Guests

I'm really bad at updating this blog! I barely can keep my other one going, which I finally updated today!  I knew that doing 'hospitality' for adoptive families was a good idea-- perhaps I just didn't anticipate how well it would take off!  From mid July till today I will say that my laundry machine has been putting in a lot of hours!  It has been so fun though, and even though I don't enjoy getting up to say goodbye to nearly everyone who takes the 5:45 am flight to Frankfurt, I have so loved this opportunity to walk through the adoption process with the 25+ families who have crossed my threshold since this all began in February.

I also had the privilege of having my friend Jenny from England come stay with me for a month, so she helped run the joint while I was doing camps this summer, and with her wealth of experience working with kids, she too was able to add a lot to the families' experiences. 

This week is a bit of a breather before I pick back up to a full schedule next week-- but then again, that could change at any moment! :) 

Here are some of my wonderful families that have stayed as of late....

The Greens with the new additions Daniel & Lydia

Jenny & I with Ian

Ian's Mom and Dad, Matt and Kristin

The McPeeks, currently in Donetsk region adopting a sweet 8-year-old.

Busy Summer

Well both my apartment and I have been quite busy this summer!
I'm heading out of town tomorrow to run a camp in the Kherson region for an orphange there. I will be out of reach until the 28th of August and a friend of mine is managing my place while I'm away.  As of now I'm booked through the end of the month and have a few tentative things scheduled for September. It will be best to email me with requests closer to the end of this month!
Now off to finish packing for camp....

Presidential order expected to allow SDA to continue processing adoptions in Ukraine

This is the latest from the US Embassy in Kyiv....

"On July 8, 2011, the president of Ukraine signed an order which extends the State Department on Adoption’s (SDA's) authority to process adoptions. We have been informed by the SDA that the order will not take effect until the order is published, likely within a few days. The SDA currently is not accepting adoption applications. According to the order, the SDA will have the authority to continue processing adoptions until the Ministry of Social policy is ready to take over as the new adoption authority in Ukraine. The Ministry does not yet know when they will be prepared to take over adoption processing.

We will continue to ask the Ukrainian government to resume adoptions as quickly as possible. We will also continue to encourage the Ministry of Social Policy to protect adoptions where U.S. prospective adoptive parents have already been approved by the SDA to adopt a particular child.

According to the SDA, there are approximately 139 U.S. families registered with the SDA, some of them already in-country. We will be following new developments closely to understand how they will affect the families currently in process and will be posting relevant updates. In that respect, we recommend that all American families that are currently in Ukraine or have appointments with SDA during the next few weeks send their contact information to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine's Adoption Unit at: kyivadoptions@state.gov. 

Families should contact their local adoption service provider for further updates and details

Booked!

Hello adoptive friends!  I'm headed to southern Ukraine to do a camp for the these last two weeks of the month and while I'm away I've got two sets of adoptive friends staying at the hospitality house-- so I'm booked through about July 3rd at this point!  Email me after that if you are interested in July dates...I'm headed to no email access for the next couple weeks!

New Ukrainian Adoption Statistics

Below are recently given adoption statistics for Ukraine.

These are the official Government stats on adoptions in Ukraine for the year 2010.  You will first see a break down of adoptions by foreign families in the first grouping of numbers, and then a break down of adoptions by Ukrainian families in the second grouping.  The left hand column is the region of Ukraine that the adoption took place.  The first list of numbers is the total adoptions in that region (grand total at bottom) and then the following columns break it down by age of the child that was adopted.  

Unfortunately the statistics do not provide information to special needs kids, HIV+, downs syndrome and other health issues.  In my opinion, these cases would make up most of the foreign adoptions of children aged 3 year olds and younger.

You will also notice the large percentage of adoptions from the eastern regions and low numbers in the western regions.  The main factor in this is the socio-economics in the two sides of the country.  The east side of the country has a higher percentage of drug users, alcoholics, prostitution, broken homes and as a result more orphanages and orphans.  In contrast the economy and life style in the west are a bit better and as a result, so is the family unit.  There are also more families in the west that are willing to take children into care.

Here are the numbers.....

	Adoptions in Ukraine by Foreign Families by Region
	Total Children	Under 1	1-2 yrs	3-5 yrs	6-10 yrs	11-17 yrs
Crimea	70	2	11	11	33	13
Vinitsa	22	0	2	2	12	6
Volyn	0	0	0	0	0	0
Dnipropetrovsk	86	2	12	13	43	16
Donetsk	187	1	48	46	66	26
Zhitomer	31	0	3	6	18	4
Zakarpatia	17	0	2	6	9	0
Zaprozhzha	101	4	19	17	40	21
Іvano-Frankivsk	0	0	0	0	0	0
Кyiv	102	3	9	21	48	21
Kirovograd	56	4	9	12	18	13
Lugansk	94	6	15	12	33	28
Lviv	8	0	2	2	4	0
Mikolaev	44	0	13	12	15	4
Odessa	108	4	23	25	36	20
Poltava	29	3	7	7	8	4
Rivne	4	0	2	2	0	0
Sumy	31	0	7	2	4	18
Ternopil	4	0	0	0	4	0
Kharkiv	54	2	8	13	28	3
Kherson	16	2	4	2	6	2
Khmelnytski	23	1	11	4	6	1
Cherkasy	29	1	3	6	12	7
Chernivtsi	6	0	1	2	2	1
Chernigiv	39	1	11	10	11	6
Kyiv city	27	1	3	5	7	11
Sevastopol city	14	1	3	4	2	4
Total adoptions:	1202	38	228	242	465	229

	Adoptions in Ukraine  by Ukrainian families
	Total Children	Under 1	1-2 yrs	3-5 yrs	6-10 yrs	11-17 yrs
Crimea	145	55	42	33	12	3
Vinitsa	64	22	17	16	7	2
Volyn	45	19	10	10	4	2
Dnipropetrovsk	200	95	52	38	10	5
Donetsk	279	133	78	44	17	7
Zhitomer	52	18	19	13	1	1
Zakarpatia	77	26	17	24	7	3
Zaprozhzha	111	60	28	13	6	4
Іvano-Frankivsk	24	9	5	4	4	2
Кyiv	118	47	26	23	19	3
Kirovograd	84	33	24	17	8	2
Lugansk	163	87	41	25	9	1
Lviv	62	30	10	13	9	0
Mikolaev	52	18	20	8	5	1
Odessa	143	59	48	27	5	4
Poltava	68	28	15	20	5	0
Rivne	50	11	15	17	7	0
Sumy	38	16	16	5	1	0
Ternopil	20	4	5	6	5	0
Kharkiv	105	58	30	13	4	0
Kherson	79	36	21	12	9	1
Khmelnestsky	27	9	13	4	1	0
Cherkasy	57	33	13	6	4	1
Chernivtsi	23	5	9	5	3	1
Chernigiv	45	14	18	8	3	2
Kiev city	78	40	15	9	10	4
Sevastopol city	38	19	7	7	4	1
Total adoptions:	2247	984	614	420	179	50

Hope you found these helpful and interesting.

Kiev Days

This weekend was the annual "Kiev Days" here in the city. Which means the streets were jammed packed with artisans from all over the country displaying their goods.  I have never seen so many people on Andrevsky Spusk in my life!!  I've been here a long time, but this is my first experience with Kiev Days.



 I have Rachel and Tim Harris staying with me at the moment, who are awaiting an SDA appointment this week-- so after church and a yummy lunch at the Irish Pub down the street we hit the 'hill' where all the goodies could be found and had quite a bit of fun-- and tried to endure the HEAT!

Tim and Rachel

We seem to be having a bit of a heat wave in Ukraine at the moment!

SDA appointments seem to be popular for the first and second weeks of June-- and I have people it looks like almost all month at the hospitality house. We are still awaiting to hear if things will close down for awhile in mid-June. As of now, everything is still just rumors and nothing is officially confirmed. But for now, my home has been kept busy with many dear couples starting out their adoption journey here in Kiev.

Crazy May

 The flowers are in full bloom here in Kiev.  I am tempted to buy a bouquet just about every day!  I bought these tulips from a sweet Babushka the other day...just couldn't resist!  I truly love the spring here, and I've always thought it is the best time to visit this country. Obviously the SDA has the same opinion and they are giving out a ton of May adoption appointments....and I've received a ton of emails and inquiries about staying at the hospitality house !! :)

For those of you who are following and interested in accommodations, I am 'booked' through May 26th at this point and have several 'tentative' families for June.   Please feel free to email requests, just know that there will be nothing free till the end of the month.   It is going to be a busy next few weeks!