Paperwork Update

Paperwork update

Things always move a little slower than we would like, but we are happy to say that they are still moving! We received word today from our agency that our paperwork has been translated! Yeah! Our agency’s facilitator in the Moscow region has the paperwork and will file it next week with the Ministry of Education (MOE). We expect/hope/pray that we will get an invitation to travel in about four to six weeks. This will allow us to get our Russian visas to visit a child (or children) in an orphanage, or baby home as they are called in Russia. We will get one to two weeks notice that we will be traveling, so that puts our anticipated travel anywhere from 6-8 weeks from now. Once we get an invitation to travel from the MOE, we will find out where in the Moscow Region we will be going. We will book flights and start to packing. We are hoping to hear that we have a referral over the Thanksgiving weekend so it would be a Thanksgiving that we will truly have much to be thankful for.

Our agency also received their NGO approval last week! For those of you that do not know what NGO is . . . it stands for Non Governmental Organization. Starting this year, the Russian government requires that all foreign agencies working in Russia to be registered with the Ministry of Justice. Furthermore, adoption agencies must be accredited by the Ministry of Education (which ours is) and have NGO approval (which ours does as of 10/18/2006). We have one of the few agencies that have both!

The nursery has been a very, very, slow process. We (OK, just me) are still unable to pick a paint color, theme, or a crib. Right now the room is empty of all furniture. We have around 35-40 paint cards with blue, red, green, yellow and sand colors in the running. Some combination is likely. We will soon write the options on cards and draw one from the hat and be bound to that as our decision!

That is it for now. We will update you on colors for the nursery and hopefully, a travel date in the near future.

Maria and Jeff

The Waiting Game Continues

Nothing much has changed in the past two weeks. Our paperwork is in Russia being translated and should be with the Ministry of Education within the next week or two. After that, we will just waiting for "The Call." It will be at that time that our agency tells us that we are traveling and that there is a referral. Until than, we will continue to wait and work on the nursery and cheer for the Ravens.

We were a little concerned because we had read that there may be a slow down in Moscow because of a new official at the Ministry of Education. We have since learned that that may be in Moscow City and we are in the Moscow region. So we are under the belief that everything is fine and confirmed with our agency that we are moving forward. We know of two other couples with our agency recently got referrals and will be traveling in the next couple of weeks. (Congratulations to Marco and Lauren!).

This week we looked at baby furniture which was truly overwhelming as there is so much out there. If we cannot settle the argument between a cat theme or a flag theme we will go with something different. We did look at some paint colors and just like everything else this will be a long process just to select a color. We have been able to actually move some furniture out of the room and into the hallway. At this rate we will be painting after Christmas!

That is it for now. The news is slow as we wait, but you will all know once we get THE CALL!