...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!