Day 25

While visiting Gela, we met another couple, John and Christine Reed, from Tulare, CA who just arrived the other day and are going to adopt one of Gela’s classmates. This isn't their first adoption though; I believe that this is their 8th, making a total of 12 children for them. And I thought 4 would be a handful! But praise God there are families out there willing to adopt regardless of how many! After grabbing some quick lunch, we headed over to Slovansk to appear before the judge. We learned that the judge asked Lena to appear. That, of course, made us, Marsha and Yulia a bit nervous. She appeared with a friend and when asked, she appropriately shared with the judge that the girls would be better suited for us to adopt. The courtroom itself was smaller than our bedroom and hot as outside. There were 14 of us in it: two jurors, a court recorder, the prosecutor, a representative from the Slovansk orphanage, one of the social workers, Lena and her friend, the boys, us, Marsha, and of course the judge. I think we over dressed a bit and I couldn't hide the sweat. We were asked some questions, gave our statements, and answered a couple of questions from the jurors and the prosecutor. Overall, I think it took about 45 minutes. We step outside the room for deliberations and a few minutes later, we joined the judge and jurors. At that moment we heard those magical words: the court approves the adoption! However, we still must wait the 10 days. This means that as of July 26th, the girls are officially our daughters but that being a Sunday, we must get the court documents Monday, the 27th. That Monday, we will pick up the girls and they will never have to see the orphanages again. It's also when they will meet since they were separated. We also learned that getting the passports should only take 2 days and getting the VISAs should only take about 2-3 days. This means that we could be done by July 31st but I'm not so sure. Regardless, we should be done by our expected travel home date of August 5th. We are so excited and yet so very tired. We were very nervous and besides the heat, it took a lot out of us emotionally. The aunt was sad but understands the situation. Her and her friend congratulated us as we left the building. I'm glad to have left the situation on pleasant terms. After the court hearing, we visited Vicka. She doesn't know the official date yet as we don't want to confuse her about it but maybe we can get a calendar and she can count down the days until she leaves the orphanage. I don't have any pictures of her as she was in her underwear and stayed that way. This is common at this age as it gets very hot. But I don't want to have any problems taking pictures like that. Praise God we are on the downward slope of the adoption!