Valentine's Day = The Day of Love

Valentine's Day will forever hold a new reason to celebrate in the Rose household!  We are now the parents of three children.  This time, fortunately, Ginger was only nauseous for a couple of hours leading up to our court appointment, instead of the usual 25 or so weeks that she was during pregnancy!  Truth be told, Joe was a little nauseous today, too.  Our court appointment went very well, and the judge ruled in favor of Artyr becoming our child.  Here's a recap . . . Our day began at 6:45 AM when Svetta arrived from the overnight train to prepare us for court.  She reviewed our rights and responsibilities as adoptive parents and also helped to prepare us for what questions might be asked of us.  She then departed to pick up Artyr and his teacher from the orphanage.  Our driver came and picked us up at 9:15 AM.  We stopped to pick up the orphanage inspector along the way, and we arrived at the court building at approximately 9:45 AM for our 10 AM scheduled appointment.  The court room was smaller than we had pictured, and it had a special cell (complete with bars) where "bad men", as Artyr called them, would sit during court.  For awhile, we thought we might have to sit in there . . . as the prosecutor, the inspector, the jury, the orphanage teacher, the court clerk, and the judge all made their way into the room.  The judge questioned both of us individually on who we were, what we did for a living (they especially questioned Joe being a minister), and why we wanted to adopt Artyr.  The judge then questioned Artyr, as well.  He did an amazing job answering the tough questions from the judge.  He didn't look nearly as nervous as we were.  His teacher from the orphanage (pictured below with us and Artyr) then gave a report and expressed her support for the adoption.  It was now time for the orphanage inspector to have her say.  During her report she stated that Artyr's family did not want him, that no one in Ukraine wanted to adopt him, and that no one internationally had ever wanted to adopt him up to this point.  She also stated that this was most likely his last opportunity to be adopted.  We remember when our good friends Russ and Lori adopted their daughter, Ana, last Spring and they told us that the inspector said such things during their court appearance about Ana.  Even knowing it was coming did not prepare us to hear it first hand (as first hand as through a translator can be).  It was heartbreaking sitting there and listening to her say these things about Artyr.  We can't imagine, though, how Artyr felt hearing these things.  The video we posted yesterday (if you haven't had the opportunity to watch it, yet, we hope you can find to) affected us so deeply as we imagined all the years that Artyr has been in the orphanage and how he has seen children come and go, yet he remained.  To think that he waited all this time . . . for us!  God chose us to bring his Happy Ending.  But it's really just the beginning!  We are very blessed to have the opportunity to show Artyr God's Love and to welcome him into our family.  And we are also very blessed to share this experience with all of you.  We appreciate so much the amount of time each of you has spent praying for us, caring for our children while we were gone, or supporting us in some other way.  Our journey is not over, even though we're preparing to come home tomorrow!  We ask that you would continue to pray as Joe prepares to fly back to Ukraine with our good friend, Tim (or Unky as our girls and some of you know him) ,on the 27th of February to pick Artyr up and bring him home forever on the 11th of March.  What a homecoming that will be!  Please PRAY for our journey home and for our reunion with Grace and Jordyn on Tuesday evening.  Thank you so much!  God Bless!