Saturday, December 30, 2006

Status Change


Well just when everything was going great, we had another spot of bad luck. Our Lawyer Svetlana has certain access to documents on these children at the baby house only after a family has decided to adopt him/her. She knows who they are and their particulars about male, female, age, weight and things like that.

Once perspective parents make a decision to adopt then the Ministry of Education and our Lawyer open up the full case and start getting the documents in order for court. While they were doing that they found a piece in Azamat's record that was not in order. As an orphan in Kaz, you must be registered in three locations. Listed in the city level for one month, Listed in the State Level for 2 months and listed in the Country level for 3 months. Az, was not listed at the country level, even though he has been in the orphange for almost a year. The guilt falls on the hands of the people working in the Ministry of Education. It is their job to make sure that all three levels are taken care of. In this case his paperwork for the third stage fell through the cracks.

On Wednesday morning, we were ready to go to the baby house and when we were picked up the lady from the ministry was with us. I did not think much about it. When we got to the house, she, our lawyer, and the director had a meeting and we sat in the waiting room. Lena, our translator told us this was not a good sign. Normally this lady never comes to the baby house and she was told that the lady had to check on Az's paperwork.

Once in the office the lady told us that his paperwork was out of order. Meaning he had not been registered as an orphan at the country level. At this point we had 3 options. We could wait until Azamat would be available to adopt and come back in April, see another boy that would be available on January 7th or take a look at a girl.

Amy and I went to a seperate room to discuss it all. I had already made up my mind but I needed to hear it from Amy before I said anything. After we finally calmed down, me from ranting and cussing and amy from crying, we decided to adopt Azamat and come back to Kaz in April.

I know what you are thinking, what guarentee do we have he will still be there? We signed a document in Svetlana's office that stated we wanted to adopt Azamat and that we would return in April. Before she left I did ask the lady if there was anything that could be done while we were there to speed the paperwork along and if there was anything her boss could do. She told me no becuase it was the court that would make the ruling and they would throw out the case.

So, we decided to come home immediately. We left Kaz on Thursday night at 10:00 pm. We arrived in Memphis on Friday at 5:00 pm. Very exauhsted and glad to be home, but a bittersweet pill to swallow.

We know that Az will be taken well care of and that he will not be adopted by anyone other than us. Lena said that she might be able to send us updated pictures every now and then.

Thanks again for all the inspiring messages and thoughtful prayers. They really helped us being so far from home. Now we just look forward to our next trip in April when we can bring William Rama Azamat Hall home.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Uplifting messages

Thanks for all your comments. It is great to hear from everyone and know that there are so many people back home thinking and praying for us. We can't wait to come home and see everyone. I hope that everyone had a terrific Christmas and we will try to post as soon as possible.

Love,
Amy and David

The Best Christmas Present Ever

Hey everyone,

Yesterday (Christmas Day), We got to spend about 2 hours with Azamat (corrected spelling). He started to come out of his shell a little. He likes to ride a toy jeep that is in the playroom. I would push him towards Dave and Dave would tickle him and he would bend over laughing. By the end of the visit he was babbling and playing with the teething ring that we brought for him. He ended up falling asleep in Dave's arms. It was so sweet, I got a great pict of this. I guess we wore him out playing. We will get to spend about 2 hours a day with him from 12:30-2:30. He takes naps before and after. We got to speak with the Doctor Hope and got good news about Azamat. He is as healthy as he could be.
Today, Tuesday Dec. 26 we will go to the baby store and buy diapers and maybe a small squeaky toy. He loves to chew on teethers and soft plastic toys. Then we will get to visit Azamat. Hopefully we will get to talk with his caretakers and learn about his schedule and his likes and dislikes.
Our stay in Pavlodar, is nice but nothing beats home. Our apartment has a large living room with a couch and entertainment center with a nice dvd collection (in english). We can only get BBC, CNN, and VH1 on the TV. The kitchen is also nice. The apartment also has a large bathroom with a huge bathtub and a washing machine, but no dryer. (Larry we now know why Nanny always ironed everything even the underwear). Our bedroom has a nice king size bed. Overall it is far superior to a hotel room and we are glad we choose the apartment.
We have pictures but are not able to post any because the computers at the internet cafe are not compatible to the camera flashcards. Hopefully, Svetlana our attorney spoke with Yakov who can help us get everything set up where we can use the internet connections in the apartment. It will be great if we can use this connection instead of the cafe. Much more convienent.
Well I guess that I need to go. We have to make it back to the apartment in time to catch our ride from Lena and Sergei to the baby store and house. I hope to have more stories about Azamat's progress soon. We really miss everyone and can't wait to be home soon with our son William Rama Azamat Hall. Please continue all your thoughts and prayers.

Hugs, kisses, and much love
David and Amy

Friday, December 22, 2006

Hey everyone. Sorry for the long delay in posting. We arrived in Pavlodar Wednesday night about 11pm. The apartment is nice, with all the amenities. We spent Thursday waiting to meet with the Kazakhstan officials. Lena thought that we would have them but unfortunately we did not, so we wasted that day. We finally had our meetings Friday morning and were able to visit the baby house Friday afternoon. We had a short meeting with the director and saw three baby boys. The first two were David and Nikita. They seemed to have some medical issuses. The third baby was Azamond. He has blond hair and brown eyes. He seemed very timid and overwhelmed b/c of the attention and toys. We have decided to adopt Azamond. We will go and visit again on Monday. We hope to have plenty of picts next week. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love,
David and Amy

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

We are alive and well in Almaty

Good Morning, It is Wednesday morning at 7:13 am. We have had a good nights rest. Our flights went well. Very long flights and a long lay over. But we made it here yesterday morning at about 6:00.

It is not as cold as we first thought. There is some snow and ice on the ground. We can see some very pretty mountains from our room. We took about an hours walk yesterday to stretch our legs and find out what is here. We changed some money into Tenge and we bought some bottle water, with gas, and coke and diet coke. With gas is different.

The buildings are very old and soviet looking. Today we are going to go to the Ram Store which is a westernized Mall. Havent been out of the US 3 days and we are going to a mall. Our flight to Pavlodar is tonight. We will be there about 10:00 pm.

We hope that we have better luck with the Cingular card there. My cell phone has plenty of signal but the card doesnt have any.

We will try and email and post by the end of the week from Pavlodar. Hopefully we will have a picture or two to share.

Love you all and keep up the prayers.

Dave and Ams

Have a Merry Christmas

Saturday, December 16, 2006

It's Saturday already!!!!!

Well time really flies when you are getting ready to begin a life altering journey. Just two days ago we had a thousand things to do and no time to even sleep. Today is a new day with a brand new list of things to accomplish and for the first time in a long while our list is limited to only 7 things to do. After that our brains went blank. Thank goodness for that.

We received our Visas and Passports back from NY yesterday afternoon. We made some copies and all we lacked was a final packet from our agency. Until this morning, Melody called bright and early and we are now going to drive over and pick up the final piece.

We have our bags packed, for the most part. All of our clothes and everything are ready and packed in vacume bags. We just have to be sure and not go over 40 pounds per bag. We were a little heavy yesterday and I think we have that worked out. We will find out for sure this afternoon.

Well I dont know if I have anything else to say. I hope everyone has a good day. Tomorrow is getting here faster than I ever thought it would. I think that we are ready. Please keep in touch here or feel free to email us. Our next post will probably be from either Amsterdam or Almaty.

Thanks for all the prayers and keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
David and Amy

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Where are we going?


Ok, I am sure everyone is wondering where in this big world are we going. Here is a map of Kaz. We will fly into Almaty on Tuesday morning and then fly to Pavlodar on Wednesday evening. Pavlodar is the city where our son is living now. We will be in this city almost the entire trip. If you want to get an idea of weather, feel free to go to www.undergroundweather.com and search Pavlodar, Kazakhstan.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Christmas Party


We had a great time at Del-Nat's Party. This is just a test to see how posting pictures will work. Also, I have made some changes so that anyone can add a comment to our posts. This will make it easier to talk with everyone.

See ya

Up, Up and Away

December 17th at 7:25 pm will be the date and time we leave Memphis and fly to Kazahkstan. We finalyzed tickets with KLM yesterday and will arrive in Amsterdam at 11:05 am on the 18th. We will have about a 6 hour lay over and then board a flight at 6:15pm to Almaty. We will arrive in Almaty about 5:45 am on the 19th.

The return is set for the end of January but that is subject to everything going as planned. Working out the itenarary with Yakov and his staff as to what, when and where.

As we know more I will let you know.

Love yall, David

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

New Day Dawning

Ladies and Gentleman, It is my distinct pleasure to introduce that we have received our Confirmation Number for our Visa's and we are buying plane tickets today. WOW, WOW, WOW

Who knew, that yesterday would have been such a great day and today is going so much better. We are trying to finalyze our flights so that our Visa's will process. I dont have a solid date of departure but as soon as I do I will let all of you know. Thank you to all of you for keeping up the prayers and always asking whats happening. We have been very blessed by your support.

I just wanted to give everyone an update and I will post again as soon as I have details about our flight. See ya,