The complete adoption saga to date

Since the saga of our ongoing attempt to adopt 17-year-old Anna Renschler and her 13-year-old sister Kristina is spread out over lots of posts, here's a set of links in chronological order. This is the order in which the posts were written, which (because of intermittent connectivity issues from Kazakhstan, etc.) is not the order in which they were posted.

A whole bunch of the story, of course, is missing; there's an initial post from way back a long time ago, and then a huge gap, and then suddenly the story appears to pick back up suddenly in medias res. That's because at first, with the exception of this initial post, I kept people up-to-date with e-mails, rather than blog posts -- except for...

Adoption progress update (29 April) -- we have been told where our paperwork is, and are now realizing that if anything else goes wrong we won't beat the court deadline for adopting Anna; AllState is washing their "good hands" of us vis-a-vis the flood damage to our house foundation, meaning we just saw $80,000 in equity vanish instantly; but an engineering firm has stepped up to help us out so that we can still have a chance to adopt.

But then, for a long time, I couldn't bear even to e-mail people about what we were going through. We had faced one seemingly insurmountable hurdle after another. Then, on top of everything else, some time before we were supposed to travel, we were told that Anna had decided that she didn't want to be adopted and had run away from the children's home to go live as a chain-smoking drunk in a house of prostitution. Our friend and coordinator Marina, having been told that stunning story, was now (understandably) very much opposed to our adopting Anna, though she still very much wanted to see us adopt Kristina.

You can imagine how devastated we were; and besides, that's the sort of thing we felt we couldn't even share publicly with people, because we didn't want to bring Kristina back and have everybody looking at her thinking, "Oh, yeah, that's the girl who's sister is the drunken whore back in Kazakhstan." And even though we had been told we'd be crazy to adopt Anna, and even though I told Dessie that it would take a miracle for me to agree to take problems of that magnitude into our family, still we didn't feel free to write the child off without at least talking to her first. So we soldiered on, heart-broken but not quite able yet to give up; we told our very closest friends what was happening so that they could pray for us and otherwise tried to give noncommital answers to people who asked us how the adoption was going. And I found other things to blog about because I just couldn't bear to write about the adoption; and I got more and more tired and more and more depressed until I not only couldn't write about the adoption, I could hardly bear even to think about it.

Then late one night, as our deadline drew ever nearer, something miraculous happened, and after that the posts came freely and regularly. So, even though it was several weeks before I got permission to post an account about what happened that night, our adoption saga -- as posted to this blog -- really starts with my miraculous conversation with a girl named Marina.

When God has a 19-year-old's voice (written 4 August) -- a genuinely miraculous (and I mean that literally) conversation that was the true turning point in our saga; the miracle I had to have in order to be willing to keep pursuing the adoption of Anna, delivered exactly when I needed it. If you're only going to read two of these installments, make this installment one of those two. (If you're only going to read one installment, make it Two stories.)

Marina's story (written by Marina, the 19-year-old of the previous post, and posted by me with her permission in November) -- a brief autobiographical essay by the young lady whom God used to give me the strength to go on, as told in the previous post. WARNING -- it is strong stuff and not for the faint of heart.

It's coming down to it for our adoption (4 August) -- A plea for prayers for wisdom as we face a terribly difficult go/no-go decision.

Going to Karaganda (wee hours of 5 August) -- We make the final decision to go ahead and go to Kazakhstan despite all the uncertainty surrounding our adoption.

Frankly, not much rattles us anymore... (afternoon 5 August) -- the battle for our visas, and how inured to such chaos we have become (note: the identity of the mysterious caller is just as mysterious now as it ever was).

Pausing in Heathrow (8 August)-- very short post letting people know we were halfway to Kazakhstan.

Deleted installment "Now it can be told" (11 August) -- only, it turned out, it couldn't be told, after all. Probably the best thing I've ever written in my life -- I wrote it under a kind of compulsion, writing all night long and then giving it to Dessie to read when she woke up in the pre-dawn light. It demanded to be written and pretty much wrote itself. But I didn't realize until after I'd posted it that I had spoken far too freely about sensitive subjects that were not appropriate for a public blog. So, reluctantly, I took it off the site. The short and very much sanitized version, with a whole bunch left out, runs something like this: We landed in Karaganda, where we met, and I fell in love with, Kristina. Then we found Anna and talked to her, and much to our surprise we realized that most of what we had been told was not accurate; she was not in fact drinking, or smoking, or living as a prostitute. In fact we realized that we absolutely still wanted to adopt her; so we told her we wanted her to be our daughter. She said (breaking Dessie's heart in the process) that she didn't want to be adopted anymore, but she asked to be allowed to explain to Kristina why she was staying in Kazakhstan instead of going to America with us. In that private conversation, she told Kristina that she didn't want to be adopted because (as she thought) we couldn't adopt both her and Kristina, and she wanted to be sure Kristina could go to America. The next day we found out what she had told Kristina and went back to talk to Anna again, and when I explained that she and Kristina could in fact be adopted together, she immediately said that in that case she wanted to be adopted. Sadly, that same evening we discovered that the previous night, after our first discussion, Anna's young friend Layla had gotten deathly ill and was now in a village hospital in the remote village of Topár, near the home of an admirable lady who had been very kind to Anna and Layla and loved them both very much, and who vouched for Anna's good character in the strongest terms. That's all I can share publicly.

Complications (13 August) -- why the previous post has mysteriously disappeared; it appears that Layla will survive; the relationship between Layla and Anna; Anna and Kristina inform us that they wish to be known in future as Jessica and Jennifer.

Very quick update (16 August) -- getting to know Anna better; slowly gaining confidence that she will in fact choose to be a Pierce in the end even though her choice will clearly be a painfully difficult one involving leaving behind friends whom she loves very much; a chance to see our much-loved young friend Altunai out at Krupskaya and (for me) a chance to meet her charming brother Arman.

Urgent prayer request (22 August) -- we get our court date, earlier than anybody had thought possible; we contemplate with equanamity and amusement the prospect of going through court pretty much on our own (since neither Marina nor anybody on her staff can get back from vacation in time to be at this astonishly early court hearing); we hope and pray for an even bigger miracle.

Litvinskoye (events of 23 August, written 25 August) -- how to go about being very, very late for your scheduled visit to a nice dyetdom; in my running battle with Yevgeniy Mikhailovich (director of the dyetdom) I finally lose, thanks to my ignorance of the critical distinction between whiskey and samogón; playing on and in the little river; talking to those delightful Litvinskoye kids; empirical evidence that basketball and samogón do not mix. (Little or nothing about the adoption itself in this one.)

Chez Shúnayev (events of 24 August, written 25 August) -- an account of dinner with the Shunayev family whom we love so much, which account includes the retelling of various jokes that probably would sound better if you had drunk as much cognac as we had drunk by the time we started telling jokes. (But nothing really about the adoption itself in this one.)

Allow me to introduce you... (26 August) -- the announcement that the young ladies formerly known as Anna and Kristina Renschler, are now officially Jessica Anna and Jennifer Kristina Pierce; though we didn't get our even-bigger miracle.

Two stories (events of 27 August, written 29 August) -- the amusing and I think uplifting story of my friendship with the babushki at the little Orthodox church in the remote village of Topár; the heart-breaking and poignant story of a young girl named Lena and her two younger sisters. If you're only going to read one of the installments, this one is the one to read.

The making of choices (30 August) -- the embassy forces Dessie and I to come home separately, to our dismay; saying good-bye to Jess and Jenny and Max; I commit an all-too-characteristic failure as a father; dinner with Aliya and Timur Shaikini; the romper-room plane to London; the story of the Sarsekenov family; melancholy musings on choices made by myself and other fathers.

The college students, and a meditation (1 September, looking back on events of 25 August) -- dinner with the seven college students who've been with CCCP for the past two years; a largely incoherent meditation on pain and suffering and us and God. (Not much about the adoption itself.)

A very Pierce homecoming (2 September) -- I make it home, in the wee hours, but am too incompetent to get into my own apartment; amusing stories involving Kasia and how much people like her and how ridiculously badly we missed each other (not that I didn't miss the other kids as badly, but these stories revolve around The Princess's cell phone, something the other kids don't have yet).

Dessie comes through (5 September) -- Dessie makes it home, bearing gifts and triumphantly hauling Max in tow safely past the border officials of two countries and into the arms of his new family; good news on the young student Larisa, and on Lyena-from-Asyem, and on English classes in the Zharka youth house, and on new mom Maryam and her baby, and on progress toward getting the apartment bought for the latest batch of Litvinskoye kids.

UPDATE: As of 20 September, have added Prayer request and temporary farewell -- one last hurdle poses itself, and in order to clear it I decide I need to take temporarily drastic measures, including calling a halt to my blogging for a while.

UPDATE: As of 25 September have added a reference to the old, initial update I'd forgotten about, and edited some of the background narrative to slot it into its place more smoothly. Also I've added dates of composition (which are not always the same as the dates of posting) to each post.

UPDATE: As of 28 September, have added Zhenya's story, fleshing out a story referred to briefly in "The college students, and a meditation."

UPDATE: As of 3 October, have added "Now we know when" -- assuming some visa difficulties can be straightened out (you didn't really expect any part of our adoption to be easy, did you?), I'll leave for Almaty on Sunday and get home with Jess and Jenny on the following Saturday afternoon; I also do some talking about how many different remarkably generous people have been involved with making these girls part of our family; I introduce you to Alexandra von Maltzan.

UPDATE: As of 9 October, have added "Almost there" -- The shuttle's about to come pick me up, and the closer it gets the less I can stand to wait...forty hours until I see the girls again...

UPDATE: As of 10 October, have added "Hilton makes an enemy" -- I spend the night in the Hilton at Heathrow en route to Almaty; but Hilton does not cover themselves in glory.

UPDATE: As of 11 October, have added "Reunited..." -- I arrive in Almaty and am reunited with Jessica and Jennifer.

UPDATE: As of 15 October, have added "Home at last, for the first time" -- the official announcement that the girls have made it all the way home and that the Pierce family is safely together under a single Texas roof.

UPDATE: As of 18 November, have added "Marina's story -- autobiography of the 19-year-old who spoke in God's voice. (If you're just now starting at the beginning and reading through, you already read it because I slotted it in right after the "God's voice" post, which is where it's best read.)

UPDATE: As of 23 December, have added "Requiem for Galína Ivánovna -- another true story from the Kazakh steppe, and also not at all easy reading. Comes with two endings, a tragedy for the atheists among you and a more hopeful one for the Christians.

FINAL UPDATE: As of 23 December, have added "The conclusion of the saga" -- the first two months at home, and the official (if somewhat arbitrarily selected) conclusion of this Adoption Saga.