Thursday, September 10, 2009

Breathing a Sigh of Relief

We are thankful to report that the three Ukrainian girls many have been praying for are safely back in the custody of their guardian and headed back to Ukraine. Please pray that the Ukrainian government will see the swiftness in which the US court system and law enforcement acted on behalf of the girls and not shut down hosting programs and possibly adoptions. Keep the girls in your prayers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Leslie said...

Dear "Anonymous"-
I chose to delete your comment only because it mentions the hosting family's name, but I want to respond to your question.

Yes, I am aware that this was the family who hosted the girls. In fact, our family, several other adoptive families, along with multiple government agencies (both US and Ukrainian) contacted them leading up to the incident in which the girls had to be removed. We all begged them to consider the impact their actions would have on everyone involved - especially the three girls.

I'm sure the girls were very happy here this summer. Every orphan child who spent the summer hosted by an American family had a similar experience. Our Kristina had the same experience the summer we hosted her through Frontier Horizon. The difference is that we and every other hosting family over the past nine years chose to follow the law and return our hosted children at the agreed upon time and then follow the law to adopt them.

There are many details that the general public does not know about this situation. We have chosen not to write in detail about the events because "S" was a student of mine in the past and I wouldn't want to bring any further embarassment to her for what has happened.

We prayed that God would resolve the situation and He did that. We trust that He will continue to direct the girls' path and we pray that He will place them in a family. If you have any further questions, please feel free to email me.