We Have a Name & a Court Date

OK, we've got a name. Her current name is Oxsana (Oksana?) Alexandrovna Avadenya. After much deliberation, I decided to let Julie have her way (I'm no fool), and her new name will be Juliana Alexandra. I wasn't so sure about her first name being so close to Julie's, but it is very pretty (pronounced "Juli-ahn-a" not "Julie-ann-a". Her middle name really won't change too much, and we figure that her new first name is close enough to her current name that she'll probably just think we're calling her by a new nickname. :-) She won't be called Julie for obvious reasons.

We're getting a little bit better of a picture of what our total timeframe may be, and it may not be pretty. Our court date is 12/10, and at this time there's no reason to believe that the judge will not approve the adoption. Then, the 10 day waiting period begins. Then, the process begins for her new birth certificate, passport (from Ukraine) and visa (from U.S. Embassy in Kiev) to leave the country. That can be a 10-14 day process. If you do the math, it appears unlikely that we'll have her home before the new year. Then, get this - Ukraine's big holiday season is the new year/Christmas holiday (they celebrate Eastern Orthodox Christmas, which falls on 1/7). Apparently, the government offices all virtually shut down from 1/1 - 1/9. So, we very well may not be able to get her home before mid-January.

Our return plane tickets are for 12/12, and we will be coming home then. The original plan was for Julie to then fly back a couple of weeks later to wrap thing up. To the point - the area where we are staying and where the orphanage is located is very impoverished and a bit of a rough neighborhood. No way will Julie be coming back by herself. That part of the plan is still up in the air, and our facilitator Luba is meeting with the passport office tomorrow to see if that process can proceed without our presence. Then, we may very well need to come back for just a few days to pick her up, tie things up in Kiev, and head home. There is a slim chance that this could all happen before 12/31, so please, please pray. Otherwise, it will be a longer wait, but we know it will be worth it in the end. We've told you about the bureaucratic red-tape involved in this process, but our heads are spinning right now. We have no great love for the Ukrainian government at the moment. Thank God for Luba, though - she spends all day rushing tirelessly from one office to another to get this document signed by the inspector, that document reviewed by the chief, the next document stamped by the notary... you get the picture.

We've finally got an internet connection here in our apartment (which we are renting from the deputy physician of the orphanage). It is painfully slow dial-up, so we really can't upload video. I'll try to get back to an internet cafe in town to do that in the next few days. Hope you like the pictures. Thank you again for your posts & comments - it is very encouraging and humbling for us to see all of you who are reading this blog and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.