Fingerprints and more fingerprints

Greetings, everyone! No BIG news yet! We recently found out that Vladivostok now requires state and FBI background checks on adoptive families who are getting ready for court. So on Thursday we went downtown to the county police headquarters and got fingerprinted. This fingerprinting was done with ink. We immediately filled out the necessary forms for the FBI clearance and dropped them in the mail that afternoon. Yesterday we received the notice for the fingerprinting appointment we have been waiting for. On the 27th of this month we get to go downtown to CIS to be fingerprinted electronically. This is for the extension of our document that gives us permission to adopt two orphans from overseas. The last thing we have to do is send off for a state background check, which we will do tomorrow. Thankfully, we don't need a set of fingerprints for that one. It's just a name check.

Last week we also met with our pediatrician, who came highly recommended by Clarion's sister.  We will also be talking to the IA doctor soon.  We are definitely going to take the boys for an appointment with the IA doctor very soon after we bring them home.  IA doctors have tons of experience with the Russian medical terminology in the reports and are able to do all kinds of testing to determine what immunizations the boys have and much, much more.  Our pediatrician said that the IA doctor can do all of the testing that needs to be done right there, which means they would need to draw less blood from the boys than if our pediatrician ordered the tests.  We don't look forward to the boys having to be poked and prodded at all, but we know all of the tests will be for their good.

As we wait we're just trying to keep busy. Joel is teaching Hebrew this summer at the seminary where he works. He's been looking forward to that for months now. It almost didn't fly, but he managed to get just enough students to sign up for the course to make it go. Clarion is hoping to get all of her planning done for next school year. She is going to be teaching pre-school from 8-11AM Monday through Friday next year. Her goal is to get everything planned out, just in case we end up going back to Vlad later in the summer. We want to have as much down time with the boys as possible once we get back home. Thankfully, the boys will get to go with her to pre-school each day and then they can spend the afternoons with Mama at home.

As for timing, we could get a call any day now for a court date.  Or we may not get the call for another month.  Who knows?  International adoption certainly keeps you on your toes.  We are pretty sure that there are a few families who did their first trips to Vlad shortly before ours and are also waiting for court dates.  Things don't always go in order though.  We certainly continue to pray that the Lord will get all of us over there for court soon so that we can start our new lives with our beautiful children.  As always, thank you for your continued prayers for us and for our little guys!  To all of you who have brought your children home in recent months, thank you for your comments.  Your stories and words of encouragement are an inspiration to all of us who are waiting.  God bless you all!

Love,

Clarion & Joel