. Pray for the hearts of the officials and the judge to be softened toward the children and pray that they will see who we really are, even before meeting us face to face. At this point, pray for just the invitation to court - that our documents will be interpreted correctly by all who read them so that the misunderstandings and false impressions will be cleared up, at least enough to give us a chance. And pray for Dasha and Dima as they wait without knowing what's going on.

In closing, these verses keep coming to my mind:

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body."
2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Praise be to God who still works miracles - and love to you, our family and friends,
Karen (and Bob)