Our hosting experience

Many people are asking us about our hosting experience. And I would like to share more, and if anyone has any questions will be happy to answer them.

Who been following our blog for at least a little while, knows that we were hosting Alisa, 15 year old Ukrainian beautiful girl over this summer.

We had many worries, we were praying hard, we were not sure and didn't know if all will go well or not.

As many of you know, we did our first adoption out of birth order, actually all our adopting are out of birth order. :) And still we were a little worried about how everything will turned out, and how our boys will react to having someone older than them at the house.
Especially our DJ(our oldest), was against it. He always reminded us that he is the oldest and want to stay this way. When we told him that God keep telling us and we have in our hearts to host a 15 year old girl, he was not happy. We were thinking and deciding between me and Serg, and when we already had Alisa in mind , we talked to all the kids, especially we had many talks with DJ.

We all sat down by our computer and had photo-listing open with all the kids on it. Then we asked DJ and our kids, "Can you just look and tell us which older girl you think will be a good fit/you like the most on this photo-listing?" All our kids looked through about 30-40 orphan faces, who were listed on that photo-list, and DJ pointed to Alisa. You should of see my and Serg faces :) It was one more confirmation and God's way of showing us that everything will be ok, and Alisa is the one.

We had many many more worries while preparing. I was  worry about everything, what she will be like? What kind of foods will she like? Will she enjoy her time with us? How will she react to small house packed with so many kids? Like I said, we had many many worries.

All our worries went away when she got here. We had awesome summer, and hoping to see her again. We were planning to adopt her, but she has a Ukrainian foster family, and she already living with them. Alisa has many relatives, and they all against her going to America. Alisa liked her time her, she liked our family and we all bonded well. We miss her so much, but believe that God had a plan. I am not sure who were blessed more our family or Alisa. She especially bonded well with our oldest DJ and our baby ElliAna.

We always will love her, and no matter where our life will take us, we always be her family.

Sweet girls

Saying Goodbyes!

The hardest part of hosting is saying goodbyes!

We are praying and hoping to see Alisa again, but for now we missing her  a lot! Almost all kids cried at airport. Only 2 kids didn't cry, 1 way to small to understand what is going on, and another was holding up until we got home and then he lost it.

Sad day, but we have hope...
We took Alisa to airport yesterday. I couldn't sleep and had zero sleep a night before.
Alisa was a mess a night before, and slept about 3 hours.

Where did it go....

Seriously, where did our summer go? Where did our time with Alisa go?

Alisa came to our family on June 25, and its almost time to leave,only 6 more days, and she will be gone.

We had great time together. I am not sure who got more blessings, us or her?! She is super sweet, beautiful, helpful and smart girl.

We took her many places. I wish we could do more, but with only one income and many kids its hard to plan and do big things.
But with Gods help, and many good people around us able to take her to.

We went to San Francisco many times, 1 time to the zoo, and many times just to see, play and swim at the ocean, spend a week at Lake Tahoe
Alisa experienced many firsts, and it was fun to be there with her and just enjoy her reaction to everything.

I am grateful for every single person, who prayed donated and just been there for Alisa and our family!

I will share many pictures and some videos once I have more time.

Thank you everyone and God Bless you

Hosting-here we come

Alisa made safely to our home on June 25th. From our 2nd day together it felt like she is belong here, and been with us for long time. She is super sweet girl, and we love her already.
She is kind, smart,  loving, gentle, helpful,and  super intelligent
She love music, and plays on Ukrainian instrument called Bandura professionally
Her favorite color is black
She is awesome little girl but also she has so much pain in her life, she is hurting.
Our arrival pictures

Blessed to have Alisa here!

Thank you everyone who help us bring Alisa here for summer! She is amazing girl and really needed to get away from everyday life at orphanage.

Summer Hosting

We are scared, excited and but also feel so blessed! We believe we can make a difference in one more child's life! Anybody can make differences, by praying, sharing, donating and just supporting emotionally! We cannot afford adoption now, and also our current housing situation will not let us adopt another child. Hosting it's another option to help orphan! Our kids are super excited to help and bring another child into our family! I get questions everyday, when will she come! 

We never though that we would host, it was something that we never fully understood. But God was doing His job in our hearts and home. 

If you remember, about 2 year ago we did respite care for V., Ukrainian orphan who came here on hosting program, but things didn't go the way they should in his first family, and he spend 3 weeks in our home. It was a blessing! We got a chance to bless him, pray over him, cloth him, and just spend really good family time together.  It was new experience! His family found him, and now he is with his new family! 
Also about 1 year ago we did respite care for another little boy Kolya. I didn't write much about him, because he spend only about 1 weeks with us. This experience was not so good , but we are happy we were there to help him. 

I was their mom, I was a person who took care of them! God gave me a privilege of being their mom, maybe for short period of time, but these who children called me MOM! I feel blessed! 

Hosting changed our hearts, and our view on hosting. Seriously, we thought, why host? Why give hopes to a child, if you know you will have to send back to the orphanage? It was us, it was our understanding of whole hosting thing! 
But God showed us different side of it! God was moving our hearts, and the way we were looking at hosting. And I asked myself these questions and  I can ask same questions many people. Why are you going to Hawaii,  Mexico, Caribbean Cruises, and any vacation? Why? You probably would love to live in Hawaii or any exotic place? And you should stay in your home, your everyday life because if you go and see Hawaiian life, you will probably want to stay there forever, but you know you cannot, so why even bother and go to vacation?

We want to bring a 14 year old girl to America, and give her summer vacation she never had.  This little girl recently lost her mom. We don't know much about her, but know that she is in the orphanage, with out family. If she will have a chance to come to America for vacation the experience itself will be more than she has ever had, and something that will likely change her life forever. This is her chance to see what "normal" is and to spend few weeks in a family.

We heard this not too long ago, and trying to live by this powerful words "God doesn't want us to be comfortable... He wants us to trust Him by doing something life changing" and   ''Our unusual response brings unusual blessings'' by Troy Marshall.

We have a donation button on our blog. Unfortunately costs of helping orphans, saving lives is high! But for God nothing is impossible! 

God's calling is clear:

James 1:27- "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." 
Psalm 68:5 - "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling."
Matthew 18:5 - "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." 

Said goodbye to our Vadym

This week is very hard week for our family. Monday we took Vadym to San Francisco, and dropped him off with his orphanage director, and other kids who were in US for hosting. We couldn't take him straight to the airport on Tuesday morning, so we had to take him on Monday.

Older boys went to school, and we headed to San Francisco. We spend our last day together with Vadym, and we had a great day. Most of the day, I couldn't' keep my tears to myself. When I was looking at Vadym, and feeling his little warm hand in my hand, and getting hugs from him, when I heard "mommy" from him, my heart was torn in little pieces.
I tried hard not to show it! I knew that saying goodbye was extremely hard for Vadym too, but he was holding really good(at least it looked like), he is very brave little boy.

When we said our goodbyes to Vadym, and headed to our car, I started crying. It's hard! I saw Vadym's faces, stiff and with no emotions! No expression on his face, stiff hands, and no reaction to people around him. Same expressions on his face was when we first saw him at our house. When Vadym came to our house he was not reacting to our voice, questions, or anything around him. For first 2-3 days with us, he only replied with 1-2 words.  If he was in-trouble, he would go in the block mode, and not reply to our questions at all. I think he thought that he will get even more in-trouble. I think he does this every-time when he is nervous or feels uncomfortable, he just blocks/zoom-out himself from this world, and this is his protection. By the 3rd week with us it was gone, even when he would get in-trouble, and we asked him questions he would reply, and talked to us about what happened. It took a lot of time talking, and working with  him, but I was so proud of him when he would reply and would smile at me:)

I tried not to think that I am sending this child back to the orphanage, back to nowhere, back to his previous life! I know, we never made any promises to Vadym, or to anyone, but it was hard because I couldn't' do nothing about this situation. The only thing I promised Vadym, that we will always love him, pray for him and will do everything to find him a family. This little boy needs mommy and daddy!

Rest Area stop:)

 Took Vadym to Rain forest cafe to have lunch!

 Walked around San Francisco for a while.

 Saying goodbye! Vadym's already blocking himself!

 Picture from airport....Vadym is so sad...

 We couldn't go to airport but one nice lady took this picture...

Have to say goodbye

In 2 days we will have to say goodbye to Vadym, our hosting son. All the emotions I am going through are really hard to describe. Vadym spend 3 weeks with us, and we got to know him more. He is awesome little boy, and how I wish that he would have a family already! We are praying for him, we are asking God to give Vadym loving family. I will post more about Vadym after he leaves.
We are really busy, with school already started, preparing Vadym and all of us for goodbyes!

I don't' have any energy to post ,and lately I don't know what to post about, the only thing I am thinking about is Vadym, and how to help him to find his forever family. It's so hard to send a child back to the orphanage! It's soooo hard!

Funny

I think I will give V a name, Vadym is his name. Since his name is all over Facebook, he is listed by his name everywhere else.  We had Vadim with us for over 2 weeks, and we had a lot of fun with his name :) All of our kids are so use to names that starts with D :) it was a mess first few days. During this time Vadym was called,Denis, David Artem, Sasha, Vitalik, Ruvim, Nazar, and other names. I think it's really funny, we all did call him different names  for a while :) it would be so much easier if his name was Daniel :))))

we had this funny story:

we hear Danik calling Vadym : "Sasha, come over here"
my husband Sergey, gets his head in the room and saying : " Danik, he is not Sasha, his name is Vitalik!"

and we hear this strong voice...."I am Vadym"...you should of see my husbands face, and me, I was laughing ...

Week overview...

This week is very busy for all of us.

Monday, we had Danilka's appointment, and we got ok from his doctor to take him off his current medicine, we all praying that it will go well, and we would love to know that he is healed.

Tuesday, Danik and Stasik had their appointments for shots, each boy got a shot before school. Danik still having a hard time to trust doctors, but he did good, and Stasik is very brave little boy:) Proud of them both!

Wednesday, we went to LensCrafters and ordered glasses for V. We asked if we can get 2 pairs of glasses, since  V is a boy, and glasses do break, but we would have to pay for 2nd pair, and it's not cheap, we simply cannot afforded now.
It was very pleasant and nice experience we had at LensCrafters. We met this wonderful woman Connie, and she offered to help and pay for second pair of glasses for V, at JCpenny store. It is much cheaper at JCpenny, and Connie was touched with V story, what a blessing!

Thursday, today is a first day of school for our 3 oldest boys! I couldn't sleep at night, and very worry about boys, especially Stasik. This is first time for Stasik to go to school at all, and he is in second grade. I haven't get  a phone call from school, so looks like everything is ok :)
 Later we went to mall , and picked it up V's glasses. He is so handsome in his new glasses! Connie also got V a little bear for his coming Bday. This woman has a huge heart for orphans! God bless her and her little girl(she adopted her daughter from Guatemala). Many people praying for V, and for for his family, so his mommy and daddy can find him soon! We stopped at JcPenny and ordered 2nd pair for V. Connie gave us money for his glasses, and she gave more than enough. We will let V pick something from a store(maybe Disney store), to take it with him back to Ukraine.

Tomorrow we will get things ready for our trip to the ocean. We will be celebrating V birthday, and really want to go somewhere fun for kids.
Saturday, if everything goes well we will go to ocean, and Sunday we are planning to go to church.

Another day

Thank you so much for nice comments, but really it's all God. We are very blessed that we have this chance to have V with us. This little boy was scared to death, and didnt' do well in his previous family. There is a reason why V is staying with us, and we were able to communicate with we, because we do speak Ukrainian. 

We were blessed by one of Sergey's co-worker with this "walkers", I have no idea what to call them :) Boys enjoying a lot and learning to walk like this. So far Danik is the best, and the fastest walker , but Danilka is stubborn too, so we will see:) I told them that once they will learn how to walk they will play soccer on this "walkers" :)

 V and Danik on the swing.

 V is trying to walk, so cute:) He is not good at it yet, and Danik from behind trying to hold him for a picture :)

 Playing wii

Sergey were able to sign up boys for school today Danik 4th grade and Stasik 2nd. In less than a week school will start for my boys. They are not too excited!!

Meet V

I do have a permission to share this information on my blog. Thank you for everyone who is praying and prayed for our family.
Our family is happy to help and welcome little boy V into our home for next 3 weeks. V was hosted and spend first two weeks with one family, but unfortunately things didn't work out for a family and V, now V is staying with us and we are happy to have him :)

He is handsome little boy, and we are blessed to have him in our home for this little while.

Yesterday we had to make this  decision, and I did asked you to pray for us. We heard that V was not doing well in his first family. Also he needs some time to warm up, and get use to people. Sergey and I were very scared to bring V into our family, but we heard God's calling, and moved forward with faith.

God was working with our hearts for few days before we found out about V. We had few conversations about orphans, and how our life changed when we welcomed our 3 boys in our family. We did talk about making little gifts and try to send to Ukraine and we talked about other things...

 Tuesday morning I woke up and told Sergey" I have a feeling that God is not done with us, I am not sure if we will adopt, but we  will help orphans!", and later that day we heard about V's situation, and decided to take him into our family. Wednesday morning V was in our house, and is doing great now.

I know it is not going to be easy,  having 6 kids in the house , 5 of them are boys, and they are 10,9,8,7,4 years of age. :)

From our point of view it was not best time to bring one more child in our family for many reasons.
We just brought home Danik and Stasik, and we still bonding.
 School will start in next week for our 3 boys.
I have to make decision for Denny, do I want him to go to preschool now, or later.
Have to find our more info, and find a speech therapist for Denny.
 All 3 oldest boys have appointments in next two weeks.
We still didn't' sign up Danik and Stasik for school(hopefully tomorrow will do).

And there is many little reasons we have going on in our life but now looking back, and going trough my thoughts that I had 2 days ago, when making decision to have V in our house, I know we did a correct decision. I will share more about V and how all kids are doing in my next post.

Please keep us in your prayers for next 3 weeks :)