POST 7: Bonding Trip Update
Dear Friends and Family,
As our first trip to Kyrgyzstan comes to an end in just a few short days, we wanted to give you one last update.
First, we cannot thank you enough for your continued prayers and words of encouragement. We have received messages, comments, and calls from many of you over the last week and a half and they have all proven to be a great source of encouragement for us. Many of you are so anxious to see pictures and videos of our children and we are eager to share them with you when we return.
We also want to thank you for specifically praying for safety for both Shelby and I and our workers here over the last week or so. The nation of Kyrgyzstan recently had their election period which caused a ripple of civil unrest. There have been riots in the city of Bishkek where we are currently residing, an overthrow of the parliament building, as well as an assassination attempt. The US Embassy issued a shelter in place order for all American citizens, and the government of Kyrgyzstan declared a state of emergency. However, there are two areas where we can give thanks to God through these times. One, things seemed to have settled down in Bishkek, and we are no longer under a shelter in place order. And two, the unrest has not kept us from visiting our children each day. For this we praise the Lord.
And friends, this time of bonding with our children has gone so well, that we can only attribute it to the grace of our wonderful Lord. We know He has been watching over our children before we even met them, and we can say now with incredible confidence, that He is sovereignly watching over every minute we spend with them.
We continue to visit with Eliza at her orphanage around 10am every morning. While she still expresses a level of fear and uncertainty, the Lord continues to strengthen our bond with her day by day. Yesterday, it took us about 30 minutes to soothe her and make her comfortable. By the end of our time together, she was running, playing, holding our hands, and giggling. God is kind.
After lunch, we drive about an hour and half to the orphanage of Vasili and Vitali, spending the rest of the afternoon with them. And I have to tell you, it has become more and more difficult to leave them at the end of every day. Both boys have such distinct and attractive personalities. Vasili is caring, mature, and loves playing ball with his papa! Vitali is independent, but loves his older brother, and wants his mama to see everything he is doing. After about 20 minutes, both boys are full of energy and running around outside or in the playroom. I almost forgot, every day when we arrive at the orphanage, both boys walk up to mama and papa and give us each a big hug. It is nearly impossible to let go. Friends, this Friday is going to be filled with emotions as we say “see you later” to these boys. For us, we know the time is coming soon that we will bring these boys home. But for them, they are still tying to understand who exactly we are, and why we are leaving them for now. Please pray.
One last word I want to say to highlight the kindness of God. Two days ago, Shelby and I met a wonderful woman, Kelli, who is here from the states in the process of adopting her daughter. She is here for her court hearing which is actually taking place today. Please pray that it would go smoothly. On Monday, we spent about 3 hours in the car with her talking about each of our adoption journeys and it was such a wonderful time of mutual encouragement. We thank the Lord for these moments, and how He cares for us.
Friends, our hearts are full. These two weeks have been such a blessing and have gone better than we could have ever imagined. It will be difficult to leave on Friday, but we know that Lord will continue to watch over every step of this journey. Thank you all again for your love and kindness.
Love,
Nate and Shelby
Post 6: Meeting our Children
Hello from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan!
We wanted to write and say we made it safely! We landed very early Saturday morning and were greeted at the airport by our wonderful (in country) social worker. We are staying in a small, cozy Airbnb apartment a few blocks away from the city center in Bishkek. Each day will look similar, we will split our time between the boy’s orphanage and little sis’s orphanage (although our social worker has applied for her to be moved to the boy’s orphanage, and that should happen while we are here).
Friends, our hearts are so full. We were able to meet all 3 of these precious children whose photos have been looked at and prayed over daily in our home for the past year and a half! Now here we are seeing them in person, holding them, and playing with them. It’s been incredible.
Here’s a little bit about what each meeting looked like:
We met sweet little Eliza at her orphanage, which isn’t located too far away from our Airbnb. Before we met her were able to meet with her pediatrician, some of her care givers, and the director of her orphanage. We were told on more than one occasion, “she is brave”. We could see this to be true from the moment we walked into the room where she was. She was standing, holding onto her nanny’s hand. She was scared, but didn’t cry. We were able to pick her up and show her some toys. We learned quickly that our time with her is going to be very important as she learns to trust us, and gets used to new faces (especially with our scary medical masks on). The Lord provided a sweet time of her laying on my lap for over an hour yesterday. And we saw that as a great breakthrough! I think I could have sat there forever holding this little girl we have waited so long to know.
Meeting Vasili and Vitali was a very different experience, as they are much older and seem to understand more of what is taking place.
We were welcomed into the orphanage and sat across the table from the director and told if we have any questions about the boys, to ask her now. We tried to think off the top of our very exhausted and jet lagged minds the millions of questions we've had up until this point. Minutes later, we heard our social worker telling someone at the door to "wait!" as she pulled out her phone and began recording. We looked over our shoulders and saw a little boy with tiny brown slippers shuffling his way through the door holding his nanny's hand. This was the moment we first saw Vitali.
We brought a soccer ball and a small photo book of pictures for each of them. Vitali ran right up to Nate and grabbed the soccer ball and rolled it back and forth on the ground. When we showed him the photo book, we went through and explained each picture. Our social worker was quick to teach him we were "mama and papa", and our hearts soared.
Only a few moments later, we heard the nanny coming back down the hallway, and in came Vasili. He was calm and polite, and introduced himself with his sweet, soft, raspy voice. He came up to each of us and greeted us with a hesitant hug.
We took some photos together and then headed upstairs to a large open room where we spent the next hour playing with them. Vasili and Nate played soccer most of the time, and Vitali and I flipped through his photo book about a hundred times. He only put it down long enough to grab some handfuls of goldfish crackers.
We wished our time with them could have lasted forever, but it was time to say "see you later", so they could go to lunch and nap time. We plan to see them again tomorrow, and each day we're here. Please pray for our interactions with them and for our hearts as we get to know each other and grow in our trust with one another.
Love,
Shelby + Nate
Post 5: THE LONG AWAITED CALL: WE'RE OFFICIALLY "MATCHED"!
Hello everyone,
We write this update with much more excitement and joy in our hearts than the last! Just to recap a bit: we submitted our dossier for the 3 children in October 2019 and it was accepted and registered in Kyrgyzstan in January. Since then, we have waited for our official referral. For those of you who don't know what an official referral is, it's when a family receives all the information available on the child or children they are interested in adopting. The referral file usually contains photographs of the child, a medical report, and the child’s social history. Sometimes you might hear families refer to this as "being matched". On Friday night at 7 pm, as we pulled into a Chipotle to grab our pickup order, we got an extremely unexpected phone call from our social worker. We couldn't believe on a Friday night, in the midst of a pandemic when everything is closed down, we would be receiving our official referral, but we DID! PRAISE THE LORD!
Not only have we been waiting for this call since October- but we had been waiting to see and read about this precious baby girl we got a phone call about LAST SUMMER! Up until Friday night we didn't know her birthdate, name, what she looked like, or where she is located exactly. We are happy to report those questions are now answered, and we are SO thankful for this beautiful, healthy, baby girl.
We ultimately are so thankful to the Lord, who has called us to this journey of adoption, who has set these children apart for us, and who has protected them through the craziness of this pandemic.
Our next step is to travel on trip 1 (of 3) to spend two weeks bonding with V. V. + E. Typically travel dates come within a few weeks of the official referral, but due to COVID19, we are back to the waiting game. But as soon as travel restrictions are lifted we will receive those dates. We know we are not the only ones being affected by this virus, but it is another reason to pray this virus away! Please join us in praying for the virus to subside in the U.S. and for travel to open back up as soon as possible. We cannot wait to meet these sweet children and ultimately bring them home!
We write this update with much more excitement and joy in our hearts than the last! Just to recap a bit: we submitted our dossier for the 3 children in October 2019 and it was accepted and registered in Kyrgyzstan in January. Since then, we have waited for our official referral. For those of you who don't know what an official referral is, it's when a family receives all the information available on the child or children they are interested in adopting. The referral file usually contains photographs of the child, a medical report, and the child’s social history. Sometimes you might hear families refer to this as "being matched". On Friday night at 7 pm, as we pulled into a Chipotle to grab our pickup order, we got an extremely unexpected phone call from our social worker. We couldn't believe on a Friday night, in the midst of a pandemic when everything is closed down, we would be receiving our official referral, but we DID! PRAISE THE LORD!
Not only have we been waiting for this call since October- but we had been waiting to see and read about this precious baby girl we got a phone call about LAST SUMMER! Up until Friday night we didn't know her birthdate, name, what she looked like, or where she is located exactly. We are happy to report those questions are now answered, and we are SO thankful for this beautiful, healthy, baby girl.
We ultimately are so thankful to the Lord, who has called us to this journey of adoption, who has set these children apart for us, and who has protected them through the craziness of this pandemic.
Our next step is to travel on trip 1 (of 3) to spend two weeks bonding with V. V. + E. Typically travel dates come within a few weeks of the official referral, but due to COVID19, we are back to the waiting game. But as soon as travel restrictions are lifted we will receive those dates. We know we are not the only ones being affected by this virus, but it is another reason to pray this virus away! Please join us in praying for the virus to subside in the U.S. and for travel to open back up as soon as possible. We cannot wait to meet these sweet children and ultimately bring them home!
Love,
Nate + Shelby
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Post 4: How Coronavirus has affected our Adoption
Greetings friends,
We bring you this update truly hoping that you and those you love are safe and doing well.
It's been quite some time now since we've given an update on our adoption, and if anything good has come out of this pandemic, it's having some extra time on our hands to do things like update our blog! The main reason for a lack of update was mainly because we ourselves have not received many updates. This entire winter has been extremely quiet and seemingly stagnant. We predicted at this point to be preparing for trip 2 of 3, but instead we haven't received travel dates for even trip 1. The last we heard from our social worker, the Kyrgz Republic is just about finished with our official referral and it should be in our hands any day. That update came to us about 3 days before the virus began shutting everything down.
Due to many places being closed, many offices and workers we need to complete our paperwork are closed or working from home with limited access to the things they need. Because of this, we expect more delays. And the obvious delay of not being able to travel or be given travel dates until the virus is completely gone- your guess is better than ours as to when that will be.
Our hearts feel heavy as we wait to meet these 3 children and welcome them into our family, we worry for their health and protection especially in the type of living conditions they live and the (minor- but still present) health conditions they have. However, in the midst of all of this craziness and waiting, we have hope that this is what the Lord has called us to. We pray that this waiting and uncertainty will produce in us stronger and deeper faith. We hope and we wait in Christ alone, for He is our sure and steady anchor in the storm.
Love,
Nate + Shelby
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Post 3: FAQs
We get a lot of questions about our adoption and love sharing and educating. Answering your questions helps us learn and process the journey and steps as we go. Please don't hesitate to ask us questions.
Here are the most frequently asked questions we've received:
Where is Kyrgyzstan? What is the country like?
Kyrgyzstan is located in Central Asia, bordering China. It’s capital city, and largest city is Bishkek. The people from Kyrgyzstan can be called Kyrgyzstani or, more commonly, Kyrgz. The national languages are Kyrgz and Russian.
Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's six million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains widely spoken and is an official language. The majority of the population are non-denominational Muslims. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Persian, Mongolian, and Russian influence.
The 40-ray sun on the flag of Kyrgyzstan is a reference to those same forty tribes and the graphical element in the sun's center depicts the wooden crown, called tunduk, of a yurt—a portable dwelling traditionally used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.
Kyrgyzstan was the ninth poorest country in the former Soviet Union, and is today the second poorest country in Central Asia after Tajikistan. 31.7% of the country's population lives below the poverty line.
The Kyrgyz economy was severely affected by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of its vast market. In 1990, some 98% of Kyrgyz exports went to other parts of the Soviet Union.
The nation's largest ethnic group are the Kyrgyz, a Turkic people, who comprise 73.3% of the population. Other ethnic groups include Russians (5.6%) concentrated in the north and Uzbeks (14.6%) living in the south. Small but noticeable minorities include Dungans (1.1%), Uyghurs (1.1%), Tajiks (1.1%), Kazakhs (0.7%), and Ukrainians (0.5%) and other smaller ethnic minorities (1.7%). The country has over 80 ethnic groups.
Do the children know English?
No. The boys speak and understand Russian, and we are very excited to learn some Russian! Little sis doesn't really speak much yet, but she understands Russian and Kyrgyz. They all will learn English informally and formally once they come home to the US.
Are the children biological siblings?
Yes. We praise the Lord for His provision in keeping them together. Not all sibling groups have that privilege.
Isn’t (int.) adoption expensive?
Yes. We have done three large fundraisers, two t-shirt campaigns (smaller fundraisers) and have applied for 6 grants (4 received, 1 pending) Our goal is to finish this adoption debt free, but we still have a little ways to go. We plan to continue with fundraising ideas, and will continue to apply for more grants. We know in the end God is so faithful and will be providing for us each step of the way. We know that every cent spent is 100% worth having our kiddos here in a safe, loving family. We are so grateful for each of you who have donated or helped us with funds along the way.
How many trips will you take?
We'll need to take 3 trips total:
Trip 1: The purpose of this trip is 2 weeks of bonding.
Trip 2: This trip is to complete our court hearing and make them legally our children!
Trip 3: This trip is to bring them HOME!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
POST 2:
Over the last several months there have been significant changes in our process and with great excitement, we would like to share them with you now.
Most of you know that our initial pursuit of international adoption began with the countries of Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan. Most countries require both adoptive parents to be over the age of 25, but these 2 countries were the exception. As we pursued registration in each of these countries, we were informed that Kyrgyzstan would take up to at least 3 years before the possibility of adopting a child. Thus, we set our sites on Bulgaria given the shorter time frame, as well as the cheaper cost. We received a few profiles of children from Bulgaria at the beginning of this year, but none that we felt the Lord was leading us to be matched with. As we continued to pray and wait for mores profiles from Bulgaria, we learned that Kyrgyzstan had closed their borders to international adoption for an indefinite time. At this point, we believed that the Lord truly would send a Bulgarian child our way in His timing.
On May 1st of this year that sentiment changed. Shelby and I woke up that Wednesday morning to an email from our agency explaining to us that Kyrgyzstan had recently re-opened its borders for international adoption and there were several profiles of children waiting for families to be matched with. Given that all our current paperwork, home study report, and payments were applicable to both Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan at that point, our agency asked us if we would be willing to pursue a match with two Kyrgyz brothers who are 5 and 2 years old. Our hearts sank and erupted in the same moment as we tried to control our emotions and feelings upon receiving this news. We were nervous, scared, but likewise joyful and excited at this prospect.
We spent the next several weeks praying and meeting with family members and friends to help discern if this is what the Lord was truly calling us to. About 3 weeks later on May 25th, Shelby and I finally informed our social worker and agency that it would be our joy and desire to become matched with these boys. Thus, it has been a busy Summer completing different forms of domestic and international paperwork, while at the same time receiving new and exciting updates, photos, and videos of these boys.
Through 3 months of joy, tears, prayers, and excitement, Shelby and I thought we were just a few weeks away from being officially matched with these 2 boys. But on Wednesday, September 4th, just a few hours before we were to kick-off our Youth Ministry for the school year, we received yet another update from our social worker, causing us to fall on our knees in prayer once more. Through a phone call with our agency, we learned that Vasili and Vitali (the 2 brothers) now have a 6-month old sister. For international adoption, agencies are not made aware of children who are up for adoption until they turn 6 months old, thus this was the first time we or our agency had heard about the sister. And given that Kyrgyzstan would not allow the brothers to be adopted without their sister, Shelby and I were faced with another decision: should we pursue all 3 of these siblings or none of them?
Amazingly, this was an easier decision for the two of us than most might expect. God had given us the gracious resolve to pursue the adoption of Vasili and Vitali, and if adopting them means we must also adopt their precious sister, then we are at complete peace. And so, through many twists and turns, Shelby and I are now only a few weeks away from being officially matched with a sibling group of 3 from the country of Kyrgyzstan.
We understand that this resolve may prove alarming to some of you, but my hope is that it will ultimately cause you to possess great joy as the Lord graciously leads us to bring home these 3 beautiful children who were created in His glorious image.
Our hope is that once we are officially matched, we will receive our travel dates to go and visit these children for the first time. It is possible that we could be on our first trip to Kyrgyzstan by the end of this year!
Of course, there are still several steps to take before these children can come home safely to us, so we ask that you continue to pray not just for Shelby and me and our continued fundraising efforts, but also for the protection and the well-being of these children. It is difficult to express the fullness of our emotions in writing, so we encourage you to come and ask us questions. We are so grateful for all of your love and support toward us and continue to thank the Lord for His sustaining guidance.
With Love,
Nate and Shelby Miller
_________________________________________________________________POST 1:
Timeline from start to now:
June 2018: Applied for international adoption and accepted through World Links International Adoption Agency. Eligible to adopt from Bulgaria or Kyrgyzstan.
September 2018: Put international adoption process on hold to pursue a domestic foster to adopt case.
October- November 2018: Completed training for domestic adoption
November 2018: News that domestic adoption case would not be happening.
December: 2018: Picked up where we left off with International adoption to Bulgaria
January 2019: Started to receive and review waiting child profiles while we applied for a traditional match. (Quickly learned that a traditional match was most likely going to take about 4-5 years).
Launched T-shirt Fundraiser #1
February 2019: Received a profile of older children we felt very interested in. After much prayer and talking with friends and family, we made a very hard decision to not adopt them. (UPDATE: we have been informed they are being adopted by another family!)
Began home study process!
March 2019: Fundraiser Dinner
(See our update for explanation of Bulgaria --> Kyrgyzstan)
April 2019: Looked at children's profiles from Kyrgyzstan
May 2019: Verbal acceptance and written intent of adoption of V +V from Kyrgyzstan!
Finished home study and sent it off to the MOJ of Kyrgyzstan
Summer 2019: Working on "Matching" paperwork for Kyrgyzstan
July 2019: Yard Sale Fundraiser
August 2019: Applied for grants
September 2019: Received call about Little Sister of V +V. Updated our home study to reflect the intent to adopt THREE from Kyrgyzstan.
October 2019: i800-a approval and dossier submitted. $6,000 Life Song for Orphans Matching Grant awarded.
Launched t-shirt fundraiser #2
November 2019: $7,000 Show Hope grant awarded.
December 2019: $3,000 Never Alone grant awarded.
January 2020: Registered in Kyrgyzstan- Dossier accepted by the Ministry.
February 2020: Submitted Help Us Adopt grant application
March 2020: COVID19- offices closed/ travel restricted in both U.S. and Kyrgyz Republic
May 15, 2020: RECEIVED OUR OFFICIAL REFERRAL FOR V. V.+ E.
August 2020: $5,250 Gift of Adoption grant awarded.
September 2020: Invite to travel (trip 1)
October 1-17 2020: Trip 1: Bonding trip
Eliza moved to the boy's orphanage
November 2020: Sent I-800 to USCIS
December 2020: 1-800 Approval
January 2021: Received Article 5
completed Crisis Plan
February 2021: Received Court date (trip 2). Scheduled for March 12.
March 2021: Attended court on March 12. Court hearing was postponed for March 15.
Passed court and legally the parents of Vasili, Vitali and Eliza Miller!
April 2021: received adoption decree and booked flights for pickup.
May 3rd: Picked up kids from orphanage.
May 8th: Arrived in the US as a family of 5!