This may be a long boring post but there are three reasons why I am posting it. #1 So I will never forget the love God has for us. So when things just look impossible in my life I look back at this day and know all things are possible through Christ.#2 So you can see the hands of God once again through our journey and the last reason is so those families who travel after us that they can trust God to see them through. So here it goes all of our Chaos.
As for the first day of court it was quite easy, the judge just read through our documents. She read some of them out loud and some she just skimmed over. She asked us a few questions: how much is your mortgage?, your birth children's names and birthdays, and other simple questions. We felt it was easy and that things went well. But then things got crazy. After court our facilitator came down and said that the court has an issue with our income. We had three different documents that stated a different income. Yikes!! My heart sank, we had no idea why that was. Also they said we did not make enough according to the census bureau of the United States to take care of so many children. It states you must make 33,000 to be above poverty. In one of our documents it said we made 32,000. So we hashed things out trying to figure out where the mistake was made. We couldn't see what happened so they started to prepare us for the worse..... We would have to choose between Matvey and Varvara the very two who we were fighting for. The very two who were planted in my heart that the Lord said were my children nearly a year and a half ago. Our two facilitators were worried they said it does not look good. So we gathered our documents and set off for our hotel so Jason and I could prepare what we would say to the courts. We went to dinner with Alicia Fanz who is also adopting out of this region. Her husband and her were approved to adopt two siblings with HIV just the week before by the same judge. We stayed in the same room with her since her husband left and it saved both of us money. Dinner was a flop, I couldn't eat anything that I got so we headed back to the hotel room to hash out the documents. That is when we noticed the mistakes I made with the financial sheets. There were more than one: first I realized that i added 2008 and 2009 taxes together which came to 19,800 and subtracted it from both incomes that made it look like we made around the 30,000 mark for net instead of 40,000. Then I added up our assets and I was off by 100,000. Then Alicia and I looked up the census bureaus information on the poverty level and it is based on gross not net income. The courts thought it was net income, we actually make nearly 20,000 over poverty for a family of 7. So now that all of the mistakes were figured out it was time to present it to our facilitators in the morning. The next morning we sat with our translator and Irena to explain all of what happened. They were all still very worried and were throwing all of the "situations" at us that they thought would happen. They were telling us ways to answer questions that made the mistakes sound better. Basically they wanted us to fabricate the truth. Jason and I agreed with each other we were telling the truth no matter if it sounded bad or not. So off we went to court with sadness laying on my heart, we entered the court room and waited for the judge. The judge entered and this is what happened.... this is the best part!
She asked who would speak first and Jason and I decided he would clear up the financial stuff so he stood up. She asked him to approach the bench and clear up the financial information. She asked him to show her and explain the tax information on our 1040 so he did. It took 1 minute to clear it up she did not ask anything else. All of the information we prepared to tell her she didn't even ask. Not about the different amount we had, not about the mistake in the home study, she said "I am satisfied with your income, I have no issues" God is good isn't He?
Then came the second issue, we were adopting two children with special needs. They were not confident that we could handle such a situation. Jason spoke for a bit, he was still standing, and answered simple questions. She asked him to describe his children. Which she compared to our home study. She asked him some other things and then asked me to stand. She knew I stayed home with the children so she spoke with me the most since I was the one who care for the children most of the day. Keep in mind that in Russia most people have just one child in their family. Rarely do you see even two children. So the judge asked me many times if we would like to just try for one child. I told her that I felt we had to try for two and that we were not going to change our minds even if in the end we didn't get both. I told her we will fight for two. It as about an hour or so of many questions most of them were how I would manage the home and care for the kids. But I will share something very funny that happened and it really made me see that these were real people. She asked me about the chores in the house who did most of them. I told her I did the cleaning with the kids help and the cooking and that Jason did all the laundry. I said "I don't like laundry" Here is how the rest of the conversation went:
Judge: "Who does the pressing"
Me: "I don't iron"
Judge: "Never?"
Me: "No not ever"
Judge: "how do you get wrinkles out?"
Me: "I throw them back in the dryer?"
At this point all of the women on the court are laughing.
Judge:" surly you have some blouses or things at home that need to be ironed?
What does your husband wear to work?"
Me: "No, he wears sweaters and shirts that don't need ironed"
Judge: "Do you own an iron"
Me: "I do own one yes, I just don't use it."
They all laughed and we moved on.
So after all the questions and many many tears we were at the end. All of the doctors and social workers shared information on the babies. When they spoke of them you could see the love they have for them. They truly care for these children. They are making many changes for them. They told us that they have offered Varvara to prospective adoptive families 113 times and Matvey has been offered 52 times. Later I told our translator they said no because God knew where they belonged. They went over their families and how they came to the orphanage. They also shared with us that Matvey's mother came last week to see him and ask about the family who was going to adopt him. They said she had no business asking, she could visit but not get any information about us. The court spoke for about an hour and then they gave their approvals. All of the social workers and doctors were in agreement for us to adopt both children. Then it came to the last person, the prosecutor. She said "I need more time to decide." My hear sank to the bottom of my stomach. The judge said we would resume on Friday. Our flight was Friday at 12:30. She asked us when we fly out and then said she would resume in 2 hours with their decision. We left and went to the hotel to try and relax and for the most part I had peace. I really felt the prayers you all prayed and I knew no matter what Gods will would prevail. We headed back to court and it took about 5 minutes for the judge to read her decision. We were approved for the adoption of Vavara and Matvey and she read their given names by us. Varvara Ann Plummer and Matvey Russell Plummer. Everyone hugged us in the court even the prosecutor, they told us the best of luck. Tamera apoligized for the harsh questions about caring for the children and explained she just wanted us to be sure. After we headed up to the judges office and when we entered she smiled as did the prosecutor. We thanked her and I promised to love the babies and to take care of them. She told us that she lost many hours of sleep over this. I told her "I lost sleep with her". I again told them both that we will love them forever and take care of them and the prosecutor said "With Gods help?" I said of course "With Gods help"
Then we left and began to celebrate!!! It is simple "Love Wins" 1 John 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
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Sunday, October 23, 2011
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