Valentine's Day Greeting

***This should have been posted February 13, 2008

Hello One and All,

We wish you all a very warm and chocolatey Valentine’s Day tomorrow and pray that God’s love would fill you up in a special way on this Day of Love. We also thought we’d take the opportunity to fill you in on all the Miller happenings the last few months. You should be getting a newsletter mailed to you soon, but here is a preview of what’s inside as well as “exclusive” news that didn’t make it to press time J

First of all, please be in prayer for Tim and I as we will be sharing with a group of college students on the 14th about dating and relationships. We share a lot from our own experiences as well as what God’s Word has to say on the subject of romance and we are praying that those in attendance would have open hearts and minds to the challenge of purity we will lay before them.

Secondly, we will also be counseling both of our engaged couples (Masha and Vova/ Katya and Andrei) this weekend. Seems like both grooms-to-be managed to get time away from work to be with their sweethearts this weekend and we count it a privilege that they desire to prepare for their future life together with us as part of their short time together. Please be praying for their continued growth as they work through budgeting issues as well as conflict resolution issues.

Thirdly, we are thick in the adoption process for Markian and Josiah and would covet your prayers at this time. When we last wrote and when the newsletter went to press, the adoption center was still closed and we were somewhere around #450 on the waiting list to submit our documents. We received a notice from the American Embassy in mid-January letting us know that the center was opening up again on February 4th (which we had heard before), but Tim decided to call and find out if the center would be working off the same list as before, or if a new system had been put in place with the recent change in leadership there. When the lady on the phone heard our story, she told Tim that something didn’t sound right with that and she would call the center and ask a few questions. When she called back several days later, she let us know that her contact at the center did acknowledge that an “unofficial” line was in fact being used this summer, but that they had indeed implemented a new system to process applications. This woman kindly set up an appointment for us with the new director of the center for January 31st and we were thrilled!

To make an incredibly long story short (if you want the longer version, just e-mail and I’ll give you the rest of the story), we were told that because the boys were under our guardianship, we would not have to wait in line to submit our documents. However, because of the months wasted waiting, some of our documents had to be renewed, which we have been in the process of doing these past couple of weeks. As of today, all of our documents are fresh and ready to be submitted. Tim will travel to Kyiv this Monday to hand in our application to adopt Josiah and Markian. Praise the Lord!

At that point, we will wait to be granted an interview for final approval as adoptive parents from the Ukrainian government and then be assigned a court date to have the adoption legalized. That generally takes 4-6 weeks. After that is completed, then we will begin the joyful adventure of getting the U.S. immigration documents for the boys in order so we can travel to the U.S. with them for our furlough starting this July.

As you can see, we still have a way to go in this process and we would ask that you continue to pray for good favor with the adoption center, the judge who will finalize this adoption, and with U.S. immigration as well. Perhaps a prayer for extra patience and mental stability would be helpful as well J

On the home front, everyone is healthy and we are enjoying an incredibly mild winter here in L’viv. The schools have been quarantined for the past two weeks, much to the children’s delight, but it appears that they will return on Monday. I have to confess I will be glad to get back into a normal routine again. Daniel is just bummed that his homeschooling had to continue even though the other kids were off the hook.

So once again we wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day and lots of hot chocolate for those of you getting pounded by all those horrible winter storms we keep reading about on the internet. Stay warm and safe!

Blessings to you all,

Heather for the Miller 8