Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Meet our Facilitator: Yuri




This is Yuri, our facilitator. He is acting like our attorney in the adoption process. He submits all the necessary paperwork, advises us when necessary, and holds our hands throughout the process. So far, he has worked well with us! His English is very good, and he's very easy to talk to, so that helped us during our stay in Ukraine. He is also quite the ladies' man, so that was a definite plus for us (or at least that's the way it appears). In the adoption world, most of the officials are female, so it is very beneficial to be working with a young man who the ladies seem to swoon over!

On the way back to the U.S., Yuri traveled with us as far as New York. He was headed to Richmond, Virginia to spend several days with a family that he helped to adopt 3 boys earlier this year. His traveling with us was another disguised blessing.

When we were trying to leave Ukraine, we experienced difficulty leaving Ukraine. If Yuri had not been with us to assist us in working out the situation and translating, we would still be in Ukraine right now awaiting a court date. It was all a misunderstanding stemming from culture and language barriers, however it was a rather frustrating and frightening experience. We certainly do not want to re-experience that event again! I know I'm not providng detail, but just know that when we thought things couldn't get any worse, they did! We were and still are so thankful that God put Yuri on the same flight back to the US with us!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We also tried to adopt from Ukraine, but switched over to Russia because of all the uncertainty. God lead us there to find our two healthy beautiful children,2 and 3 years old siblings!! It was the BEST decison we ever made.Follow your heart, your children may be in another region waiting for you as ours were! God bless!!xoxo