We Got the Document!

We finally received the much needed document today. Yesterday, in the town where our son was born, a committee of local officials affirmed that the adoption process could proceed (meeting was held in building on left).  Although a member of the committee brought up a Dr. Phil episode in which a Russian adopted child was disciplined with hot sauce and a cold shower (which is all the news here in the Russian speaking world over the last few days) and wanted to know how we are planning to discipline our new son.  After a satisfactory answer, the commitee recommended continuation of the adoption process; however, the town administrator (who had to sign off on the document) was against the adoption in part because of the episode of Dr. Phil and refused to approve the committee's recomendation.  Today, after a valiant effort by our facilitators, the administrator eventually signed off on the document (after each of the ten committee members had to come back and sign off on the intial meeting and after the administrator spent much of the day looking for errors in our dossier).  Our facilitators told us that it was the most difficult administrator that they have had to deal with in their 10+ years of experience in Ukrainian adoptions.  Our facilitators are our heroes!  We also set up a preliminary court date for Friday, Feb. 18 at 10 a.m.  We can't believe that it's all coming together!  We thank God that He has allowed us to be a part of all this.  Please pray that everything will continue to go smoothly.  There are still more documents to be gathered and verified!  We had fun with our little guy today, we did the usual ... sat on old tires, played chase, hide and seek, read books, and chased the barking sobachkas (little dogs) away.