The Girls Welcome Their New Brother

The New and Improved Lennard Family

Adopted, Again

Cole is probably beginning to wonder if he will ever be done going through all the steps is takes to be our son. I believe we have finally passed the last hurdle. This morning we went to the courthouse and he became Cole Matthew Lennard, again. This time in the great state of Nebraska. I believe he was rather scared, especially after he looked into the courtroom. But the hearing was very uneventful compared to the Ukranian drama. Nobody was running around copying papers at the last minute, we weren't trying to find out who to pay and how much. We weren't asked any prying questions. And best of all our whole family got to be there this time! Cole will soon have an official Nebraska birth certificate. We will no longer have to send in a document that nobody can read. And most importantly Cole is "hereby fully and legally adopted." Praise God!

Cole takes the ball down the field

Cole's 1st soccer game

SOCCER!

The Lennard family is now an official soccer family. If people thought we spent a lot of time playing soccer before we spend twice as much time now. Kyle is off to Chicago this weekend with Lauren to play in the Best of the Midwest tournament. The rest of the family stayed home because Cole had two games this weekend and Lacey had Homecoming.Lauren would have liked to attend Homecoming but soccer usually wins out with her. Cole is doing very well on his team. He is fast and has a good aim. He is still getting used to playing a position as he had never experienced that before. He asked last night why the coach was always shouting to "Rush in!" Cole thought he was saying "Russian!" We still get some things like that. Cole is understanding more everyday. His conversational English is good. He started out in school being in all regular classes but the teachers quickly figured out that he wasn't understanding school language very well. He is back in ELL for nine weeks and then they hope to mainstream him back in.

Cole is making many new friends. There are boys at our door on a daily basis asking for him to play football,a new sport that he is enjoying. He wants to get on a team but we told him he would have to toughen up a bit first. He still prays for all his friends at the internot, that they will be adopted. It has been awhile since he has said that he wants to go back to Ukraine. I think he finally feels like he is fitting into the family. When people ask me how it is going, I usually say some days are better than others. Adoption is not for the weak or faint-hearted. It is truly a big job. But when God calls you to do something he equips you for it. I am thankful that we are all in it as a family. I can't imagine having Cole here without Kyle or the girls.

Cole and his camp counselor Jarrett. We were so thankful that his counselor was someone we knew from church.

Ariel and her friend Chelsea, cousins Julia and Kersten, and Cole ready for their first day at camp.

Update

As I was looking over the VanPutten's blog spot I noticed a link to our own blog. I felt slightly embarrassed that we had never updated when the other blogs listed have given updates on their children. I have often thought about updating but never did so this is the update on the lennard6.

Cole is doing well. He is at church camp this week from Sun-Fri. His sister Ariel is there with him too and I must say we are enjoying some peace and quiet at our house. Cole's English is progressing along very well. He doesn't like us to speak the few things we know in Russian to him, he says "English". He finished up the school year in an ELL class with a boy from China and a few from Mexico. Some days we weren't sure what language he was speaking. He took three weeks of summer school where he continued to hone his language and math skills.

He is a very busy boy and likes to be doing something every minute. I am thankful that the pool is nearby and he gets to see his friends there on a daily basis. He will start playing on a local soccer team soon, so that should take some of his energy. He seems to be adjusting well to his new family and country. Some days are better than others. Although I have never felt we had a lot of rules to go by in our house I have discovered that I am constantly finding new ones I need to tell Cole about. One important one being "no riding your bike on the highway".

The girls love Cole and he loves the attention they lavish on him. Sometimes he says, "Mama, three sisters, OY!" I remind him that we warned him about them when we were in Ukraine and he was fine with them then. He is devoted to his dad and sometimes Kyle gets just a little more loving from Cole than he is used to.

We still all think about the friends we made in Ukraine and pray for them nightly. We are thankful that another girl from Cole's class will hopefully be in America soon. Cole will be happy to see her!

Cole with his new sisters at home

We arrived in Omaha.

Cole's first flight - Ukraine to London.

New Son & American Citizen

Like a good book with the last chapter missing, you all are wondering what's the rest of the story for Susie, Kyle and Cole. Susie, Cole and I made it back home on Thursday afternoon, April 21, 2005, to a family waiting with open arms. Our last message was on Saturday after our farewell party at the orphanage.

Susie, Cole and I left for Kiev on Sunday by van to start our long journey home. We arrived late afternoon in Kiev. We stopped at McDonalds for a quick bite before returning to our facilitator's apartment.

Monday we spent the morning at the U.S. Medical Clinic. In true to form medical protocol, we waiting for our turn, and waited. Finally, the Doctors did a rotine physical and checked his medical records. We waited some more and about three hours later we had our medical records for Cole and the US Embassy.

Our facilitator, while we waited at the US Medical Clinic, went to the Ukraine Minister of Justice to have Cole's birth certificate stamped and turn in the decision of the court to the National Adoption Center. She returned to find us still waiting at the US Medical Clinic.

Tuesday we went to the US Embassy to get Cole's immigration Visa. The process was fairly painless, except the uncertainty of getting an immigration visa. I stood and reflected on the fact Cole is already our son and the visa is only allowing our son to travel to America. If we didn't get the visa, he is still our son forever and we would need to stay to resolve any issue. The thought of this made me pray constantly toward the end of the process. Please Lord allow us access to America!

We received the immigration visa Tuesday at 3:30 pm saying we could bring our son into America. America has a very beautiful visa, one that we will hold in Cole's scrap book forever.

It was too late to leave on Tuesday, so we had to wait until the next day. It seemed like an eternity, but we left on Wednesday at 1:00pm for airport. We were praying constantly as British Airways tried to figure out our tickets that I had to change from an international calling booth in Kiev. Next we had to go through passport control, baggage check and then boarder patrol. We waited to her the words, you may pass around the booth, whew! We were on international soil. Next stop. . .America.

We took off from Ukraine and said good bye. We traveled to London where we made connections to American and flew into New York at 10:30 pm. One last immigration stop. God blessed us with an immigration officer who also had tried to adopt. She was excited for us and therefore made it easy. They took fingerprints of Cole and he signed his name. Cole Matthew is offically an American. Susie and I were never so happy to see New York.

We stayed the night anxiously waiting for our flight the next morning to Chicago and Omaha. With three hours of sleep and running on adrenaline, we arose with excitement and headed to the airport. Cole loved flying, especially the televisiion screens in the headrest on the 777 to New York.

We arrived in Omaha Thursday at 12:30 pm into the arms of our girls and Cole's sisters. We were too tired to cry. We were glad to be home. Praise God.

Thanks to everyone for all your prayers and support.

Yuri and his Babushka who came to visit while we were having the party- she told us in Russian how happy she was that we were adopting one of the kids

Deanna and Nastia

Kyle, Dima S. and Denise thumbwrestle

I am crying as I write this last blog from Odessa. We leave tomorrow on a bus for Kiev. Today we had a going away party for Cole. We went to the store and bought all his favorite foods, had pictures made up of his class for all his friends. The children are all so happy to see us when we come. We ate, read books, played games and took pictures and videos of all. Kyle played hangman with the boys, a hard task when neither speak the other's language. My sweet Dima Shugachev asked Galina how to write I love Susie in English for his turn at hangman. When we left the kids all followed us outside and still kept hanging on to us and Cole, wondering when we would come back. Some of the kids started crying and then I started crying. Cole has spent all of his last 8 years with a lot of these children and they are like a family to him. I feel like they have become part of our family as well. I cry because I wish we could take more of them home with us,I cry because I wish they all had a family to love them, and I cry because we will probably never see them again. Lela is doing a wonderful job being a grandmother to these children, but I know that she prays as I will that all these children will have a home and a family of their own. We thank you all so much for praying for us and I ask that you continue to pray for these kids, that they will also know and love Jesus. Monday we will continue on trying to finish up with with everything, pray that it all goes smoothly. As I hear Cole calling for Papa in the background I thank God that he has made it possible for us to take one of these precious children home with us.

Kolya is now officially Cole Matthew Lennard and has a passport to America

Susie, Natalia, Kyle and Cole

Cole's friends say good-bye

April 15, an important day for many to remember to file their taxes. For us it will be the day that Cole Matthew Lennard legally became a part of our family. We began the day at 5am with a call to our precious daughters. At 6:15 we were picked up by Victor and drove to the train station to get Galina. After that on to the internot to give Kolya clothes to wear to court and to meet with the director. Kolya's friends did not want to see him go and there was much hugging and picture taking. One friend asked if we would take him today and I asked if that was okay and he said it would be better tomorrow. Next on to court, we waited 1 1/2 hours for our turn, the americans ahead of us didn't have papers ready and so took a long time. We got in to the court room which is not at all like american court rooms, just an office. We were asked questions like our address, occupation, living conditions( I wasn't sure what to answer to that)They asked if we spoke Russian and I said I could say please and thank you. The judge laughed at that. When asked why we wanted to adopt Kolya Kyle said we wanted a boy and didn't want to take the chance of having another girl of our own. He said he had the same situation at home. Kolya was asked by the judge if he was a holligan and he said no. After court Kolya told Victor he had prayed before we went in. Next up,the tortuous van ride for the rest of the day, to the vital statistics for the birth certificate where they scrutinized everything, asking Kyle wasn't MO for Montana and not Missouri? Tried to pay the tax at many banks that were closed for lunch. Scrambling to get the already been paid but still wants to be ornery birth certificate lady to stamp our papers. On to the Passport office where Ben Franklin got us a passport in 1 hour. Poor Kolya didn't get to go with us until we had the passport and so had sat waiting for us all day in the asst. director's office wondering where we were. New Rule,(there are alot of those here). Got back to Lela's at 7pm. We are exausted! Lela cried when we showed her the birth cert and passport. We will probably stay at Lela's until Sun when we will head to Kiev. Keep praying that all will be well with his medical checkup there and the embassy. Also have to have a paper stamped by NAC again. We thank you all for your continuing prayers, God has truly blessed us this day.

Susie, Kolya and Kyle celebrate with pizza

Sweet little Sasha and her hand made bear.

We have the paper!

Thought I would give you the news in the title so you wouldn' have to rush through the blog to find out. Today we visited little Sasha in the hospital. She was very happy to see us and to get her gifts from her penpals.We got there at lunch time and had to stand outside and wait while they ate lunch. The doors are locked so nobody can run away. She will be there for 3 weeks so we showed her the gifts and then took them back so nobody would steal them from her while she was there. On to the internot where we picked Kolya up, we were shocked when he came out to the van and was wearing a Florida Gators sweatshirt. We told him he could leave it for one of his friends! For those of you reading this blog who don't know us well, we are from Nebraska and are avid Husker fans. Lela is from Ocala, FL and this is where the shirt came from. While we were driving to have pizza the call came from Galina that she had the paper. We all let out a cheer! She will arrive at 7am and we will pick her up at the train station then head over to the internot to fill out some paperwork. We will have our court date at 10am. If all goes as planned we will spend the rest of the day getting his passport and new birth certificate made.Thanks for all who are praying for us and sending bible verses. Our God is an awesome God, we feel his presence in so many of the people here. Continue to pray that all will go well tomorrow. We have appts set up at the embassy for Monday morning.