Family Stories

Brad and Robin Wilson

Our journey began on January 15, 1999. My husband Brad and I had been praying for two years about adopting a boy and waiting for God to tell us the right time. In January we both felt he told us now was the right time. We have three biological daughters, Katelyn (9), Ashley (8) and Elizabeth (5), so that is why we decided on a boy. We started collecting our life history for our dossier. One day in mid-March I was looking through Cradle's web site from the camp the year before and was looking at children that were still available from then. The last boy on the page was

a 10-year-old boy named Andrey and right then and there I knew he was the one we had been praying for. I called Brad and had him look up the web site and look at him. That night we both prayed about it more. The next morning I called Cradle to see if he was still available and was delighted to find out he was. They faxed me his medical history and also mailed me a copy with more pictures of Andrey. The best part was since he was in New York last summer I got to talk to the family he stayed with and other people that had met him to truly find out what he was like. Everyone that met Andrey thought he was a very caring and loving little boy.

Finally, on March 25, 1999, our dossier went to Russia to be translated. Now the hardest part came, we had to wait for a court date. Because of the number of children being adopted in Tomsk, Siberia, the court was backlogged and our social worker informed us she did not know if we would get in before the August break.

Finally, on July 1, 1999, THE CALL came and we were told our court date was July 27 (just before the break). Now the time came to get plane tickets and finalize all the other plans.

We left for Moscow on July 23 and arrived in Moscow on July 24 @ 11:30 a.m. local time. We went to a hotel for a couple of hours of sleep and to get a bite to eat because that evening we had to be on a plane to Tomsk. Our flight left at 10:30 p.m. It was only a four-hour flight but four time changes also so the flight ate up 8 hours of our time. We arrived in Tomsk at 6:30 a.m. and were met by our translator who took us to the apartment we were staying at and took a shower and ate breakfast. At 9:00 a.m. our driver came to pick us up and bring us to the orphanage to meet Andrey. The trip to the orphanage took 3 hours and we rode in a car made for 4 people but we had 5 people in there, (driver, coordinator, translator, Brad and me). The countryside is absolutely beautiful in Siberia during the summer. It was 90 degrees there. We met Andrey and got to ask the coordinator all about him. Andrey was shy at first but within a half-hour he started to warm up to us and took my hand and wanted to show me his room. The coordinator liked us so much she let us take Andrey back to Tomsk with us, which we had not planned on. We were always told we would have to come back here and pick him up for the court date. We had not taken the gifts we brought for the orphanage and staff with us. This worked out really well because we got to spend 2 full days with him before our court date on Tuesday. On Monday we had our pre-court hearing and were questioned by the Judge for 1½ hours and told to come back for the court hearing on Tuesday at 3:30 pm. Our coordinator told us this was a very tough Judge and her hearings usually lasted about 3 hours and she rarely waived the 10-day waiting period. So Tuesday afternoon we came back to the courthouse and the Judge asked us some of the same questions again and talked to Andrey to see if he wanted to be adopted. Andrey just turned 10 and Russia law states that after 10 years of age the child can decide if he wants to be adopted. Of course, he said yes. Then the Judge said she would go back to her office to make her decision. When she came back she granted our adoption, waived the 10-day waiting period and we were only in the courtroom for 1 hour not the usual 3 hours. God was with us the whole way. By this time I was really missing my girls, who were staying with my best friend. God knew I needed to get back soon and the 10 days would be very hard on me. We still had to get Andrey’s visa to travel with us and get the court documents translated. We were able to leave on Saturday, July 31, to go back to Moscow. We went to the clinic and got his physical taken care of so now we just had to wait until Monday for the Embassy to open up. We went to the Embassy and were in and out of there in 2 hours. We changed our plane tickets to leave Tuesday morning back to Houston, Texas. When we got back to Houston, our friends and daughters were there waiting for us. Andrey just fits in our family wonderfully. They all fight like brother and sisters, as if they have always been here.

Two weeks after Andrey got here, school started. Andrey goes to ESOL for 3 hours every day. All of his others classes are with his 4^th grade classmates. The school is wonderful and bends over backwards to help Andrey. He has now been here for 6 months and people that meet him are amazed at how well his English has developed. Andrey is very healthy. The only thing that has been an issue are his teeth. Over half of his teeth were rotten but only 4 were permanent teeth that they wanted to save. Since he has been here, he has lost most of the bad teeth. We thank God he took care of Andrey until we could go and get him. And no, our house is not quiet except when they are all asleep.

Brad & Robin Wilson

The proud parents to: Andrey-10, Katleyn-9, Ashley-8 and Elizabeth-5