This winter we had the opportunity to host the sweetest nine year old boy from Eastern Europe through Project One Forty Three! P143 is a non-profit organization helping bring orphans to America. Our family absolutely fell in love during the four weeks he was with us and together we celebrated the holidays. We asked him what he wanted for Christmas and his response brought us to tears. He never wanted anything materialistic. His response "I just want a family and for the mafia to go away and stop telling me to close my eyes". Over the course of the time with us he asked us repeatedly if we would be his parents. He even drew us a picture and told us this was our new family portrait. There was a mommy, a daddy, and six kids! We hung it on the refrigerator and everyday we look at it. Daniil has two younger brothers, Art (4) and Tim (2).
Yesterday we woke up to the tragic news Russia had invaded Ukraine. Our boys orphanage is the Donetsk region. We waited for news on their status and were finally told they were being evacuated to a bomb shelter. They spent hours in a bomb shelter with just backpacks that they had prepared days ago. They were all very hungry and their caregivers decided it would be best to travel to a near by region to the west. They don’t know how long they’ll be there, if it’s a permanent safe spot, or if they’ll need to continue west.
We are praying our boys will be home soon where we will be their forever family! We will love them unconditionally and tuck them into their warm beds each night. We find comfort that as we pray for these sweet additions, God knows exactly how this will happen and hears our prayers.
You can follow us at The Andrews Family Adoption Journey on Facebook! We are hoping to raise enough funds to expedite our adoption process and bring our boys home where they will be safe. We would be forever grateful if you were able to help us share our story to bring us closer to bringing our boys home!
