Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Welcome to our blog!


Hi everyone, and welcome to the Burbee Baby Blog!

We thought that we would start this blog to keep everyone up to date on how the adoption process is going. I have been doing that on my myspace page, but after having read so many other adoptive parents' blogs, and followed on their amazing journeys, I'm looking forward to having a space just to focus on the adoption. Yeah, I know, that means I may not have as much time for myspace, but here I can post pictures and do some fun stuff that I can't do there--plus we can connect with some of the non-myspace people.

For those of you who are new to our journey, we're Carolynn and Steve. We've been married almost 17 years (Holy Cow!) and have two adult children who are amazingly wonderful and talented (and one of them is now graduated from college and employed while the other has only one year left to go! yay!) We have decided that we too young to be empty nesters, and have felt called by God to pursue a Russia adoption. We started this process back in November 2005, but have only gotten all of our documents submitted and in Russia as of about February 2008. Our agency has assigned us to the Izhevsk region (home of Tchaikovsky, the composer, and Kalashnikov, the AK-47 guy.) We're now at the point where what we're doing is waiting...and waiting...and waiting....you get the picture. We've been told that we probably won't hear anything until after the summer is over, so we're hoping to have our referral some time in the fall.

In the meantime, there is lots of other stuff going on--thankfully, God is keeping us busy so we don't have lots of time to dwell on how the wait is going. Steve is a Methodist pastor, and is busy this coming week with Annual Conference here in Missouri. He volunteered to be in charge of the logistics for ordination this year, and will be really really glad when that is over this weekend. Carolynn is just glad that school is over (I taught basic world history classes at Missouri State and an online class at Drury Universiy this last semester, and finals were just nuts!). No summer school! Yay! In the fall, I'll be teaching Russian history at Drury on Monday nights. Also, I'm going to Russia in July for 2 weeks with the group from LaCroix again. They're doing the youth camp--again, and hopefully dedicating the sanctuary outside Moscow. They have graciously asked me to go with them again, and I said of course!

So, that should get caught up with sort of where we are---I'll try to fill in the gaps in the next couple of weeks or so. And post some pictures.

I should probably explain the title, too. One of our dear friends, and youthies at the church, told us that since our last name sounds like Barbie, we should name our baby "Malibu". While there is no way we're going to do that (lol), it has been fun to refer to her that way. So, we're going to be following God's lead to our Malibu in Russia. And I'm so grateful to have all of you along for the trip!

Radost'! (that's Russian for "joy!")


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for inviting me to follow your jouney! I am so excited for you, and and thrilled to be able to watch how God brings you and your child together :0)
(and we DO have so many connections I just know it..and I can't WAIT to tell you how God called us to adopt..and to Russia.
God bless,
Amy :0)

Joel and Clarion said...

Hi Carolynn and Steve! My wife, Clarion and I are currently adopting two boys from Vladivostok. We are also using Children's Hope. Blessings on your journey!

votemom said...

hi - amy gave me your blog address. we have a lot in common.

we too were led to russian adoption via a russian mission trip.

we added two little ones to our family last year. they joined our three much older kids (21, 18 & 14).

i really can't find words to describe the very long and very emotional journey, except to say, when God is in it, it's good.

i'm definitely going to follow your blog and see what God does!

p.s. i said this a lot over the past few years: boge vah seg dah doe bree. that's "God is good, all the time" in russian. (emphasis on seg and bree)