Farrell Family Video

We have officially entered into the long waiting period of our adoption. Our dossier was submitted to the SDA in Ukraine this past Thursday, April 25!! This was a huge relief because dossiers can only be submitted on Thursdays in Ukraine, and their government is shutting down for 10 days beginning May 1 (not sure why). If we had not gotten our paperwork submitted this past Thursday, we would have had to wait 3 more weeks!!! So thankful to the Lord that there were no hiccups in getting it submitted. Now for the waiting....we should receive an email about 40 days from our submission date inviting us to travel to Ukraine to meet Alona and officially begin our adoption process over there. We are so ready for that part of the process, but anxious at the same time. While we cannot wait to meet our precious daughter, we (especially me) are dreading leaving our 4 little ones behind for 2-3 weeks. I have never left them for more than a couple of nights, and that has happened only a handful of times since Aislynn was born. I know the Lord will give us strength to get through a prolonged separation, but it will not be easy!! 

Since we do not have a ton of news to report, I thought this post would be a perfect place to share something with you. My sweet friend Ashley Finton has worked tirelessly this week-end to put together a video for our family. This video will ultimately be featured on the blog Give1Save1Europe in June, but I wanted all of my readers to get the first peak at it! I think Ashley did such an amazing job, and this will be something that our family cherishes forever! The song featured on the video is called Bring Love to Me by Tiffany Thornton, and it could not be more perfect for our Alona. I hope you all love it!!

No More Waiting

My heart is burdened tonight. We have been so busy with all the details of our adoption, trying to get our dossier sent off as quickly as possible. Now that our dossier has been shipped off to Ukraine, I have actually had time to slow down a bit. In these quieter moments (as many as one can have with 4 spirited daughters), my thoughts have turned to all the children who are waiting for families this week. 

My girls were blessed to participate in a video this week to help raise awareness for waiting children in our home state of Arkansas. My very talented friend put it together, and I would love for you to take a peek at it below:

My daughter shared a fact in the above video....2.1 million children are orphaned each year, and only 250,000 are adopted. EACH YEAR!!! Think about how many children are waiting, hoping, and praying, for a family. 

For those of you that have been following along with my blog, you will remember that a few weeks back, we were able to send a package to A with a missions group that visited her orphanage in March. When I asked how the mission trip went, my sweet friend Shelly that put A's package together for us said, "  the lady who led this team (it was her 2nd year to go visit lz) said it was overall a really heartbreaking trip for her... it seemed like many of the older kids were kind of giving up.  in contrast, she did say that a**** was there for all of their sessions and that she seemed very happy and well."

While it makes me so happy to hear that A is well, thriving, and happy, it makes my heart ache that we can't do more for these other sweet children who have the same hopes and desires that our precious child does. I haven't shared any pictures of A on our blog yet, but I want to share with you this picture:

This picture is our sweet daughter, and a precious woman named Natalya that pours much of herself into the orphans in Ukraine. In this picture, she is teaching an English lesson to A. This picture brings tears to my eyes because of what all it represents. A is learning English in preparation to start her new life with a loving family. There is so much hope in this picture.

One of the women who went on the Mission trip I mentioned above had this to say about A, " let me tell you she is blossoming and just on such a high about family coming for her!!! I can totally see her as a great big sister!! She was always smiling and like a ray of sunshine. "  Do you see what family can do for these children? All they need is a CHANCE. These children only need a chance to blossom, flourish, and live up to their God given potential. They just need the love of a family!! Can you see why my heart breaks for the other children? I am beyond thankful that we are able to be the family that Alona has hoped and dreamed of for so long. As you continue to pray for us, as we move along in our adoption process, would you also join me in praying for the other millions of orphans that are still waiting for their families to come and give them hope? May we all pray that one day, there will be NO MORE WAITING!!!

"And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me."

Matthew 18:5

Girls Night Paint Party

This past Thursday, a group of my dear girlfriends and family got together for a fun night of painting to help raise funds for our adoption. We had so much fun painting, and it gave me the opportunity to hand out fact sheets about orphans in Ukraine. I know many people wonder why we chose Ukraine. To be honest, we didn't! We feel that the Lord chose us to be A's parents and we are just being obedient to His call. With that being said, we feel that now that we have a Ukrainian daughter, we would like to share the statistics of orphans in Ukraine with others, so that they will see how dire the situation is for these precious orphans. Here are some facts that I would like to share with you:

·       there are more than 143 million orphans worlwide

·       there are 100,000 orphans in Ukraine

·       orphans in Ukraine age out of their orphanages at 15-17 years of age

·       76% of children are AFRAID to leave their orphanage

·       70% believe they will not be able to get an education or obtain the job of their dreams

·       10-15% of children who age out will commit suicide within the first 2 years of leaving the orphanage

·       60% of girls will be lured into prostitution

·       70% of boys will enter a life of crime

·       many are drawn into the same cycle of addiction that plagued their parents

As you can see from the facts above, there is a GREAT need for these children to be adopted into loving families, so that they can have hope for a future! All they need is a chance!! These sweet children are no different than our own, biological children and they deserve to have happy, healthy, safe lives. If any of my readers have any questions about adoption, please, please email me wendilynn.farrell@gmail.com, and I would be thrilled to chat with you!

For our girls night out paint party, we enlisted the help of the wonderful women behind Sassy Doodles. They were so much fun, and so helpful! They are talented women who host girls nights out and after school paint classes for children in the LR and NWA area. If you would like their contact info, please let me know! When asked what theme I would like for us to paint, I decided on an anchor. The symbol of an anchor holds a special place in my heart. The Lord is truly my anchor, and I thought it would be a perfect thing to paint. Plus, with summer just around the corner, I thought it would fit with summery decor:) Some of the women painted crosses as well, because, well,  who doesn't love a cross hanging in their house? One of my favorite songs right now is Cornerstone by Hillsong, and it talks about the Lord being our anchor. You can listen to it here:

Here are some pictures of our paint party!

Didn't these girls do a great job?? I loved seeing each of the women's personalities displayed in their paintings. Here is my final product:

This painting is sitting on a shelf in A's new room, waiting for her! I thought Hebrews 6:19 was the perfect verse for this painting, "we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure". Thanks to my precious friends, family, and the gracious women of Sassy Doodles, we were able to raise $250 for our adoption, and had so much fun doing it!!

Approved!

I have to start his post out by saying a huge thank you to Ryan for his last post. I think that his posts are WAY more interesting than mine, so we have agreed that he will right one here and there, even though he really doesn't like doing it:) 

As Ryan mentioned in his post, we received our fingerprinting appointment in the mail on Sat, April 30th. The appointment was set for Friday, April 12. At encouragement of our case worker, we decided to drive over to Memphis on Tuesday, April 2 in hopes that we could go ahead and get fingerprinted to get a 10 day  jump on this thing. What Ryan didn't mention is that I couldn't sleep Sunday night March 31 due to feeling extremely sick. Feeling sick quickly turned into a very vicious stomach bug on Monday. Between bouts of sickness, all I could do was lay in bed. While laying there miserably, the thought kept coming to my mind that it was not a coincidence that I was extremely sick the day before we were hoping to get fingerprinted. On the surface, it would appear like bad luck or terrible timing...which it was. I believe that there was more going on though....a battle. You see, when the stakes are as high as adopting a  teenager into a loving, Christ following family and sparing her a life of despair, hurt, and oppression I think Satan tries hard to foil the plans of the Lord. And, in case you didn't catch it, I give ALL the credit for this whole journey to Jesus. I could never have dreamed this up on my own! So, with all that said, I give credit to Satan for making me so sick that making the drive to Memphis seemed {almost} impossible. At about 11:30 on that Monday, after praying all morning on my own that I would stop getting sick, I decided to send out a SOS message on facebook, asking all my prayer warrior friends to pray that I would get better. And you know what? I did not get sick another time after that! You could call that another coincidence, but I like to think that as the bible promises, "Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven" Matthew 18:19, that the Lord was just answering His people's request!

The rest of our fingerprinting appointment was a success, as Ryan mentioned. Yay!! We were thrilled to get that out of the way, and not have to make the trip back to Memphis on our appointment date. Thank you to all who prayed for us as we went early! 

Fast forward to this week. This past Monday morning, Ryan called USCIS to find out if our case had been assigned to an officer for review. He was told, by a not helpful/kind individual, that our case had not been assigned, and that it could be 60 more days before it was assigned. That stressed me out quite a bit, as you can imagine! So, I asked Ryan to call again, but this time we both prayed about him getting connected to a nice, helpful officer that would give us more information. Ryan called back, and was connected to a wonderful officer who, by the end of the conversation, told Ryan she would pull our file and work it herself. She told him to call back at the same time the next day (yesterday, April 9)!! We both prayed for the next 24 hours that Officer White would actually pull our file and  go ahead and work it. Ryan called back the next morning, and Officer White told him that she had approved our file, and that we should get our official approval letter by the end of this week!!! In case you have lost track of all of this, that means we are approved BEFORE we were even supposed to go for our fingerprinting appointment!! That spares us weeks, if not months, of wait time. Thank you Lord!

Through all of these events, we can't help but be in awe of how God is so graciously orchestrating all of the details for us. We have not been without our speed bumps here and there, but God's greatness has been revealed each step of the way. The last couple of days, Romans 8 has kept coming to mind as I have marveled at how quickly things have proceeded to this point.  "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" Romans 8:31-32, 37-39 

We are so thankful for all of you who have been interceding in prayer on our behalf. Please don't stop!! We know that your prayers are carrying us through, and we see your prayers being answered!! Our prayer is that as we sit here in amazement at God's work in our family, that other people will also see that all of the things happening in our life is credited all to Him!! 

Next step...sending off our approval to Ukraine to join our dossier that is already there being translated. Once they receive this letter, we will be ready to formally submit our dossier to the SDA in Ukraine! Woohoo!!!

A Daddy's Journey: Past, Present, and Future

By now most of you have read Wendy's account of how all this happened.  She tells a beautiful story of truth, love, and determination in the process of bringing our daughter home better than I ever could. She is an amazing wife, mother, and woman whose drive and type A attitude is what is keeping us on track. If you don't mind reading some ramblings and side notes (misspellings and bad punctuation), I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the beginnings of this process for me, where we are today, and what the future will hold  for my daughter.

Past

Ever since I came to Christ several years ago (Yes, family, only several years ago), I have had a notion to  adopt.  It might surprise some people to know that I have a truly gentle side, some not so much.  The thought of a little girl spending her life without someone to care for her, love her, teach her what a family is about, and protect her broke my heart.  I began expressing this desire to Wendy a couple of years ago, but I was never met with much encouragement.  This is definitely not a decision you want to force on someone, so I would just make a comment from time to time and let the subject lie as it may.  This being said, you might imagine my surprise when, seemingly out of the blue one day, Wendy approached me about the story of a teenager in Ukraine.  (Still weird not to say "The Ukraine", but I know Wendy will read this before I post and she will correct it.) 

As Wendy's story went on, I began lining the stars up in my mind and saw where this was going.  I was just getting used to the idea of being finished having children and finally making some headway financially when she sprung the idea on me.  You would think we would be on the same page with the whole adoption thing, and for the most part we were ... I was just 5 years down the road, about 11 years younger, and from a country slightly further east.  I immediately told Wendy that my answer was "NO".  She was apparently expecting that answer (I am a little predictable) and proceeded with stating a case for this young lady.  After a lengthy discussion we parted ways with me saying "My answer is No, but I will promise to pray about it, and the second I hear an absolute answer one way or the other, I will let you know."  Foreshadowing, anyone?

     The day that we talked was Friday, and as I had finished my quiet time that night, Wendy asked if I had heard anything.  Nope.  Saturday rolled around, again I had my quiet time, and again the answer was no.  I really saw that Wendy's heart was breaking for this girl and she could not speak about her without tearing up.  This began to work on me a little and I knew that I needed to give her a final answer.  On Sunday I sat down for my third prayer session since our initial discussion.  I started it off by asking God for a gut punching, slap in the face, no looking for hidden meanings in a passage about "begotting" or cubits, style of answer.  I read our Purpose Driven Life chapter for the day and it was on obedience when you hear God speaking... Uh oh.  I then picked up my reading plan for the day and it was James 1:27. Oh no... I thought maybe this was a coincidence.  Then I picked up my phone and saw the text message that Wendy had sent me earlier that I hadn't looked at yet.  "Read James 1:27".  Ok God, you got me.  For those of you that have not committed the entire book of James to memory, let me share part of that verse with you in NIV: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans".  Turns out God has a pretty good gut punch and right hook.

     I proceeded to let Wendy know that I had heard my answer, and as it is often the case, my plan was not God's.  A whirlwind of thoughts surrounded me that day.  Could I love this girl as much as she deserved?  How would we pull this off in such a short time frame?  College?!? Cars?!? Dating?!? Finances... Finances... Stomach ulcer...  Matthew 6:25 is the verse I often remind myself of when anxiety starts talking.  

Present

     So, where are we today?  Well, we just successfully pulled off a one day trip to Memphis to get our finger prints 10 days ahead of our appointment (thank you groveling and nice security staff at the local Homeland Security Administration office.  Consider this a shout out), Wendy pulled off an amazing auction that truly humbled us with the support and love we felt from everyone involved.  We started out with 12 items and ended with 32!  Seriously, thank you everyone for your bidding and overwhelming response.  We are now awaiting our I171 form from our government so we can officially submit our Dossier to the SDA in (the)  Ukraine.  While we wait on our ever so speedy, non bureaucratic, fine and upstanding, (did I mention handsome if you are reading this) government, we will take the time to start filling out grants and continue learning Russian.  I have learned that the only true way to speak Russian and nail the inflections and pronunciations is to imagine yourself in a dark room, dimly lit, five o'clock shadow, bottle of vodka in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, intensely interrogating someone.  Seriously, simply asking someone if you can have something to drink in Russian is enough to strike fear into the heart of the most hardened Starbucks barista.

Future

       How can I know the future?  Well, I don't know where this process will take the family, how it will end, or when we will actually get to bring our daughter home.  This whole experience has already changed my heart and my life forever.  Abria said it best the other night when she stated: "God uses the adoption to filter your life" (Sorry if I botched that a little Abria).  I would like to take this little bit of cyberspace to speak to A.  I really don't know a lot, but I do know the future for you and me.  All my fears of loving you the same as my other girls were in vain.  I don't know how, but I already consider you my daughter.  Not new daughter, but you have always been my daughter and I just didn't know it.  I feel some sort of connection as if we have spent our lives as father and daughter, yet I know so little about you.  I pray for you every day.  I wonder what you are doing (usually sleeping during the hours I am pondering, and if not, "go to bed, its late!"), how you are feeling, and what thoughts are running through your mind.  I know you have so many questions about us, what we are like, and why we are adopting you at this point in time.  I want nothing more than to comfort you, protect you, and treat you the way you have deserved to be treated your whole life:  A precious gift from God meant to be loved and to love.  A R Farrell, I love you and swear to always look after your best interest and protect you.  I promise to raise you as a daughter of Christ and teach you the importance of loving and trusting in your Savior.  Please keep up hope, stay safe, and be comforted.  You are coming home soon to your family and we love you.  I can't wait for the next chapter of our lives spent together fulfilling God's plan for our lives.