The Benson Family

OK, so here goes. I am going to quickly update everyone on what has happened with this adoption so far. A little background info first.

We heard about Save a Child at the beginning of 2007. They bring groups of Ukrainian orphans once a year, usually in October. To be short, I was touched by what I was seeing last year and wondered if this was part of why Drew and I were supposed to move. We looked more into it the foundation in 2008 and they accepted us as a host family. We originally were going to host one little six year old girl. But when the list of children coming arrived, she was not there, but had just barely been fostered by a Ukrainian family. If this happens they are no longer available for adoption. We were pretty bummed. But, instead, they had another six year old coming who had an older sister. We said yes, we will host two children. So we did.

They came this last October for two and a half weeks. It was a wonderful experience. The foundation provided tons of different activites during the their time here. It was very busy, but well worth the effort. The girls were great. Masha, the 12 year old, is pretty head strong. And Nastia, just has a mind of her own. It was fun getting to know them and we enjoyed the time we had with them.

I will not make everyone think that it was a piece of cake though. It was a stressful couple of weeks. At one point I told Drew, "Honey, I'm not sure I can handle this and I'm not sure I have the energy I need to pull this off." He sat me down and helped me to remember that we are in it together and that we are doing this because we know it is what Heavenly Father wants us to do. Now, I am a little embarassed, when talking about this sort of thing. It is pretty personal, but we have had some family wonder what in the world we are thinking doing this. It is very clear to us that this is the right thing for our family to do and that we will be strengthened in any challenge that comes our way. I share this also, so that family and friends know that we will need a lot of support through this. We can't do it alone, I (Jen) will personally need a lof of emotional support!!!

So yesterday marked the one month mark since the girls went back to Ukraine. And finally, for the first time in a month, I got word that the girls are anxiously waiting for us to get over there. They told the facilitator, that works through our adoption agency, that "yes, we want to live with our United States family." This was the grandest news I have heard in a month. I was so excited! They were given postage from the facilitator, so we should start getting letters form them soon.

Drew and I went through an extensive home study with a Utah social worker. She approved us as adoptive parents. We took this home study and an intent to adopt application to the US Immigration and we just need to get finger printed with them now. Once this is done, our application with the US will be complete and we will be approved for international adoption. I don't know what the next step is yet. I'm waiting to hear from our adoption agency what we need to do next. As we find out and complete things we'll let you all know.

Thanks for all you do! And enjoy following this adventure with us.