“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Phillipians 1:3-6

We thank the Lord for each one of you and how He has used you to support us in our adoption journey. Each of us who have chosen to believe in the Lord and in Jesus Christ, His son, have been adopted into the family of God. It is such a beautiful picture that is stated in scripture and it has taken on a new meaning now that we have adopted Angelica into the Aldridge family. God created each one of us desiring that we choose to believe in Him and serve Him. God created each of our precious children but only one of them got to choose our family.

(If you do not have time to read this long post, please skip to the bottom where we have listed our prayers and praises. I have worked on typing bits and pieces of this over the past two months and have always gotten interrupted or too tired to keep typing. Thank you for being our prayer partners in this journey that will be life long.)

On March 2 after bedtime prayer Angelica gave me a big hug, kissed me on the cheek and said “I love you Mom and I love the family.” Thank you Lord! She has accepted our love and is willing to give us love in return. My prayer is that she never regrets the choice she made to be adopted into our family. Another prayer is that she chooses to be adopted into the family of God! In March she asked for a big Bible in English. We have tried to find an English/Russian Bible that is side by side and easy for a 12 year old but have not found one yet. Mekenzie let her borrow one of her English Bibles until Grandma bought Angelica an English Bible of her own. While we were in Ukraine she was given a New Testament in Russian and English but she told me she wants the whole thing! Initially, Angelica typically prayed every other night in Russian but by mid March she started praying every night. Her prayer is one of thanksgiving. There are many things she thanks the Lord for; some of which I do not understand. I had been praying that in time she would desire to pray every night and God answered that prayer!

School has been one of the biggest challenges. Angelica has gotten better about doing her work with less complaining so we are thankful for that. It is not easy to homeschool 5 children, especially when one is trying to learn English and needs lots of one on one attention. I have been so thankful to my mother who comes over most days to help with school. Please pray that God will give me the strength and patience to do it on my own very soon once my Mom leaves for Minnesota.

We have experienced “growing pains” as any family would when adding another child. We are expecting a lot of Zoey as the big sister to model how to do chores cheerfully, how to be a big sister to Mekenzie and the boys, how to be respectful and have good manners, etc. Angelica looks up to Zoey so we constantly pray for Zoey to be a Godly example and role model for her siblings. Our children love Angelica so much that Angelica has had to get used to lots of hugs and kisses on the cheek. That has been an adjustment for her since it was something she was not accustomed to receiving. Please pray for Angelica and Mekenzie to grow closer to each other every day. Mekenzie, age 10, has had the hardest time with this adjustment and just wants Angelica to love her. At times she tries too hard to love on Angelica and then Mekenzie’s feelings get hurt. Mekenzie has a hard time getting to sleep some nights because that is when she reflects on the day. Most nights Mekenzie tries to hold Angelica’s hand during prayer and I praise the Lord when Angelica is willing!

Angelica loves most of the food we eat, at times maybe a little too much. Pray that we can continue to teach healthy eating habits and not ask for chips and cookies every time we go to the store. Angelica has been in to see the pediatrician, the eye doctor and the dentist. She was thrilled that she does not need glasses and was not so thrilled that the dentist found another cavity, which is already filled. She has had lots of tests and we are thankful that she is healthy! She already wants braces since Zoey has them and she does not like her tooth that sticks up. We will start saving for that and take her to the orthodontist once we make sure she is taking good care of her teeth. Hygeine and healthy habits are not taught in the orphanage and new habits take time to form so we still give lots of reminders and do our best to monitor good practices.

The post adoption paperwork has been super stressful and a huge reason that I could not send an update sooner. We submitted the paperwork to the consular of Ukraine with time to spare and I felt so good about getting that done quickly. The very next day we got an email from our adoption agency checking with us about the paperwork for validating the adoption here in Colorado. We had been told we had 6 months to “re-adopt” Angelica in Colorado so I had not even looked at any of the requirements for that. Come to find out we had to submit the paperwork to the court within 30 days of getting home. That was stressful and I submitted the paperwork to our county court exactly one month after arriving home. Then three weeks later we got a call from the court requesting 2 additional documents, one of which had to come from our adoption agency. The one document they wanted was the certificate of citizenship which we had not received yet so thankfully they accepted a copy of Angelica’s visa instead. (Since we are still waiting for the certificate of citizenship, we are thankful that did not delay court too long.) Court to “re-adopt”/ validate the adoption is tomorrow, Friday, April 28. By validating the adoption here in Colorado, we will be able to get a US birth certificate for Angelica.

We had a visit from a new social worker less than a month after being home. The social worker who did our home study was on maternity leave so we got a social worker who had worked with some of our friends. I had not even fully unpacked yet and the house was far from how I wanted it to look but the visit went smoothly. The social worker was very nice and our children felt comfortable with her. Thankfully she made no comments about the suitcase that was not unpacked or the pile of papers on the dining room table.

We submitted our taxes to our accountant the beginning of March which felt good to have one more major thing crossed off the “to do list”. We are so thankful to God that He arranged it so that our adoption was finalized in 2016 so that we can claim another dependent and start getting some money from the adoption tax credit this year. God is always taking care of all the details!

Angelica must think all I ever do is paperwork, cooking, laundry, school and take children to doctor/dental appointments! That is really not true but it sure feels that way. In between all those things we have managed to go swimming every Saturday and a few other days here and there until our membership expired in early April. We have gone to several of Zoey’s basketball games, participated in Family Night at basketball, had fun at a carnival at the church where some of our children attended preschool, went to the Home and Garden Show, the Day of Dance, Children’s Festival, the Denver Zoo, played outside, and have watched some fun movies as a family.

On Valentine’s Day the children got more gifts since I had not had time to wrap presents for Christmas and Angelica was not yet with us. Valentine’s Day was extra special since they got the gifts we bought each of them from Ukraine. The girls each got a Ukrianian style Barbie, handmade bracelets, handmade rings, and more tasty gum. The boys got Ninjago in a box with Russian, a cool spy gadget with directions in Ukrainian, boyish bracelets of Ukraine colors, and more tasty gum.

Angelica sure enjoyed writing Valentines and searched on the internet for Valentine sayings that she could translate. She had fun thinking of people to give valentines to and we even hand delivered valentines to the pediatrician and nurse. After all the tests she had I was surprised and happy that she wanted to write out valentines for them. This was also good practice with English that was fun for her! On Valentine’s Day Angelica went with me to Options where the children go to take enrichment classes on Tuesdays. She helped me show the Elementary age children how to make a Valentine craft and then she got to make one as well. That evening before Christmas gifts, the children delivered their valentines to each other in their hand made boxes and they all had fun looking through the valentines their siblings gave them.

Angelica went to her first Birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese and her second birthday party at a neighbor’s house. All 5 children were invited to both of these parties and everyone had lots of fun. I am not sure Angelica had ever seen a piñata or a bouncy house in the front yard of someone’s house!

Angelica is learning so much English that she is not as shy to talk to people anymore. Our friend from church who is an ESL teacher comes once a week and works with her. They have so much fun together. Angelica is given worksheets, books to read, and games to work on throughout the week. We are so thankful that God has given us this dear friend to help Angelica and encourage her to learn English. The curriculum she is letting us borrow has been wonderful. I have added in Phonics and Reading; using the same curriculum I used for our other children. Since it is Christian curriculum she is reading all about God and creation as she learns to read English!

Angelica helped us prepare for her first American garage sale that we held on April 7& 8. This was a good way for us to clear out outgrown clothes, toys, etc. and help us raise money to pay off travel expenses. Several friends were generous and gave items for our sale as well which was a huge help for the fundraiser.

Easter was a fun celebration. We went to church for brunch and Easter service and then came home to find over 200 plastic eggs with pennies. (The children put pennies in all the eggs earlier in the week.) They all had a lot of fun finding them in the backyard and then counting their money. Soon after Easter, Angelica taught Caleb, age 5, to swing on his own with only a “boost” to get him started! They were both proud of their accomplishments, one in teaching and the other in learning!

On April 24, Angelica got to help Levi decorate his birthday cake, assist with decorations, and set up party games. She was a great help and even though she did not want to play the game of crochet at the beginning she sure seemed to have fun.

Yesterday, April 25, we all attended the musical theatre presentation of “Mulan”. Zoey was an ancestor in the play and Angelica enjoyed watching her first play, especially since her big sister was in it. Angelica has been frustrated at times with how much time Zoey has been practicing but hopefully now she understands why. Angelica would much rather have Zoey play with her and the siblings than be busy with other things.


Here are our specific prayers:
 *Angelica to bond with each member of our family - praise that this is already happening and pray that God will help it grow into genuine love for everyone in the family.
 *We are still waiting on Angelica’s certificate of citizenship. Over a week ago I found out that all of the original documents we gave at the airport where we entered America had gone missing. I spent a fair amount of time on the phone trying to find out where the documents may have gone. We prayed that they would be found and sent to USCIS quickly. On Monday I heard from Department of Homeland Security with fabulous news! The missing documents in the brown manilla envelope had been found! The documents were mailed to USCIS on Tuesday so now we only have to wait another 60 days for her certificate of citizenship. I asked if it was possible to expedite the process of getting the certificate but no guaranties were made. However I got good news that I can apply for a Social Security number without the certificate of citizenship. I can use Angelica’s Visa by giving her alien registration number. Our accountant filed an extension for our taxes because we could not claim Angelica as a dependent nor could we start getting the adoption tax credit without a SSN for her. We are praising the Lord for making the documents be found. If the documents had not been found by this week, I was going to start working on gathering documents, getting more passport sized pictures of Angelica, etc. to submit to USCIS. This was going to be additional costs and take a lot of my time. Some documents were the only originals that I was going to request we have returned to us but if the envelope had not been found, we would never have been able to get those originals. Praise the Lord that we did not have any problems with applying for Angelica’s SSN today and pray that her Social Security card comes quickly in the mail.
 *Please pray that court will go smoothly and be a very positive event tomorrow, April 28. Our last court experience in Ukraine was very stressful, long, and brought up Angelica’s past which was hard for her. We are praying this will be a time of family celebration! Pray that we will not have any problems getting Angelica’s birth certificate after we get her Social Security card and have the validation from court.
 *Pray fervently for Angelica’s salvation. The tragic, sudden death of our neighbor’s son two Sundays ago gave me the opportunity to share the Gospel of Christ with Angelica in more depth. She is the one who asked questions and seemed genuinely interested. The death also brought up feelings that I do not even fully understand because of her past. Pray that God continues to heal Angelica’s hurts. Pray that He will give us opportunities to share God’s salvation with her and that God is preparing her heart.
 *Pray that Angelica will continue to open up with us. She has started showing more emotion. It sounds strange that I thanked the Lord the first time she cried because I knew she felt safe to be herself. We do not want those emotions to be bottled up inside.
 *Pray that God will help us teach her honesty and accountability, two things that were not taught nor encouraged in the orphanage.

Please also rejoice with us through praising our Lord and Savior for bringing Angelica to our family, for His perfect timing, for safety on our travels, for His great love that He so freely gives to us in order to share with Angelica, for His provision, and for His perfect plan. We praise Him that He continues to show us He is with us and that He will provide for us. Last week on Wednesday night Mekenzie checked our mail box at church and found an envelope addressed to us. When we opened it at home we found and anonymous gift of money and gift cards to Chick-fil-A. The week before that we received a sweet card and gift of money from a long time friend. Lord, we praise you for Your unending love and care for us. We thank you for Your reminders that You are always with us.

One last scripture a dear friend sent to me on March 21 on a day I truly needed a reminder that I can get through all the challenges with God’s strength. 2 Samuel 22:30-31 "With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. As for God his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him." (David's song of praise after deliverance from the hand of Saul)