Farewell Dear Friends

Today is the one year anniversary of our "family day" - the day we were officially declared in court to be the adoptive parents of sisters Galyna and Anastasia. Like most others, I began blogging to keep family and friends updated on our journey while in Ukraine, but sharing our experience with you has been so rewarding, and blogging became such a habit, that I've continued since our arrival home last July.

I will probably never have the chance to meet you, so let me say how much you've meant to me, and to all my family. Your comments and emails have been such an important part of my life that it's hard to say goodbye. But the time has come for me to spend less time blogging and more time parenting as we become a homeschool family, juggling work and school.

I will continue reading your blogs of course, and may even start up a homeschooling blog later this summer, so perhaps you haven't heard the last of me.

Whether you are pre-adoptive, post-adoptive (or non-adoptive), I pray for all God's blessings on your journey. If you are preparing for a trip to Ukraine, I've listed some links to old posts below that you may find helpful.

The gift of adoption has been an indescribable joy for our family, and I thank you for sharing in our lives the past 13 months.

Grace and Peace - Jim

Memorable postings from our adoption trip to Ukraine:

• The Scourge of Ukraine - this is why Ukraine's orphan problem is a real humanitarian crisis.
• Going to Court - it's funny how we all get so wigged out about this. Dana wrote this beautiful post about that unforgettable day in Odessa.
• A Day in Odessa - for most adoptive families, the craziness doesn't really get started until the last few days. Type-A folks beware, NOTHING is predictable about this!
• Funky Odessa - this is a soulful city with fascinating people and surprisingly beautiful in places.
• Life in the Orphanage - nothing beautiful about this!
• Why Not Me? - a hard lesson learned.
• The Mysterious Oleg - if you're using the "Oleg team," here's the man behind those cryptic emails!
• The Ukrainian Holocaust - if your adoptive kids are from the pro-Russian parts of Ukraine (east or south), they need to know about this.
• Time Warp - I'll never forget this day, traveling back in time to an abandoned Soviet air base.
• The Permanent Things - as desperately poor as these people are, there remains much to be admired, and there's much for us to learn.
• Beach Party! - if you go in the Summer, make sure to check out the beaches.
• More on Odessa - prepare to have fun in this wild town!
• Homecoming! - the moment we all long for. I'll never forget seeing all our friends waiting for us!
  

A Great Summer Read

Colin Thubron must be one of the finest writers of our time. I came across Among the Russians (formerly titled "Where Nights Are Longest") on the excellent website of Dr. George Grant, a Presbyterian pastor in Franklin, TN, who has this extraordinary book listed among his 25 top "modern non-fiction titles."

If you've ever traveled in Russia or Ukraine (or plan to), you will be blown away by this fascinating story of Thubron's solo travels throughout Western Russia and Ukraine in the early 80's. He is stunningly perceptive while penetrating deeply into the soul of ordinary people, and his descriptions of them will hit home with anyone who's spent time in this mysterious part of the world:

"The whole country is like a requiem. In its consuming maternity, its individual children drown; and all other nations become petty or irrelevant - they are far away. From her own people Russia elicits a helpless worship of belonging. She contains them with the elemental despotism of an earth mother, and they feel for her the supplicant's tormented tenderness."

I love reading travel books in the Summer, and this is easily the finest in the travel genre I've ever read. If your adoption adventure takes you to Siberia, check out Thubron's In Siberia, which also gets rave reviews on Amazon.

Picture of the Week

We had a few moments of excitement recently when a brilliant rainbow appeared late in the evening. Everyone ran outside to take it in and it was made even more special when Galyna said that it was the first time she'd ever seen one!

The Joy of Mud

"...if you was my size the dirt would catch you up faster too."

-Nikki Giovanni