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