Monday, January 28, 2013

Numbers

There's a joke in our house (ok, kind of a joke, kind of not a joke) these days. It goes like this......"what does God do with two Christians that are control freaks?" "He sends them to Ukraine". (Insert uncomfortable laughter) Why is this a joke?  Because this is our story.

 Jake and I are overthinkers, overplanners, overanticipators. We are both strong personalities that understand our responsibility in things like paying the bills on time, keeping our kids on a schedule and making sure that other drivers are made aware when they fail to follow basic safety rules like using turn signals ;) We planned for both of our children based on our financial stability at the time. At the beginning of each year, a new planner is better than Christmas morning for me. Jake did a bodybuilding competition just because he thought it was amazing that meal planning and calorie counting and responsible eating could transform his body. We take the things handed to us and hold onto them with pride in knowing that we will perform the task well with the skills we have been equipped with. WE will accomplish the goal. This was us 9 months ago. And then God whispered "Ukraine".

I had been praying about adoption for two years. In those two years I had envisioned the only type of adoptive family I had ever known......and it included brown babies with braids and sparkly white teeth. I had never considered the "where" even when my heart was quite certain of the "what".  And somewhere in that two years of me being a not so quiet influence over Jake, he started quietly talking to God about adoption. And God painted an entirely different picture for Jake, than what I had painted in my mind. Jake had been privately praying about and researching adoption and one night, very randomly and pretty much shockingly, he said to me "ok. So hypothetically, if we were to adopt, have you thought about where, age or gender?"  After I left the room and gained my composure I told him that I hadn't considered those things and he replied, "I think there's a 5 year old little boy in Ukraine for us."  And our journey began.

A FEW FUN FACTS:

Ukraine is one of very few countries in the world that does not allow for pre-selection in the adoption process (unless it is a much older child or a child with severe special needs). You are able to specify age range and gender, but there is no catalog of faces or list of waiting children to choose from (there are exceptions to this.....we aren't one of those exceptions). When we arrive in Ukraine, we will be given 2 or 3 medical records. We will go over the medical records with our translator and pray and decide which child, or children, we would like to meet. Our facilitator has done over 1,000 adoptions. Only once has the first choice not been perfect. Ukraine does not allow children under the age of 5 to be adopted to non-Ukrainian citizens, unless the child younger than the age of 5 is sibling to a child over the age of 5. We are open to siblings. But will have no idea if we will be traveling home with one or two children until we are there. In fact, I feel certain there will be 2. We did not specify gender, but did say we would like for Cole to remain the oldest child in our family. So we will be adopting ages 7 and under. Because there is no pre-selection, the entire process, from start to finish, must be completed upon travel to Ukraine, which makes the average trip anywhere from 3-8 weeks. We have no idea how long we will be required to be in Ukraine. We are preparing, financially, for 4 weeks of lodging, food, and other in country expenses. Ukraine does not deal with adoption agencies. "Oh what agency did you use?" "Me". Yes, I'm it. We have a facilitator, but her main job is to introduce us to our translator. I'm it......and I'm no expert.

These are the things we discovered at the beginning of our journey.  And every time we stopped and said "God, these are BIG hurdles for us. How are we going to prepare if there are so many unknowns? Is Ukraine REALLY the place you want us?" and each time, God would open a door and say "yes. Keep moving."  I had extreme doubt about Ukraine in the beginning. Turns out, it was my fear of letting Jake lead our family. And then Jake said, "this is our Jericho. Lets pray circles around it for 7 days, and the walls will fall."  And we did. NO matter where we were, at work, on a girls trip to Jacksonville, no matter where, every day we prayed that God would show us exactly where He wanted us. And on the 7th day, a friend of ours, not knowing our struggle, made the public statement, "Jake and McKenzee are adopting from Ukraine. They have some doubt about it, but God told me that's where they're supposed to be." And our blind walk of faith began.

We have kept moving. There have been days that have been hard. There have been days where it felt like our feet were stuck in quick sand. We could keep trekking and keep pulling them out and every time we got our footing we would lose it again and be on our faces.  And then something amazing would happen. Friends would call us to hang out and then hand us a check with the most random number on it ever and say "God told me that this is what you needed".  Confirmation. Confirmation that from obedience, comes blessing. Confirmation to just keep moving.

There have been SO MANY DELAYS for us. Stupid delays over things like stamps and name misspellings and paperwork schmaperwork. And now.....we realize, the delays were necessary.  Jake and I both realized this week that adoption isn't really about adoption at all. Does God tell us to look after widows and orphans in their distress? ABSOLUTELY. Does He require of us, the same type of compassion that He showed us on the cross? WITHOUT QUESTION. But in order to get to that point, in order to understand His love for the least of these, we have to be close enough to Him to hear His whispers. Our faith in Him must be so bold that we will follow Him wherever He asks, even when it makes NO sense at all. And that's where the delays have brought us. They've brought us to the place where we are 100% aware that those people we were 9 months ago.....they are cast aside. We CANNOT DO THIS ALONE. We need His compassion and grace and mercy every day. We have been adopted.

And now our hearts are ready. Our paperwork is almost ready. But our bank accounts are not.

God has blessed us with two incredible jobs that have allowed us to save some of my paychecks and every extra penny along the way. He has called out friends of ours (and one AMAZING private donor) to donate to us in some of the most selfless ways I have ever seen...giving money, volunteering, taking time away from their families to peddle whatever item we had for sale that week. We have had so many yard sales at our house that people will drive by occasionally on a Saturday just to see if we're selling anything! We've done church fundraisers and sold more bracelets than I ever thought we could. We have been driven to tears by every volunteer, every prayer warrior, every friend and family member that has said "we are standing with you".  And this week Jake and I have been praying about this last little bit. These last $5,500.00.   This week, I watched God show up and show off with a friend of ours thats adopting from Uganda. God started pouring donations out as He called up family after family to give.  And my sweet friend said to me, "I keep reminding myself when I feel guilty about the money, that they aren't giving to us, they are giving because God told them to. They are giving because out of obedience, I asked, and God honored that obedience." This week, as Jake and I prayed, God told us to ask.

We have been met, penny for penny, by a God that loves us and cares for us "as deep as the ocean".  We believe that He asks us to "do for one, what we wish we could do for them all" and that "one man's obedience can be another mans miracle". Can you be part of our miracle? Do you feel like God wants to use you, in our lives, and in the lives of orphans?  Will you please pray with us?  We are praying for $5,500.00. We are praying for our dossier to be cleared next week. We are praying for a court date ASAP and a short and expeditious process once in Ukraine. We are praying for protection over our children as they wait for us. We are praying for the children that won't be coming home with us, that their families will find them soon.

To those of you that have walked with us through this journey, to those of you who prayed for us before we ever embarked on this journey, for those of you that already love the children that we will bring home, for those of you that cherish Cole and Zella and love and support our family regardless of our ups and downs, thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.  We are almost there!

If you feel led, our paypal address is: kubs_atc@hotmail.com

For a tax deductible donation, you can send checks to Praise Assembly of God, Praise Adopts, P.O. Box 596, Port Royal, SC 29935 and put Kubnick Adoption in the memo line.

OR The Kubnicks, 91 Heritage Parkway, Bluffton, SC 29910.

Thank you all and God bless!

"for this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that youm being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lords holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him the the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21




Saturday, January 19, 2013

Value

We spent some of our night last night and most of our day today, with people that LOVE children. We are a part of a  ministry at our church (Praise Adopts) that serves as a support system for adopting families. Today, we did a huge yard sale at our church to help raise funds for three families in the process of adoption.  Ourselves ( you know our story), a sweet family with one son, adopted in '11 from China, that is adopting from China again, and another amazing family with 3 little girls, 1 baby boy, and two sons waiting for them in Uganda.  And we were surrounded all day by people that genuinely love our families. They were out there all morning and afternoon digging through other peoples stuff, moving boxes, sharing our stories with shoppers, smiling, laughing with all of our kids, doing what they could do to help us bring our kids home. Not because anyone told them they had to. But because they value children.  Because they love Jesus.  And I stood there today in the sunshine talking to an adopting Mama about upcoming fees......and while she was talking I was watching at least 5 kids riding bikes in the parking lot, one on a pogo stick, one on a trampoline and one literally sitting in a pile of clothes on the ground and my heart broke......"how can you possibly put a price tag on that?"

And I look at this MONSTROUS amount of money that is needed between these three families to get their babies home, and I have full faith that God will show up with every single necessary penny because God sets the lonely in families........but that doesn't make the idea any easier to tolerate.

In this world, our moral radar has fallen so far off the edge, that we have started to"value" children so little that they now have a price tag. Think about that.

We value children so little, that close to 167 million of them, must now be purchased. 

A Russian adoption today can cost around $70,000.00. For one child. A Ugandan adoption, $25,000.00. A Dominican Republic adoption, $33,000.00.  And people will say "then why don't you just adopt in the US. We have plenty of orphans here. We need to take care of our own."  See, in the US, the children are valued so little, that parents that do awful things to children, are still given the benefit of the doubt, and custody.Children, who are given a second chance and adopted by a family, are still able to be taken away when bio-Mom decides 5 years down the road that she changed her mind. Because it takes OVER A YEAR for state run child protection agencies to certify a home as a foster home and then who knows how long until you get your first placement. Because kids in the US, whether in foster homes or group homes throw temper tantrums on Christmas because they didn't get an Ipad. Children in International orphanages cry at night because their stomachs have been empty for days because there are too many children to feed and not enough food.  Because two weeks ago, Putin signed a bill that bans Americans from adopting children from Russia and to date, the great president of the USA has remained silent.  SILENT. The same president that wants to pass 22 different weapons bills in the name of protecting our children, doesn't have even a single word to say about the 700,000+ children in Russia that just had a door closed for some of their futures?  The same president that wouldn't fight for the adoption tax credit to also be a refund so that more families would be able to afford the exorbitant cost of adopting, whether domestic or international. 

To the people out there that still love and cherish all of the little children of the world enough to not care about the price, to the ones that weep at the sound of pitter pattering feet or belly laughs and are willing to fight to hear that sound, for the foster parents that love children only for a short time and then are forced to let them go, for the ones that say "the more the merrier" and go without just to make room for one more, for the ones that realize that God will provide where He has called you.....thank you. For seeing the value and not the price tag. For teaching kids that they are loveable.

Adoption agency fees - $15,000
In country fees - $10,000
Travel expenses - $7,000
The moment your child realizes that you are the one that will love them, when they thought they were unloveable, that you fought for them, that you value them - priceless.

*If I'm wrong about the President not making a statement on Russia, PLEASE correct me. I've looked everywhere and I can't find it. I also understand that everyone has opinions on this. I'm not trying to start any arguments. This is MY blog.....so this is where I express MY opinions.*

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Where We Are

I am going to try my very hardest to not bore you with adoption process details. There are procedures and form numbers and yada yada yada that truly just don't matter. Here's the basic breakdown......we've had some setbacks. We had a few things with our immigration paperwork that that had to be corrected before we were able to get our final approval letter.  We made those corrections and received our immigration approval letter on Dec. 31. Praise God!  We are currently collecting the last few documents for our dossier and our prayer/plan/goal is to have our dossier in Ukraine at the latest, Feb. 1.  Now let me backtrack......

We are members of a group called FRUA (Families for Russian & Ukrainian Adoption). For a week about two weeks before Christmas I had been following the news threads on our FRUA boards about Putin putting a ban on Americans being able to adopt from Russia. When I read the first story I immediately had a flashback to our second visit with our social worker. We're gonna call her "J". "J" has been advocating for orphans since before I was born. She sits on more boards in the state of SC then I knew existed. She rubs elbows, knees, heads and shoulders with politicians on a weekly basis and then plays golf with their wives every other Saturday. She's the authority on all things adoption in our book. And I remember her sitting at our breakfast table and we asked her "what are the chances of Ukraine closing?" and she said "you really don't have much to worry about in Eastern Europe, unless Russia closes. If they close, everyone should be worried because the smaller countries will often do what Russia does, just to avoid the conflict."  Jake and I tried not to talk about it. We walked around with this awful hypothetical scenario sitting on our shoulders through the entire holiday. I sat one night in the living room with just the Christmas lights on and just stared at the extra stocking hanging all alone. Jake brought it home about a month before Christmas and hung it with such care, right next to Cole and Zellas. And I couldn't help but cry. I was so confused. Why would God call us to a country, and plant a seed way way way deep down in me, if that's not the place for us?  We distracted ourselves through Christmas and truly enjoyed our kids. Have I mentioned that we have AWESOME kids? Not sure if I've ever mentioned that before ;) 

The day after Christmas we had dinner at my Dad's house with all of his side of the family. I was talking to my Aunt and she asked the question that so many people before her had asked "well if Ukraine closes, why not just choose another country?"   Jake and I had talked about it......and we couldn't imagine our hearts or our children, being anywhere but Ukraine. So we just prayed. We kept praying. First, we prayed for Putin. The law to ban adoptions flew through upper and lower parliament and made it to Putin two days after Christmas. He signed the bill. And my heart sank. I kept praying "God, if Ukraine isn't the place, close the door quickly. My heart can't do this much longer."  I read article after article on the Russian ban. Time and time again my heart broke for an entire nation of children whose options for a family just got limited.....because they were political pawns.  We prayed as a family. We spent an immense amount of time in the truck (thanks VA traffic) and  the prayer always ended as, "God, if Ukraine is where our child or children are, keep the door open. Get us there quickly."  Every day I stalked the international papers. STILL NO STATEMENT FROM UKRAINE.  Our entire week in VA was spent going back and forth. What do we do? Do we move forward with Ukraine, knowing the risks? Or do we stop and pray and pick somewhere else?  We prayed and prayed for breakthrough. One day, I got this FB message from a friend that I literally just met that has just started the adoption process with Ukraine...."Right after the Israelites believed God would use Moses to deliver them, Pharaoh refused to let them go., doubled their work load and took away their straw to make bricks. Things didn't get better, they got worse. Even Moses lost his belief, 'Then Moses turned to the Lord and said, "O Lord, why have you done this evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your  name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all." (Exodus 5:22-23 ESV) In the end, God does deliver them, but not immediately, and NOT the way that they thought He would." She was reminding me that blind faith in Gods promises includes faith in His timing. That He may have us take a more circuitous route to reach our destination, because the journey He has us on is required to get closer to Him. In the end, the route may be different but the destination is the same.  Thank you, Lord, for friends that love You and obey yYou when You tell them to share Your word. I read that out loud to Jake and we were both in tears. People we've never met, encouraging us, praying for us, and reminding us of Gods promises......giving us peace, by giving us Gods word.  Ah-mazing.

Three days later, on Dec. 31, our sweet friend checked our mail box and called my cell phone. He was nervous sounding and breathing really heavy and I could hear paper crumpling in the background and it hit me.....he was holding our immigration paperwork. He read it word for word to me.....approved. for up to 2 children. from ukraine. That was our confirmation. We decided that day that we didn't need a statement from the president.....we had our statement from the King.  We would move forward with Ukraine.  And on our drive home......God told both of us what His intentions were for our family.  We chose to move forward, regardless of the risk. God called us to Ukraine. He will see that His work is completed.

On Jan. 5, Ukraine made a statement. I had left a very chaotic Kubnick house to run to the grocery store before the Packer game started. I sat in the quiet in my car for a minute in the parking lot.....cause that's what Moms do when they are alone in the car. They sit in parking lots and just listen to the quiet in the car. There were at least 4 other women in the parking lot doing this at the same time as me. Anyways, God just kinda nudged me and told me to check my phone. And there it was.  Ukraines president, in an interview on Jan. 5 said that he does not believe that children or their care should ever be politicized. That he believes that the welfare of the child should always come first. And Ukraine will remain open.  I was standing on the canned vegetable aisle crying. I was trying to call Jake and texting everyone and posting on FB and yes, I was that lady in the store crying and I didn't care. We move forward with Ukraine. Thank you, God.

As I've been reading more and more updates on the Russian ban, while Ukraine remains open for now, my heart still breaks for the hundreds of thousands and children in Russia......and for the 46 American families that have already met their Russian children, bonded with them, decorated rooms for them, made travel plans to bring them home. My heart breaks for all 46 of those American mothers tonight with hearts in Russia. Please don't stop praying for these families. Please don't stop praying for Russia's children. The problem is so big, prayer is the only viable weapon any of us has against this orphan epidemic.

So tonight.....that's where we are. Still covered under and umbrella of grace. Still blessed. Still those crazy people in the car that from the outside look like they're talking to themselves but really we're praying. Still going to Ukraine. SOON.