Our 2nd SDA Appointment

8 April 2011

"Lead me in clear path" was the verse in Psalms I read first thing this morning before our 2nd SDA appointment.  The walk from our apartment to the SDA appointment seemed to take an eternity.  The whole time I begged God to be clear in His direction.  I do not want to make a mistake.  I do not want to journey any further in this adoption unless it is His plan for our family. 

We had been encouraged by our adoption agent, Larissa, to try to contact Roman one last time to see how he felt after we left.  For me, it was for closure more than anything.  We wanted to make sure that he was sure he did not want us to come back for him.  Had he said "Yes, please come back" we would not have hesitated to take the next train back down to Melitopol to get him.  Konstantine had a hard time locating Roman. He was playing somewhere outside the orphanage.

We stalled for time a little while waiting to hear back from Roman, but at last our name was called and we had to go into our 2nd meeting.  It was so hard to be open-minded when our hearts were so heavy.  Actually, they were broken, torn and confused.  How in the world are we supposed to choose a child with all this going on inside our hearts and minds?

Pictures of boys were being shown.  One pixelated photo was shown of a boy in a black suit with a black bow tie.  The rest of the boys looked pretty rough or were sickly.  One was blind, but we were assured he could see once he received medical care in the US.  One had bowed legs, but they were sure he would walk normally after he had surgery to correct his problem. 

The phone rang.  Russian.  Roman's answer was, "Well, maybe I want to be adopted...if they'll adopt my friend too...I really wish Maxim would come....." That was all I needed to move on.  If he was not 100% sure he wanted to be adopted, we were moving on.  There was no more time to waste.

Upon my lap sat the photo listing of the boy in the black suit.  I looked down at his big smile that filled his whole face.  I saw no sign of rebellion on his face.  A quick phone call was made to the orphanage to ask if he was interested in meeting us.  His answer? "Yes, I want to meet them and I hope they will adopt me too."  There was only one problem:  There was a note in his file stating that he was "very close" to his grandmother.  In spite of the hurt and doubt and lack of definite emotion, we said yes, we would like a referral to meet him.  I had decided if this didn't work out, I was heading home.

Immediately this afternoon when we returned to the hotel I began googling the region of Odessa, and the specific town of Izmail.  A Christian website called Frontier Horizon came up.  On the home page of their website they were advertising for Summer 2011 Hosting.  There was an adorable blond, boy about Sergey's age on that home page.  Tim says he looks like our Sergey.  Surely it's too good to be true to have such a clear photograph of "our" Sergey just 2 hours after our SDA appointment?  Isn't it?  What are the chances of that being him? 

We pick up our referral tomorrow around 4 and hope to take the next train out Saturday April 9th.

Photo from SDA Referral

Photo from Frontier Horizon