Waiting is Hard!!!!

This is a blog you can follow if you choose as we Travel to Kazakhstan to bring our son home. Some of you might not know but we stated the adoption process September 29, 2oo6. We are working with an agency called All God's Children out of Portland, Oregon. Some of you might wonder why are the Straw's, who are always on the go busy themselves a little more... Well. We have always felt our family was not complete. And I am a believer of divine intervention. Hayden out of the blue one day asked when we are going to get our little brother. He did not ask just once but a few dozen times. So with some prayer and research we decided international adoption was for us.

This adoption journey has been a faith leap for our family. We have been challenged with time lines, patience and trusting on the unknown to finish this journey. We will travel to Kaz for 3-4 weeks for mandatory bonding with our son. We are traveling to select (which is the preference for this country) a toddler boy age 1-4 yrs old. We have to bond with the child for 14 days and then a court date is set. Once we go to court and the judge agrees that we are to be his parents we can come home. That will be the hard part. We could stay in country but after the court date there is a 15 day waiting period to make sure all the P's & Q's are in the right place.
Our return trip will be approximately a month later and will last a week. We will get the child's passport, visa and visit Almaty where the US Embassy is and bring him home. To some who is not familiar with adoption this sounds like a long complicated process, which it is. If anything this process has taught me to give up control. Well not entirely but it forces you to be in the passenger seat.

We are in the Wait Mode... we are waiting on our invitation to travel. Once we receive that we can officially pack our bags and leave within a week or two. Once we get to country this will be our communication with family and friends so feel free to join in our journey. I would ask that you keep our children in your prayers as they will be left with family and friends. I was hoping to travel this summer but I again am not in control.

A few facts on Kazakhstan besides home country of Borat!
1) Size roughly 4 times the size of Texas; the 9th largest country in the world
2) Border Countries: China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
3) Independence: 1991 (from Soviet Union)
4) Ethnicity: Kazakh 53.4%, Russian 30%, Ukrainian 3.7%, Uzbek 2.5%, German 2.4%,
Uighur 1.4% other 6.6% (most children in the baby homes are Eurasian or Asian)
5) Language: Kazakh, although most everything/business is in Russian.
6) Literacy rate of 98.4%
7) Astana became the capital in 1997 (this is where we will be traveling to)
8) Cuisine: Meat (horse meat sausage)
9) Kazakhstan economy is larger than those of all the other Central Asian states combined,
largely due to the country's vast natural resource and a recent history of political stability.
The country possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves and plentiful supplies of other
minerals and metals. It also has a large agricultural sector featuring livestock and grain.

We will post as developments occur hopefully have some good news soon!!!

(:

Jay & Jen