On March 20, 2004, We were finally on our way to Kazakhstan...landing in Almaty, then, after spending a night and a day, we finally flew to Shymkent on March 22...(our 24th Anniversary.) We flew "Scat" Airlines, a division of Aeroflot...whose motto was "Don't forget to tie your seatbelt"! Broken seats! and ...seatbelts? really? where? (we found and tied them). I had to keep remembering that I was just as much in God's Hand then as I was in United and Lufthansa flights. Whew! Landed at a DARK airport......we had to walk around the building, then, walk back to the airplane to get our luggage (which all made it, amazingly enough!) Off to our small, but serviceable apartment...sure do wish I had brought screen fabric, fly paper, and duct tape. The bugs got to be bad, and it was so hot, we had to have the windows open!
Was so wonderful to have two of our three kids w/us....
Hardest labor I ever had!
Happy Anniversary to my DH...now at #34...we brought home quite a "souvenir" of our trip, eh?
Love, Karla
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
10 years ago...or more....
I don't do a very good job at posting as often as I would like, so, I'm going to catch up by doing some posting of our trip to Shymkent, Kazakhstan when we adopted our youngest daughter, Sasha Alexandra.
In Dec of 2003, we were hoping that our LOI ("Letter of Invitation") was coming soon...our now defunct agency was saying that our dossier was going from the Ministry-of-this-affair-to-the-ministry-of-that-affair-to-this-translator-to-that-translator-to-this-embassy-to-that-embassy...etc, etc, etc. The having to patiently wait was so hard...in addition to all of the other stuff that was going on in our lives at the time. Only by God's grace did we make it.
In January of 2004, we were getting "cold feet"...how do we really do this? DO we really do this? How do you enter the life of an "older" child (Sasha was 8 1/2 when we met/adopted her) and turn her life upside down by bring her into our home....our life...our country...are we crazy? The warfare was so. very. hard. (continues to be in many ways).
We continued to wait for that illusive LOI....
On February 6 of 2004, we got notice that we had received our LOI!! When do we travel? Worked on Visa's, plane tickets, packing, etc....
In March, we are down to the wire...getting all of the "last minute" stuff done..
And, on March 20, 2004...we are on our way. My journal says that we were in complete confidence that God had opened the doors. (As we learned more being in country, we were more astounded at how God cared for us and Sasha...even though it was very, very, hard.)
More later!
Karla
In Dec of 2003, we were hoping that our LOI ("Letter of Invitation") was coming soon...our now defunct agency was saying that our dossier was going from the Ministry-of-this-affair-to-the-ministry-of-that-affair-to-this-translator-to-that-translator-to-this-embassy-to-that-embassy...etc, etc, etc. The having to patiently wait was so hard...in addition to all of the other stuff that was going on in our lives at the time. Only by God's grace did we make it.
In January of 2004, we were getting "cold feet"...how do we really do this? DO we really do this? How do you enter the life of an "older" child (Sasha was 8 1/2 when we met/adopted her) and turn her life upside down by bring her into our home....our life...our country...are we crazy? The warfare was so. very. hard. (continues to be in many ways).
We continued to wait for that illusive LOI....
On February 6 of 2004, we got notice that we had received our LOI!! When do we travel? Worked on Visa's, plane tickets, packing, etc....
In March, we are down to the wire...getting all of the "last minute" stuff done..
And, on March 20, 2004...we are on our way. My journal says that we were in complete confidence that God had opened the doors. (As we learned more being in country, we were more astounded at how God cared for us and Sasha...even though it was very, very, hard.)
More later!
Karla
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