Jingle Bell Journal 2004
This year we actually have a GOOD excuse for the tardiness of our Christmas letter! We’ve just returned from two weeks in Latvia – read on. We just have to start the letter off by telling you that God continues to amaze us with his love and provision. We have to give Him all of the credit for the way cool stuff that’s going on in our lives right now – we sure couldn’t do it ourselves! From Church to Family to Jobs – it’s all good!
Lorraine is working for Liberty Hill Church, which is a small but quickly growing one-year-old church in Canton, GA. She’s the Director of Communications, which means something, we’re just not quite sure what. She handles print media and theoretically (if she can figure it out) the Web site. She loves the job, in part because it allows her to work from home. She’s also pretty keen on the vision, which helps!
Jimmy is the Director of Quality Assurance at iHealth Technologies, the company he’s been with for a number of years now. It’s a great company that is being super-supportive of our adoption endeavors. The bummer with this job is that they moved the offices to the opposite side of Metro Atlanta, so Jimmy spends many hours each day in the car.
| January |
Lorraine turned 39. Yes, the big Four-Oh is coming quickly!
Jimmy enrolled in a figure drawing class at the
High Museum of Art. The class was taught by Ben Smith, one of our
favorite local artists. |
| March |
Thinking that we had not a care in the world other than our
adorable Annie, we took a
cruise to the Western Caribbean with our friends
Michael and Heather Lott. We decided we wanted to move to
Grand Cayman. We spent most nights playing the amazingly addictive
Mennonite card game
Dutch Blitz. We are now learning that “thinking we have not a care in
the world” is a sure sign that we’re about to adopt kids—read on. Also
during March, Jimmy filled in at the last minute as music director for
DramaTech’s production of
Pippin. |
| May |
By complete providence of God, we became involved with an
Eastern European hosting program, which helped us bring 12-year-old twin
brothers – Andris and Juris -- here to live with us for five weeks this
summer. We had a blast, the whole extended family fell in love with them
and the day after we put them on the plane to return to
Latvia (yes, Latvia – it’s just west of Russia,
on the Baltic Sea near Lithuania, Estonia and Belarus)
we began the adoption process to bring them here to be ours forever. |
| July |
We put the house on the market to try and raise money for the
adoption and to allow us to move closer to Jimmy’s office. This required a
heavy-duty cleaning and clearing out of junk. That was very cathartic, but
we still can’t find our coffee pot. |
| August |
Jimmy’s birthday got all but completely overshadowed by
adoption proceedings. |
| September |
We took the house off of the market because no one wanted to
buy it and we had gotten so far into the adoption process that selling the
house would require a new home study, which would cost a lot of time and
money. So we’re staying here for a few years. We’re still looking for the
coffee pot. Lorraine directed her third annual
Murder Mystery at Tech, which was a big success. The students asked
Lorraine to help them write their own Poker-themed script, which turned out
to be really very interesting and clever and included a
Klingon in the cast.
Go figure. |
| October |
Jimmy and Lorraine along with their friends Kyle and Michelle
Irby hosted the first annual Liberty Hill Adoption Symposium. This was a
very cool event that brought adoption agencies (private and public)
from all over Metro Atlanta and Florida together so that the community could
easily get information about adoption and so that we could help remove the
fear about adoption. |
| November |
On Thanksgiving Day we called the boys in Latvia (as we have been doing every Thursday) but this time we were allowed to tell them that we are adopting them. So, it was a very joyous Thanksgiving!
A day later, while in the middle of the annual
Day-After-Thanksgiving shopping madness at Lenox Square, Lorraine got a call
from the adoption agency saying that we needed to be on a plane to Latvia on
December 4!!! Needless to say, shopping madness quickly turned into
travel-plan madness. |
| December |
We traveled to Latvia and the in-depth adoption process began
(see separate article). We returned just 5 days before Christmas,
hence the tardiness of this letter. |
Okay – here’s the bare-bones basics. For more information, please visit the Twindates section of the website. This is a posting of Lorraine’s journal of the experience from hosting to adoption of the boys.
The boys are 13-years old and were born in Riga, Latvia on August 6, 1991. Their names were Andris and Juris, and they have chosen the American names of Joseph (Joey) Andris Rose and Michael Juris Rose. Juris is pronounced “Yoor-iss.” We’ve legally changed their names now.
They now live in an orphanage in Daugavpils, Latvia. The orphanage is not a Dickensian nightmare, but is as nice as an Eastern European orphanage can be. The orphanage director, Valentina, and her daughter, Ineta, who also works there, are very loving and warm people.
We know all about their past and how they came to be in an orphanage, but we’ve decided not to tell others about it. We believe that it’s their story to share or not share. We hope you understand. We will say that there’s nothing that would scare the pants off of you or that involves spaceships, alien abductions or Big Foot.
The boys’ primary language is Russian, but they speak Latvian and English (with increasing proficiency).
They are in 7th grade in Latvia. They’re VERY smart and very sweet and, like most 13-year-old boys like video games and cartoons. They like soccer, volleyball, swimming and ice-skating as well.
We made the first of three required trips to Latvia from December 4 - 20. During which time we had to appear before the local Orphan Court to petition to have a “bonding period” with the boys in Riga (the capitol) for 11 days. Which, after heated debate between the judge and our attorney (in Latvian – or was that Russian?) we were granted. We spent those days falling in love with Riga and more in love with the boys. It was an amazing experience. I think it was a critical part of this adoption, because it really allowed us to experience and understand the culture that has been a part of our boys’ lives for 13 years. Did we mention that we love Riga? Lorraine wants to move there (she always wants to move to remote places that we visit – recall the Alaskan cruise of 2001).
Upon arriving home we found out that the CIS (formerly INS) is requiring another document that will take the courts 31-50 days to provide (don’t get me started). Then we will then have our 3-4 day “Second Court” in Latvia during which the adoption is finalized. To save money and vacation time, only one of us will make this trip. We’ll have to duke it out to see who goes, because we both want to! Then there is a 20-day waiting period before we can return to bring the boys home. Our best guess is that we’ll have them home by the end of February – but that’s a guess!
Our sweet baby girl is now a self-proclaimed “Big Girl.” She’s 2 3/4 and right smack in the middle of the terrible twos – which really isn’t so terrible. She’s incredibly active and very agile. Just yesterday Lorraine discovered her about 6 feet up a tree in the back yard. We’ve enrolled her in gymnastics and ballet – for Lorraine’s sanity! She loves them both and asks each morning if she can go to “nasticks” and when we say that it’s not gymnastics day, she asks for “ya-yay,” which is adorable Annie-speak for Ballet. We think that she’s brilliant and will be the very first Olympic gymnast to also be a prima ballerina and a Nobel Prize winner. But we realize that the Triple Crown may be a bit ambitious!
The Hosting Program:
The boys have a lot of friends still in Latvia. Of specific note is Michael’s “girlfriend,” Nadia and the boys’ roommates, Sergei (13) and his brother Sasha (10). We don’t know if they’re available for adoption, but we are trying to find that out so we can find adoptive families or at least host families to bring them to visit America. Our sincere hope is to be able to work with Joey and Michael to continue to not only stay in touch with their friends (who have basically been their family for 6 years) but also to help those kids out however we can. So, if you’re interested in potentially hosting a child from Latvia who may or may not be available for adoption or if you are interested in pursuing adoption of an older Latvian child or even if you just have questions about adoption in general, please call us. We LOVE to talk about adoption!
The Adoption Symposium:
We have already begun some discussions about next year’s event, which will probably take place in November. If you have any suggestions or questions for us, please let us know!
Our in-country facilitator for the adoption is Pastor Petr Samoylich, who is an incredible man. He is a Ukrainian-born American missionary in Latvia and serves as pastor to three congregations, as well as facilitates adoptions and runs a summer camp for orphans and indigent children and a teacher training camp that helps teachers learn how to teach from the Bible in their schools. We feel very called to work with Pastor Petr and his summer camps and outreach to orphans in Latvia. So, start saving your frequent flyer miles – you may find yourself en route to Latvia to teach English at a summer camp with us.