A Family for Christmas

For those of you who are not Ukrainian adoption blog junkies, I need to tell you a little story. A little background: we have the great blessing of being part of a community of families that live reasonably close by that are all adopting from Ukraine. There are seven families (I can think of) that are in the process of or have adopted from Ukraine. We share needed information and wisdom obtained from the process and travel to the said foreign country and most importantly, we allow the children to visit each other in hopes of letting them know they are not alone here in this big alien country. There are other children here just like them.

One of our families we sent off in early November with much love and prayer. As is expected, they spent long and sometimes frustrating days in the old country waiting for impossibly slow paper work. They were there for some 45 days. It looked as if they would be there for Christmas. At the last minute, the last of the paperwork was secured (thank you US Embassy!). And on Christmas Eve, at 4:15 pm, the new family entered the main terminal at Denver International Airport. I was there, all smiles and hugs to welcome them home at last. I wasn't sure how many of our community would be there seeing it was Christmas Eve and all but eventually almost all the families came with Russian speaking children in tow. It was wonderful.

It was a child's Christmas in Colorado this year. What an awesome gift. What a beautiful memory.