Internet at last!

After being here in this village for six days we finally have internet in our room!!! We did find a very nice internet cafe but this is so much more convenient for us. We are thrilled to be in touch. Let me say it has been an adventure all the way. First of all our Ben got sick upon our departure. He presented with an infection again and was readmitted to the hospital. The next thing we knew our Liz wrote that Ben was in congestive heart failure! That hasn't happened since he was a baby. Oh my the tears we've shed! Knowing that Liz is there and that God is able to deliver we have found peace in the midst of this trial. Ben is getting better as I write this and the doctor, who finally called, seems to have the mystery of Ben well in hand. We are in the process which in this country can take a long time. We hope the papers will be approved in few days and we can have court by the middle of next week. That would be a miracle and we need one. After court we have to go to get a new birth certificate in the city of our girl's birth. It is about three hours from where we are. Everything hangs on court so we ask all to pray for a speedy process. We must be home before December 15th so we can attend Liz's graduation that she has worked so hard for. Please pray for all the family!! Thank you!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I will try and post this note after I finish but the prompts are in Russian so.... We are here in the land of Borsch wishing for turkey on this Thanksgiving day but we are still thankful. God is so very faithful and has gone before us every step of the way. Our trip was smooth even though the jog through the airport was challenging for this mama. We have a nice flat and even have hot water for the second day in a row! Yesterday the electricity was shut off for a couple of hours. We were told the landlady hadn't paid her bill in a year. We chose to stay and hope rather than repack. We did get power back before sunset. Praise God! We went to our friends flat for dinner and a bible study. I am once again impressed at the sincerity and humbleness of these young people I meet who serve the Lord. They are lights in a very dark place. Today we have our second appointment to get our referral to go to the orphanage where our girl awaits us. We wonder if she understands that we are coming for her. We have another referral for a young girl with DS. She has a lot of needs we have been told. We shall see what the Lord would have us do. It is hard to leave any behind but we want to only do what we are called to do. That is what we've been given strength for. It is very easy to overextend. It's a beautiful day here and hope it is where you are too. Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends!

Amazing Love

I am blown away by what has transpired in the last few days! We have been holding our breath as we've stepped out in faith and bought our airline tickets just knowing that God would provide for our needs to complete our adoption. We were a good $10,000 short but we were told the RR family would come thru for us. SO we put our feet in the water and waited for the Lord to part it. We began with a mere $69 in our account. The next day we saw it jump to $1733! That was amazing enough to us and we just hoped it would keep growing. Our good friend and adoptive mom, Cara Suttles, wrote a post about us in her blog and challenged others to share it even donating a couple of dollars for every share! I saw many people share that blog and watched as the donations grew to $3378. Then we decided because it was a weekend with a holiday tacked on we wouldn't see any change. We sat down as a family last night to watch one of the Chrismas movies our son Jack got for his birthday. Jack is enthralled with anything Christmas. It was that Christmas Shoes movie and I cried my eyes out even though I've seen it before. After we got everyone to bed I decided to check online before we retired for the night. I got on FB and had a message from Cara asking me if I'd checked the FSP. I quickly went to my blog and the donation box window was gone. Being a novice at all this I thought that it had somehow expired and needed to be fixed. Then I went back to FB and saw Andrea's post that we were FULLY FUNDED!!!!!!!!!! Thanks to all of you who gave so generously and made this trip to get our girl possible. Thank you Lord for using these people to change lives. Amazing love, amazing grace!!!!!

This is a picture of me giving a little teddy bear to our girl on our last trip. I told her we would be back for her. Thanks for helping us keep our promise!

Leap of Faith

We have been persuaded to keep our adoption appointment on November 21st. We bought our airline tickets last night. We were able to get such a sweet deal!! So, we are leaving on November 19th, just 9 short days away!! International adoption is surely not for the faint of heart. It is a faith walk all the way. I know this is how the Lord wants us to live but it is just hard. Last night I got to sleep at 4 am. My mind will not shut off. All I do is make lists and more lists of things to do, things I absolutely cannot forget about. It's exciting to think of traveling so soon to complete an adoption we've been working on for a year but it's overwhelming at the same time. Today we had a picnic for the kids special olympic team. It was a perfect day for a picnic. The kids spent their afternoon eating and playing. It is our Jack's birthday today. He is sixteen! We got him from his orphanage just days before his fourth birthday. He is still just as sweet as he was then. My husband was on a humanitarian aid missions trip and took a video of Jack in his orphanage. When I saw that video and Jack looked up and smiled that smile I knew he belonged with us. We traveled to Ukraine to do our first international adoption to get Jack. Because of a paperwork error he was not ready but we adopted our Anya instead and told Jack we'd be back. We kept our promise. Nine months later he got to walk out of that orphange, his life forever changed. We are glad we were here today to celebrate Jack's sixteenth birthday with him. My dad shares this birthday with our Jack. Dad died years ago and never met Jack but I'm sure he would've loved to share his day with this sweet young man. Happy Birthday to my dad and to my Jack! You've both changed my life. I will never be the same.

This is Jack's old home.

And now he has a new home and a new family. Happy Birthday Jack!

What a Day!

Well, the election is almost over and I'm glad. I can't remember ever being this nervous about an election before. I must remember that God is still on the throne no matter who wins. He is the one who puts them there. Still I'm nervous.... The approval for our adoption from our host country has finally come through. We could leave in as few as 13 days but our little one is still waiting on paperwork. We would love to get both girls home by Christmas but if we go now we leave one behind. That is not acceptable to us. It looks like all we can do is wait until after the holidays when both are ready. So much to do still. So we have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, no matter who wins this election. I will still be grateful to live in this country that is so full of promise and hope. Please remember us in your holiday giving as we prepare to adopt once more. I do mean once more!!!

The Daulton Gang

It occurs to me that I've never posted a picture of our whole family on this blog. This is us a couple of years ago taken by my soon to be son-in-law outside of a restaurant in Harrisonburg, Va. We got together for lunch and I insisted we get a picture of everyone since it's seldom we're all in the same place at the same time. Our bio says we have twelve children but only ten are in the picture. Two of our boys now make heaven their home. Brian, our 2nd birthchild, died at the tender age of four. It was a sudden death and a terrible loss for all of us. For a long time my days were gray, all my hope had gone away. When joy crept back into my life it was a great surprise. God is in the business of making good come out of bad. He's so good at that. Thirteen years later, our son Daniel passed away at the age of two and a half. Daniel had blue eyes and blonde hair like our Brian. He was our 3rd adoption. He had Down Syndrome but that was the least of his problems. Daniel had a trach, a gtube and a colostomy. As you can imagine he had many battles but he faced them all with a smile. We never heard his voice but he spoke volumes to us. After Daniel's death we were quite sure we'd never adopt again. After all, hadn't we been through enough? Hadn't everyone been through enough? But life didn't work that way. We found a baby who needed a home just a year later. Her "Gotcha Day" is coming right up. We got Lani on Halloween, she was our treat. We celebrate every child that has been given to us for they are all gifts. Some we've had to give back and it was so hard. We still say "Thank You." We're so glad you came.

What a group!!!

Last March our dear friends Pastor Sasha Skripak and his lovely wife Olya come to visit us from Ukraine.  We have been working with orphans in Ukraine since 1999 but our paths never crossed with Sasha until about three years ago. We were introduced to Sasha by our friend Sandie Flannery.  She was looking for an orphan ministry to connect with as I recall.  Our friend Karen Feathers who runs UkraineSpecialNeedsOrphansFund told Sandie about us. The Feathers adopted with us when we adopted in Ukraine back in 2001.  It really is a small world!
Sasha is a lot like my husband, a dreamer.   He thinks big!  He expects big things from God.  Olya and I just hold on for the ride!  We share the same vision for the orphans of Ukraine and are expanding our ministry with each other.  They are coming to visit us again in one week!  We are going to see the Torres family who are dispersed throughout the picture.  We love Jo Ann and Ruben and their family.  They have 11 children, 6 by birth and 5 adopted.  It's nice to meet someone as crazy as we are!  We went to our favorite mexican restaurant with the Torres family and others and took up the two biggest tables in the place.  We also hope to see Sherry White again and her son Keegan when Sasha and Olya visit this time too.  She is the cute blonde standing next to Pastor Nicholae from Almaz church in Ukraine.  He and Pastor Sasha cofounded that church together.  Keegan White is on the stairs holding some sweet baby while our daughter Emily is standing as close to him as she can.  She liked that guy a lot!  Sherry and Keegan came from Pa. to visit them as did the Torres clan. Two other families were here as well but left the day before the picture.  Whew!
Our good friend Cindy Normandia must have been taking the picture but her mom is there holding baby Teresa, the youngest of the Skipak family.  I am not in the picture for some reason.  All the children seem to be.  Anya is in the middle of the picture with her arms out like she's saying, "we're here.  You can take the picture now"  Or maybe she's giving us her blessing!  She is the director that's for sure!
Our ministry is growing by leaps and bounds and we're so excited to see what God is doing.  We have done two formal conferences now in Ukraine on the needs of children with disabilities.  They have been a great source of hope for those in Ukraine who parent these special kids and have shed a light on just who these kids are and what they can do to those who work with them or want to work with them.  We were so priviledged to work with many young adults from Almaz church at the last conference who came and volunteered their time and labor to make it all come together.
We are busy as well with fundraising for our international adoption as we have two girls waiting for us!  They are 10 and 11 and look to be about 4 and 5. They both have Down Syndrome and they shine!  If you would like to help us adopt these lovely children you can make your checks out to Father's Heart at 3808 Poplar Hill Rd., Suite D; Chesapeake, Va.  23321.  Thank you!!!