Taylor Elena

Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 9:36 PM
Subject: Russia news
  

As some of you may know, the Flemmons family is expanding by one more.

In March we decided to add a fourth child to our family and felt God leading us to adoption. We decided on Russia with our precious niece Micah coming home from Russia 12 months prior. We started the process in TX with an agency in CA and completed the home study in TN. All of our paperwork was completed and sent to the agency Oct 2. On Oct 22, we found out that our agency was not able to sustain operations and was closing that week. All of our paperwork was transferred to a different agency. We did not know where our paperwork was and what that meant for the process. Through the new agency we found out that our paperwork had made it to Russia and the waiting time would be 6-8 months. Let the anxious waiting begin....

The next call we received was Nov 7th with exciting news!! We have a new baby waiting for us in Vladivostok, Russia!! We were excited yet completely shocked that we had a referral so soon. We are currently in the planning process of getting there to meet her. We will be traveling to Russia Nov 26-Dec 2.

A few prayer requests:

Please pray for this child as we meet her for the first time. This is the first of 3 trips to Russia, so there is still a tenuous road ahead. Also pray for our children here and our parents as we are away from them for this time. Pray that all of the travel works out (leaving from Austin after Thanksgiving, travel to Seoul, Korea then Vladivostok, Russia, then to Austin to pick up kids and back to Nashville.) Pray for our baby in Russia and her caregivers there as she awaits coming home.

Thanks to each of you for your friendship and support through this process. We will keep you updated...

Love,

the Flemmons family

Kevin Meghan Katelin Tye Jaxson

 

Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: Russia news
  

We visited 2 days in Seoul and made it to Russia yesterday. Quite a crazy and exciting day... We arrived at the Russia airport and there was no one there to greet us. We waited for 2 hours and met some nice Mormons that spoke English and let us use their phone. We called the coordinator, but communication was not her gift, not sure what she said...continued to wait... Later, a Russian man came up to us and said "got call from our coordinator, here to pick you up." We trusted him and got into his car with a Japanese man and drove 40 minutes with him. He got a call from our Russian coordinator's mother in law and she said to have him drop us off at the hotel and said stay in your room until she contacted us. It was very much like a scene from Bourne Identity... I was waiting any minute for him to pull over and take all of our money...

Turns out that our original coordinator got in a car accident on her way to pick us up. She is hospitalized, please pray for our coordinator. Her mother in law met us at the hotel and took us to a back alley into a building and we met with the Ministry of Education to get approval to visit the orphanage. We are going to the orphanage today to meet Yelena and meet with the director and social workers. Pray that the meeting goes well. We are excited, and anxious.

 

Thanks for thinking of us!! I will send some pics of us from our visit to Seoul...

 

-Kevin

Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: Russia news

We are all packed and ready to leave at 6:00am for Russia. It was a rush getting everything together on such short notice. We got our Visas for Russia on Wed, FedEx'd to Mema's house right in time for Thanksgiving!! 

Please pray that the flights go well. Pray for our kids as we are away. Pray that we are able to bond with little Yelena in such a short visit. 

Love y'all and thanks for the support!!

--the Flemmons

 

Sent: Sunday, December 2, 2012 4:06 AM
Subject: Re: Russia news
  

We had to say goodbye to Yelena yesterday after a short visit. The good news is that she will soon be in her adopted Flemmons family!! Yesterday we met with the notary and our coordinator made the official petition to the Russian court to make Yelena part of our family. After another set of paperwork is complete and sent, we will be given a court date to come back to stand before the judge to prove ourselves worthy parents for Yelena. Once the court gives us custody, her new name will be:

Taylor Elena Flemmons (Taylor: Meghan's Grandmother's maiden name, Elena: how we came to know little Yelena).

Prayers:

Taylor has a cold, so please pray for her health while she is away. I cannot tell you how hard it is to leave the country knowing your daughter is still in an orphanage and sick...

Our Russian coordinator, Anya. She is out of the hospital, but will need surgery for a broken shoulder.

Getting our documents together for our second dossier as this will be the rate limiting step in bringing Taylor home.

Thanks for your prayers and we will be home soon to see our three little ones. Mammother and Granddaddy survived!!

 

--Kevin and Meghan

Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2012 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: Russia news

We met Yelena for the first time yesterday and spent about 3 hours playing with her. The first words that come to mind are that she is so sweet!! Pleasant in every moment. We were able to feed her lunch, some sort of oatmeal. She is able to reach for toys, follows sounds and tracks well with her eyes. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth and looks like she is close to wanting to crawl. She laughs and smiles to show her two bottom teeth.

We will finalize paperwork today and meet with a notary tomorrow to send a petition to the court here in Russia for her adoption. We have another set op documents to prepare in US and once those are ready, we will be assigned a tentative court date to return 4-12 weeks to meet with the Russian judge to give us custody.

Thanks to all for the prayers.

 

--Kevin and Meghan