Court was a HUGE SUCCESS!!!!

(To the right: Karen, Sasha, & Marina at orphanage)

Hello Everyone!

Praise God, we now have 7 children! Court went well and we now have 3 more daughters. We still have to wait the 10 days to make it completely official, but for all intents and purposes, we have added 3 new sisters to the family.

We started the day by greeting Karen and Valery to Berdyansk. They arrived at 8am this morning. We had a nice breakfast and afterwards, Dan and Valery took some documents to the judge prior to our designated court appointment today. After a few phone calls to make sure everything was in order, we got everyone gathered at the court. We had to wait a while for the prosecutor to show up. However, after she arrived, we were invited into the judge’s office to begin the court hearing. Present at the hearing were us, Valery (our translator), Ladies #1 & 2, the orphanage lawyer, the judge, and the judge’s secretary.

During the hearing, we were asked questions about our intentions for the girls and details about our home and jobs. After answering all questions, Lady #2 was asked to stand and give her/the state’s recommendation. Praise God, she gave us a favorable recommendation. Next, they asked the girls to come in one by one and tell in their own words if they would like to come to the U.S. and live with us. After everyone had given their inputs, we were asked to step out while the judge made her decision. After about 10 minutes, we were asked to come back into the judge’s office, where she read to us her decision to change the names of the girls. She told us that the girls should be with us. Obviously, there was much celebration after that. It was so emotional in the office that even lady #2 was crying. The total time for the court proceeding was about an hour.



(Above: Karen and girls outside of court after hearing; All of us and Judge after hearing.)

After court, we got Valery to the bus station and visited with the girls at the orphanage. Since it was so late, we were unable to bring the girls back to the hotel. We will see them tomorrow at 2pm. They were all very excited to be sisters now.

Thank you for all of your prayers. We hope to get a copy of the court decree on Wednesday morning and will be able to start the birth certificate/passport paperwork early in hopes that we will just have to pick it up on the 15th of December.

God Bless,
Dan and Julie