What Does the Next Yes Mean?

On December 15th a committee will meet to decide if we are allowed to take guardianship of our precious friend, Boris. The committee has never visited a case like ours before (non-relatives pursuing guardianship of an adult with disabilities), so we are totally unsure of the outcome. Jed has submitted all the requested documents and the law is on our side, along with institution administration. There is really no reason why they should deny our petition, but they could always ask for more documents and endlessly require more from us…there is just no saying! We are preparing our home and our hearts for the possibility of bringing Boris home on that day, but at the same time not setting our hopes too high. It’s an impossible heart situation that will only be solved with time.

So what does this “guardianship” word mean, in our case? I’ll tell you!

Legally, Boris can not be adopted by us because he is almost 26 years old and US law does not allow international adoption of adults. Also, if the goal is deinstitutionalization of all our boys, international adoption of ALL of them is probably not the most effective solution. Adoption is extremely expensive and the restrictions of who can and can’t adopt would limit our options for help in the years to come. Guardianship seems to be the best solution.

Ukraine has the options of an individual gaining guardianship or an organization gaining guardianship. In the future, once we have more homes on our property and are bringing out more boys we will most likely go the organization route. That makes more sense when you are looking at maybe having helpers in the family-style homes that are not able to commit the rest of their lives to these boys and this place. Having Wide Awake Int. remain the consistent guardianship overhead makes sense. For the boys that will be living in this house with our immediate family, like Boris, we decided to go the individual guardianship route. For one thing Wide Awake is not yet registered as a Ukrainian non-profit, but only as a US one at this point. More importantly though, we see the boys who will live in this house with us as becoming our immediate family, and as they will become a forever part of our family, it is right that we should personally be their guardians.

By law, the transfer of guardianship is from one individual to another. So the assistant director of the institution must express his desire to transfer guardianship of Boris to Jed, which he has done. The administration is totally supportive of this. They are behind us and have only helped the process so far. We are extremely thankful for that! It’s super important that they understand this is something we can do with them, not something we are doing to them. This gives them the opportunity to be an active part of the solution. Win win! Jed will have ultimate legal responsibility of Boris and will have total legal authority to make decisions on his behalf, as Boris is at this time unable to speak for himself. Through the coming years, as Boris gains his voice we will partner together in helping him become all God has made him to be with as much independence as he can safely have.

So that’s the legal side of it. What does a transfer of guardianship mean for our family? Well, that remains to be seen! Of course we have no idea what this will look like in the coming years, but we are committed to our friend. In our hearts and minds, this is an adoption. Boris will not gain our family name, but he will gain our family identity and heritage. For all intents and purposes Boris will become a Johnson, with a different last name. 🙂 We are committed to him for life as if he were our own child, born from my womb. Sure, he’s only 12 year younger than us (ha!), but to us that makes no difference. Once he is with us he will be here to stay- forever, as a beloved son and friend.

It’s funny, Jed and I were talking the other day and realized we needed to decide how we would refer to each other when talking to Boris. On paper, we are way too young to be his mom and dad, but developmentally a mommy and daddy is what Boris needs. He is like a baby in many ways and has been neglected for so many years. He needs to cocoon with family like a newborn for as long as it takes for healing to come. We decided we will be Daddy and Mommy to Boris. He’s missed out on that relationship for far too long.

Because we are not adopting Boris, he will not become a US citizen. Vladik has US citizenship because he is adopted, but Boris will remain a Ukrainian citizen. That does make things tricky, as far as when we need to visit family and partners in the US. As a family we usually plan to visit the US for two months every 2 years. As soon as we have legal custody we will get Boris an international passport and then apply for a US visa for him. It’s a total toss-up as to whether he would be granted a visitor visa, but it’s worth a try! It would be great if he could travel with us for visits, but if he is denied a visa we will ask loving friends to stay here at the Homestead with him while we are gone. It’s not optimal, but there really aren’t many options. We are hoping for and expecting great healing for Boris-spirit, mind and body. But we are not unaware that a big trip across the ocean might not be what’s best for him at any given time. So we are trying to be very open handed with all of that. God will give us wisdom.

Medically, Boris is a total mystery. We have no idea what is going on in his body. He is obviously in poor health and will need the support of many specialists. We are hesitant to pursue initial medical evaluations here, as we are simply not confident that Boris will be seen as valuable and worthy of the best medical care available. Simply said, we live in a society that does not, as a general whole, accept people like Boris, so we would like to take him out of Ukraine for some baseline testing and examinations. Thankfully, Ukrainians can now travel visa-free in the EU for 90 days at a time, and also thankfully, we have loads of friends in the medical profession in Germany who are ready to welcome Boris with open arms. We are excited to get our boy a passport and begin to sort out that body of his so he can be as healthy as possible.

As time winds down till the committee meeting I find my heart in alternate states of peace and chaos. As I sat in his room folding all his precious, clean clothes and placing them at the ready on his shelves I felt such peace and anticipation. This is what we came here for. This is what the building project was all about. For Vladik and Boris and the ones yet to come, they are why we left everything and moved our family to Ukraine. FINALLY our boys are leaving Romaniv and my heart is so thankful and at peace. We love Boris and can’t wait to bear witness to his healing. What a privilege! What a joy! We can’t get him here soon enough!

Then minutes later, when I’m missing my parents or feeling lonely for a friend my heart will jolt with the reality that this is forever. Once Boris enters our family everything changes. When Jed legally becomes his guardian we are effectively saying “Here we stay. Here we will live, ‘Till death do us part’.” That, my friends, is no small thing. We are not superhuman. We get it, what we’re saying, and it’s hard. It’s a heavy statement that we’ve been building up to for many years now. It’s not a decision that we take lightly. The weight of it can panic me a bit, to be honest.
But, this is our act of love. This is our service to Jesus. This is how we give of ourselves in the biggest YES we’ve said yet.

Right now I can’t think of forever or I might freak. So, I’m trying to plan for the future but not resting my heart there. I’m attempting to be fully present today and then tomorrow and ask God for the grace to live well in these moments right in front of me. I fail so often (daily), but living well in the present is the only way I’ll even be mildly successful at loving Boris well. And he deserves to be loved well- as do my other children, and my husband.

We have no idea what the day to day will look like, but we know it will involve lots of diapers, lots of pureeing food, lots of trial and error, lots of firsts, lots of sacrifices, lots of documents, lots of healing, lots of tears, lots of joy and laughter and lots of YES. We are as ready as we’ll ever be. Right now we just want our boy home for Christmas.

Thank you for your prayers and your love and support as the journey of YES is about to get a whole lot wilder. Please don’t ever underestimate how much your notes of encouragement mean to us. We need each other along the way, so thank you for loving us.

Hopefully I’ll be sharing good news on December 15th!