Christmas Love and Answered Prayer...

We were surprised today with a very special gift from the Hoak family...a handmade ornament with pictures of Kaliningrad displayed inside.  Tears come to my eyes as I realize how much love, prayers, and support are being showered on our little one who is 5339 miles away (according to my google search!)   Thank you, Katherine, for your work on this amazing gift.  It will be treasured by our family for years to come. 

In other news, we have been amazed in the last week at God's faithfulness to answer prayer. As I posted less than 2 weeks ago, we were told to expect a substantial delay in our adoption. The  delay in the adoption was due to another family having a delay in the finalization of their adoption. We were told that until their adoption was finalized, our adoption was "on hold".  The very next day, after my last blog post, the other family unexpectedly was told that their adoption could be completed.  We found out last night that this means that we are now officially registered in Kaliningrad, meaning we officially could get a referral for a child and be asked to travel to Russia any day now (although we were told this could possibly take up to a few months...).  This was the last major roadblock before receiving word of who our little one is! I firmly believe that God was listening to our prayers and acted swiftly on our behalf.  I ask you to continue to pray that everything in the way of our little one coming home will removed.  My friend since high school, Becky Maddox, reminded me of Exodus 14:14, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." This is my prayer for our child and for my entire family as we can only wait at this point, trusting in God's perfect timing and faithfulness to complete what He has started. 

The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care...

The decorations are up at our house and we excited about the beginning of the Christmas season. As you can see, 5 stockings are hanging this year in anticipation of the newest family member. 

We spoke to the adoption agency today and were told that it will probably be several more months before we travel to Russia.  This was not music to this waiting mama's ears.  I've been hoping for a referral before Christmas, dreaming of filling a stocking for our child this year.  It looks like that dream isn't going to be a reality for 2011. 

In spite of this disappointment, I must hold on in faith that God's timing is perfect.  Having battled with God over my desire to control timing throughout our infertility struggles, I realize that this is something I must surrender to God, knowing He knows what is best more than I can even imagine.  Still my heart aches for a child who lives right now on the other side of the world, waiting for a family. We are waiting with open arms.  Tonight, 4 year old Dylan prayed, "God, please bring our orphan here so we can be with him forever!"   This is my prayer too.  I pray that God "parts the sea" of bureaucratic red tape and brings our child home sooner than expected.  Please pray that our child is brought home soon. 

The race is over!

The Chosen Marathon for Adoption was yesterday!  As an adoptive family, the experience of being part of this race was amazing.  When we learned of this months ago, we debated and prayed about participating...on the one hand, we are runners and running in a race to both raise adoption awareness and to raise money for our adoption made sense.  On the other hand, as someone who sometimes struggles with accepting help from others, we debated getting others involved in the adoption in this way.  In the end, we decided this was a great way to use a hobby (and passion, in my case) of ours to educate and get others involved in an even bigger passion... our passion for the children in the world without a family! 

Now that the race is over, I think I can honestly say that this race was an amazing experience!  As a runner, I usually walk away from races with a runner's "high" but yesterday's experience was different.  My high was not about what I accomplished (although I will proudly tell you that I came in 1st place in my age 30-39 age group for the full marathon) or about being proud of Brent for completing his 2nd half marathon, which is no small feat.  My high is about everything else this race was about.  The race raised $150,000 to help adoptive families afford the high costs of completing an adoption.  The race gave me a chance to see other adoptive families and hear about the passions of others who are adopting.  I saw many volunteers very sacrificially give their time to support the race as a whole and our family personally in our adoption journey.  And, Brent and I experienced the support of our friends and family in an amazing way.  I know that many special people in our lives love the child who will soon be a part of our family, even though none of us know who he or she is yet.  The generous donations of our friends and family have raised more than $3500 so far toward our adoption.  Also, five of our friends: Joel Verinder, Allison Parker, Gene Wilkes, Mark Housewright, and David Morales, took the time and energy to train and then travel to run with us on this special day.  We feel very loved and supported.

As I ran toward the finish line after running 26.2 miles, the street was lined with large posters with photos of adopted children, reminding all of us of why we were running.  Seeing the faces of those children and receieving a unique finisher's medal (a bracelet made by children in a Haitian orphanage) gave new meaning to why I was running.  This race was not about me or Brent, it was about all of the children in the world who need a family and about the chance to be a part of something that is taking a small step toward helping give a family to some of those children. 

 People wrote messages about why they were running on these posters, which were

 displayed at the race!

 Dinner out with Allison and Clay Parker and Baby Deacon the night before the race. 

We stayed with Mark Houswright.  David Morales, a friend we havent seen in a few years, travelled from Corpus to run with us!  It was great to see him.  

 Getting ready to run the morning of the race.  Our pastor, Gene Wilkes, travelled to run with us. We appreciate the sacrifice of his time and energy on a busy weekend! 

 Team Bowen! Ready to run at 7:00 am.  Left to right:Brent Bowen, Mark Housewright, Gene Wilkes, Ann-Marie Bowen, Allison Parker, Joel Verinder.  David Morales was there, but we couldnt find him in time for the picture!

 After the race: Gene and Mark waited with Brent for me to finish the full marathon after they ran the half. 

 Getting my trophy for winning 1st place in my division.  I can't wait to tell the story of this race to our child one day!

Ramblings about Life, Running, Adoption, and other Deep Thoughts

Hebrews 12:1-3 "...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith... so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

I did a 22 mile training run this morning as part of my training for the marathon for adoption (http://www.chosenmarathonforadoption.com/) that we are running at the end of the month.  For me, long runs, alone tend to lend themselves to deep thoughts. This morning, while running for 3 hours and 22 minutes, I spend a lot of time thinking about why I'm running, what it has to do with the adoption adventure we are experiencing, and how that relates to life in general.

Today's run was rough on me... not just because it was 22 miles long, but because the weather was less than ideal (38 mph winds, 88% humidity, 73 degrees...any runner will tell you this is not ideal running weather).  So, today's run was a test of endurance and perseverance for me.  As I ran, I thought about how life really is an endurance race.  Sometimes the race of life means working hard over time, other times the race means waiting patiently over time.  I've never been great at either.  I want what I want when I want it.  While I think this is true of most of us, growth means working through this.  And, for me, joy and peace come as I surrender this desire. 

This is one of the biggest things running has taught me.  God has used long distance running to help me learn endurance, perseverance, and taking life "one step at a time."  I can't start a marathon focusing on mile 26 or I wont take the 1st step... it will be too overwhelming.  And, this same attitude is the one that I must have as I approach anything big in life. 

So, how does adoption fit into this? Its a long road. Right now, I am having to persevere in waiting patiently for the news that we can travel to meet a child who I feel bonded to, despite the fact that I know nothing about this child.   Waiting is hard.  It is hard on the whole family.  Dylan asks regularly, "Can we go meet the orphan today?"  Maddie had a bad dream the other night that someone else took her brother or sister in Russia.  My human nature that wants things in my time wants to know when the next step is so I can plan accordingly.  But, just as I must approach a long distance run one step at a time, I must face this journey toward our child in Russia one day at a time.  Its a hard lesson to learn but one worth challenging myself with.  God's promise is that I fix my eyes on Jesus and His plan each step of the way, I will not grow weary or lose heart.

...and I raise you 13.1

(Brent here...) As many of you know, Ann-Marie and I are running in the Chosen Marathon For Adoption (www.chosenmarthonforadoption.com) in New Braunfels, Texas at the end of October.  This race is a means we decided to use to involve our friends and family in our preparation for the adoption,  by  raising emotional, prayer, and financial support.  Ann-Marie and I both signed up for the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and will be connecting with several friends who have signed up to run with 'Team Bowen'.  We are really looking forward to the race and spending some time with friends.

So race training has been underway for a while, and I am ahead of schedule for where I was hoping to be at six weeks out from the 1/2 marathon.  I did a 1/2 marathon a couple of years ago and took the training a bit lightly and paid dearly for it on race day (and for a couple of days after race day for that matter!).  In contrast, Ann-Marie, an avid runner, is perpetually trained for a 1/2 marathon as she typically runs about 22 miles during the week and caps it off with a 12 mile run on the weekend.  I know...it's crazy.  Well, she stepped up the craziness a couple of weeks ago by casually throwing out the idea of adding the extra 13.1 miles to make her run a full 26.2 mile marathon.  Sure...why not...and why not just go ahead and solve cold fusion and the Rubik's Cube while your at it.  Although for an experienced runner like Ann-Marie it is certainly possible to do an accelerated training program, it is still pretty daunting (the typical marathon training schedule is about 4 months).  Daunting enough that she could use a little extra incentive to pull it off.  I was thinking that it would be a great motivator if some of you donated $26.20 to the adoption to give her some extra encouragement.  Here is the best way to do that.  Browse to http://www.bethesdafund.org/ and follow the instructions to donate.  Make sure and put "Team Bowen" in the special instructions.  There is about a month delay before we are notified of donations, so you might want to send Ann-Marie a note (bowens99@verizon.net) and let her know that you are enabling her addiction to running.  By the way, if you are a runner and want to get in on the race, it is not to late.  We'd love to see you in New Braunfels. 

Let the waiting begin...

We receieved an email from our adoption agency that the last of our paperwork arrived in their office. Our representative told us there is nothing else for us to do at this point! So, we offically begin the wait for the Russian governement to match us with a child! 

Psalm 38:15  "LORD, I wait for you; you will answer..."

Want to Run?

As many of you have heard, Brent and
 I are participating in the Chosen Marathon for Adoption at the end of October. We are very excited to have the opportunity to take one of our (my) passions (actually, Brent would disagree that running is a passion for him and would probably label it as an obsession for me...) and use it as an opportunity to promote and support orphans and adoptions!  Brent and I are both running the half marathon and have a few friends signed up to particpate in Team Bowen too.  Its not too late to sign up! Let us know if you would like to partipate or if you would like help getting trained.  The proceeds from the race will go directly to help with the cost of our adoption.  www.chosenmarathonforadoption.com

Picturing in my Head...

Thanks to another family who has adopted from Russia twice, we found out this weekend that there is a Russian website that has photos and descriptions of all the Russian children who are eligible for adoption.  Last night, Brent and I poured over the photos of children in Kaliningrad, realizing that one of the photos we were looking at is a picture of our child! It amazes me to think that God knows who will be in our family in the near future, calling me "mommy".

I recently took the kids to have their pictures made. As I selected pictures to purchase, I realized that the next time we do pictures, we will likely be taking pictures of 3 kids, not 2!  So, I sit here, trying to imagine whose face will be in this picture this time next year...

Change of Plans!

Here we are, one week after posting about our regional assignment, and I just received word that our agency is recommending we change our region in Russia. So, when they told us international adoption was about flexibility, they were right! Our new region is Kaliningrad. Our other region was in Russia's far east... this region is the farthest region in Western Russia! In fact, it isnt even geographically attached to Russia as you can see in the map (it is situated north of Poland).  Overall, travel should be easier (and somewhat warmer) than Vladivostok, where we thought we were going.  We have prayed about this so much and trust that God knows where the child who belongs in our home is and He is working out the details for us to be together. So, we are trusting our adoption agency's recommendation and agreeing to switch regions.  We will keep you posted as things progress!

Maddie's New Favorite Bedtime Story...

I have to brag on my girl for a minute... Maddie is so excited about going to Russia and talking to her new sibling that she fell asleep last night studing this book in bed.  I'm hoping she can be my translator!

We have a region!

It has been awhile since we have posted, but we are happy to announce that we have some exciting  news regarding the adoption!  We have been given what is called a regional assignment in Russia. This means, we now know (barring unforeseen circumstances)  in what part of Russia our child is living!  Our agency thinks that we should be matched with a child and asked to travel to Russia for our 1st of 2 trips in the next 4-7 months! 

The main city in the area to which we are assigned is called Vladivostok.  If you are like us, when you think of Russia, you think primarily of eastern Europe.  However, Vladivostok is on the Pacific coast and is a major port on the Sea of Japan!  In fact, because of its location (a 6 day train ride or 8.5 hour flight from Moscow), it is much faster for us to fly over the Pacific Ocean to get there (and even that will be close to 24 hours of travel). So, right now, a child is living on the other side of the world who will be joining our family sometime in the next year.

For me (Ann-Marie), knowing where my child is makes the whole experience so much more real for me.  I have felt much more connected to who I am now calling "my third child" and have been praying for him or her a lot over the last few days.  I am specifically praying that God sends special caregivers that show extra special love and care for him or her, until we are there to bring him or her home.  We definitely appreciate your prayers too as you think about us and our child.  I discovered a website for a Catholic Charity that works in the orphanages in Vladivostok (called "baby homes").  You can see pictures of orphans and the orphanage.  This is one of 3 orphanages in the area and very well could be where our child is now living.  http://www.cjd.cc/Help_the_Orphans.htm

So, what happens from here? We are waiting to receive a list of documents that we need to complete for Vladivostok. Once these are completed, everything should be in order for us in the region and we will simply be waiting (very anxiously!!!) to receive word that we have been matched with a child (in adoption lingo, this is called receiving a referral). We will then be asked to travel to Vladivostok to meet the child and to file paperwork to officially adopt him or her.  This will take about 5-7 days.  We will then return home for what will probably feel like a very long couple of months while we wait to receive word that Russia is ready to finalize our adoption in court. At that point, we will be travelling to Russia for a month and are planning to bring Maddie and Dylan.  Here is the intimidating part to me: if the timing follows what the adoption agency is predicting, we will be travelling in the middle of winter.  In Vladivostok, the high temperature in January is 15 degrees and the low is around -15 degrees!  Yikes! Any suggestions on how to dress for this weather are much appreciated! 

We hope to have more updates soon!  Thanks so much for your support and prayers!

Happy Birthday to me!

Got a great birthday present today... received word from our adoption agency that our paperwork is officially on its way to Russia to be translated!  We are very excited!

Answered Prayer!!!

Thank you so much for your prayers about our SLOW processing of our application to adopt with the US government. After begin told on Monday that it could take 6 more weeks, the form arrived in the mail today!!  5 days is definitely better than 6 weeks. I am on my way to the post office to mail all of our documents we have gathered in the last 5 months to our adoption agency. They will prepare the documents to send to Russia! Soon, we will be assigned a region of Russia that our child will come from.  I hope to have another update really soon!

Update...

Psalm 37:7   "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him."

Molasses...southbound Tollway at 8:30...and our adoption.  Sometimes a pause can be good, like just before the punch line of a really good joke.  Sometimes a pause can be bad, like when your computer locks up.  Right now we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the U.S. government to give us the thumbs up to proceed with the adoption.  Pretty much since we started this process, we have had a long 'to do' list with lots of different things to work on.  Things were moving along nicely, with each next step following pretty much as expected.  Check marks were flowing very nicely down the list (a very satisfing experience for the type A(nn-Marie) among us).  Now it seems we are at one of those uncomfortable lulls. 

Four weeks ago, we went to get fingerprints done for an FBI background check. Uncle Sam will process these, along with our home study, and issue us a document that gives us permission to adopt internationally.  Once we have this form, all of our paperwork (which is sitting on my dresser in a very thick stack) can be sent to Russia.  So, Ann-Marie checks the mailbox everyday, anxiously waiting for the form.  Ann-Marie called this morning to check on the status and was told it is "still in queue".  She was told they "try" to process those forms within 75 days... so based on that, we still could be waiting another 6 weeks.  Yep, I'll put this in the computer lock up variety of pauses. 

While we wait, we are challenged to keep focused on where God is leading our family, the child waiting for their home here with us, and God's sovereignty and timing in everything. 

(Ann-Marie talking now)... On an exciting note, a great friend, Jolin Housewright, gave us two special books today. There is a history to these, because Jolin bought these books as a Christmas present for Maddie when we were adopting before, in 2006.  But, after I got pregnant and the adoption was stopped, she put them away, saving them for the last 4 1/2 years, in case we ever decided to adopt again. So, today she gave these two books to Maddie.  After dinner tonight, we read the books as a family and had fun talking about the child who will be joining our home, in God's perfect timing!

Patience...

Brent and I have completed everything that is necessary for us to do at this point in the adoption process. All the paperwork on our end has been complete. Right now, we are waiting for 2 important things to happen before all our paperwork can be sent to Russia: We need to hear back from the United States about an appointment to get FBI fingerprinting done and we need to receive official permission from them to adopt overseas.  We also need to mail a large stack of papers that I have (25 different documents, some multiple pages in length) to Austin to be apostilled, which basically means that the notarization of each of these forms is verified by the state of Texas.  Once all of this is done, our documents will be ready for our adoption agency to prepare to send to Russia.

Which brings me to the issue of patience.  I received a large envelope in the mail yesterday with 13 documents from the homestudy agency. I was planning to run to the post office to mail these to Austin to get apostilled only to find 3 blatant typos in the forms!  This is the 4th time something similar has happened with our homestudy agency (in particular, it is apparently very difficult to spell my name correctly...)  Basically, this is going to mean a delay of a week while we wait for new forms to be created, notarized, and mailed to us.   Amazingly enough, I am not as frustrated by this as I would expect myself to be. 

Back in school, I used to hate group projects.  I preferred to do everything myself... definitely an issue with control on my part.  Over the years, life (and God) has taught me that I can't always do it on my own.  God has been shaping, molding, and humbling me to see I need others, and sometimes the very person I need may not do things the way I want them to.  The process of adoption is requiring us to depend on a lot of other people: multiple people in government offices in both the US and Russia, multiple workers at our homestudy agency, multiple workers at our adoption agency, friend and family for support, and most of all God.  I have to remember that God's timing is perfect, and I want to allow Him to use this entire process as an opportunity to depend on Him on a deeper level as we continue to depend on others to bring our child to our home.

One step down....

Last weekend was our homestudy.  I found myself more stressed about this than I thought I would be.  Overall, I think everything went fine.  Maddie, in all her honesty, told the social worker that the positives of adopting included having another sibling to boss around. She also informed the social worker that the negatives of adopting including her parents being even bossier if there are 3 kids in the house.  The social worker seemed to take this in good humor.  She was also very nice about letting Dylan show her every toy from him room, including his favorite; a personal concert on his drum set.  We are now waiting for the social worker to finish writing up the homestudy.  It will then be sent to the Department of Homeland Security so the U.S. government can process our request to adopt.  After we finish up a bit more paperwork, most of our materials will be ready to be translated and sent to Russia.  I'm hoping this can all take place before the summer! 

We are very blessed by special people in our lives who support us and love us as we travel this journey.  We are very excited and feel a lot of peace about the process.  At the same time, there are understandably moments when I ask myself if we are crazy!  In these moments I am reminded of how God brought us to this path, and of the child waiting for us in Russia.  We cannot wait to hold him or her in our arms!

I ran across an article a few months ago in the Wall Street Journal about the church and adoption.  We found it interesting that our calling seems to be part of a larger movement in the church.  Here is a link to a Wall Street Journal article:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703743504575494263102089970.html

The Home Study!

After spending the last month gathering a lot of paperwork, getting examined by doctors, and obtaining reference letters, we found out today that our social worker will be coming out next week for our home study.  I have to admit that I am a little nervous about this. There is quite a bit of  vulnerability in having a stranger in my home to assess if our home is a good place to raise children!  However, the lady seems very nice and excited to help us in our adoption journey. 

I recieved a list of safety issues that the state of Texas requires us to address for our home to be safe for children.  Apparently, my home is not currently safe for my 2 existing children because our glass doors don't have a sign on them to protect a child from crashing into them ("Warning: Running Into A Glass Door Hurts"), and we don't have regularly scheduled family fire drills including a bell or chime to alert our children to the presence of fire in the home (as if my screaming and the blaring of smoke alarms aren't enough).  Anyway, needless to say, our weekend ahead is going to full of making our house "safer" for the social worker's visit.  Also, as part of the home study, each of us will be interviewed by the social worker (including the kids...by themselves...alone...enough said).  She estimates this will all take about 5 hours. Yikes.

We appreciate your prayers as we have this done.  She will be at our house for about 3 hours on Thursday, the 10th, and again for about 2 hours on Sunday the 13th.  We will update later on how that goes!

The Process

We have had several people ask us details about how the adoption will work, how long it will take, and what it involves.  From all we have read and been told, we can expect a lot of the unexpected when it comes to international adoption.  In dealing with 2 governments and ever-changing laws and regulations, there can be changes and bumps in the road.  So, even as we attempt to explain the process as we understand it at this point, we are expecting that time frames and details may change along the way.

Most likely, it will be 18 months-2 years before the adoption is finalized. Things could go quicker, but those are the best estimates based on the way things are right now.  In order to be able to adopt internationally, we have to obtain approval from both the United States and Russia.  This involves a lot of paperwork!  We are in the process of preparing that right now.  This includes everything from extensive financial information, medical exams and records, questionnaires about our personal history, our marriage, and our parenting, and recommendation letters. In addition, a social worker comes to our house to do a homestudy. This includes a licensed social worker coming to our house, interviewing all of us (kids included), studying our home, and writing a report based on her findings. Once all of this is complete (we expect it to take 4-6 months) and once we have the approval of the United States, our information is put together in what is called a dossier by our adoption agency. It is then translated to Russian and sent to Russia. At this point, we select a "region" of Russia that we will be adopting from.  Russian officials in that region are given our dossier and information about the type of child we are willing to adopt. Then, the waiting begins.

The amount of time we wait can be unpredictable.  We are requesting to adopt a child around 2-3 years old.  We are not requesting a specific gender for the child, so we could get a boy or girl. Most likely, we will get a boy, as girls are more "popular" to adopt.  Time frames can vary a lot, but we have been told it will likely be between 6 months and a year before we get matched with a child.  This matching is called a referral. 

When we receive a referral, we will be notified by our adoption agency that we have been matched with a child.  We may receive a lot of information about this child, or we may know very little.  Then, we will travel to Russia for about 5 days to meet the child, accept the referral, and begin the adoption process.  We will then come home and wait again for 2-4 months before returning to Russia for about 3 weeks to complete the adoption and to bring our child home! We plan to take Maddie and Dylan with us on this second trip. We had concerns about leaving them for that long, and our adoption agency has recommended this as a good opportunity for the kids to bond with their new sibling.  We are looking forward to it as a family adventure! When our child lands in the US, he or she will be an American citizen! Here is a link to our adoption agency's website for more information about the process involved: http://adopt.childrenshope.net/programs/russia/index.php. 

One aspect of this that is really exciting to us is the reality that, most likely, our child has already been born and is waiting in Russia for a home.  So, even though we do not know who he or she is, we know that God does and is preparing us and this child to be together soon!

If you are interested in reading more about some of the things that have motivated us to adopt, we can highly recommend the book "Fields of the Fatherless" by Tom Davis (http://www.amazon.com/Fields-Fatherless-C-Thomas-Davis/dp/0971410011#_).  This book has been very inspirational to both of us in driving us to  step out in faith in what we believe God is calling us to do.  

The paperwork has begun!

We got a packet in the mail with all of the initial paperwork we need to start doing to move forward with our homestudy.  While it is a little overwhelming, we are really excited to start working on everything!  The next month is going to be busy with filling out forms, getting physicals done at the doctor, and collecting other information for the social worker.  It is exciting to think that each form we fill out is bringing us one step closer to the child on the other side of the world that God has planned for our family!