Jim and Celeste Horn’s Family

Great News! We’re proud and delighted to announce that on November 25^th a court in Karaganda, Kazakstan approved the adoption of our four children: James Maxim, 14; Richard Boolat, 11; Kathleen Svetlana, 8; and Teresa Zarina, 4. This follows over two years since we first met Maxim, Boolat, and Sveta in Maryland and took care of them for two weeks there. Zarina we only learned about in December 2002 and, except for her name and approximate age, we knew nothing except that she was the sister of our other three until we arrived here on November 12^th. Like the others, she is wonderful and they have bonded together very well.

Above: The six of us with Marina Turapina (standing, center), the facilitator here in Karaganda who made everything possible. She is an angel!

We flew here from our home in California November 10^th and had the children with us from the 12^th. Kazak law requires adopting families to spend two weeks together before the court hearing which ended on the 25^th as mentioned above. The approval is followed by a 15 day appeal period during which the adoption can be disputed, which ended December 11^th. We’ve been involved in the final paperwork since.

Challenges As you may have heard, the children are a delight and we look forward to bringing them home. On November 22^nd, Celeste slipped and fell badly on the ice here in Kazakstan and broke both legs. Surgery is required for the lower right leg as a result so she flew home on December 2^nd and will have the surgery on Monday the 15^th. Meanwhile, Jim remains with the children until he can bring them all home.

December 14^th through 17^th are national holidays here in Kazakstan which is preventing progress in completing our paperwork. The latest estimate for our leaving for home is Christmas Eve. We are working to arrange flights to do so if they are available.

We had an escrow account set up with our adoption agency in the USA to cover their expenses plus much of those for Marina. We were dismayed once here to learn that the agency took many thousands more than had been agreed from it without telling us. Combined with the increased costs Marina incurred arranging for us to adopt Zarina as well, increased lodging costs due to the longer than expected stay plus surcharges for the number of children and so on, we have been hit with about $10000 in unexpected expenses. While we planned and had a surplus to handle unexpected surprises, we didn’t have that much left over and for a while weren’t sure how we’d get home.

But a pay advance at work (Wescam Corp. in Healdsburg), donations from members of the Adobe Squares square dance club in Petaluma, and generous loans from two friends have helped us just reach the point of making it all happen. We’re deeply grateful for their help and all those who have made this adoption possible!

The Children We are proud of our children’s names and use them here but they prefer having American names when they come home. So they will get new first names of their choices with their original names becoming the new middle names. Those are the ones listed above.

James Maxim is the oldest. He enjoys the role of big brother. Like all four, he is healthy, full of energy, and a cheerful boy. A natural actor, he is very interested in all sorts of vehicles and machines, dinosaurs, rockets, cameras, and so on. He is a celebrity at the Deaf school where he studied, being their first and only student to ever have been adopted. He is fluent in both Russian and American Sign Languages and is learning English reading and writing. Since Jim and Celeste have been learning American Sign Language for the last three college semesters, we all communicate quite well.

Richard Boolat is a brilliant boy who, like James Maxim, loves to run and play. He has been studying English in addition to his regular schooling and has a remarkable grasp of both spoken and written English and both Sign Languages. He often acts as the family translator. Also like James Maxim, he likes to play with toy cars especially if they are complex models to construct.

Kathleen Svetlana (Sveta) was, until we came, the youngest of the family as the first three didn’t know about Zarina’s existence or vice versa. She loves attention and being catered to. She is unusually talented with tracing and coloring artwork, origami, and other crafts. And her smile will melt an father’s heart.

Teresa Zarina is the new addition to us all. When we saw her in the orphanage she was very shy, quiet and withdrawn. Further visits showed that she is very clever as shown by remarkable abilities with building blocks and other activities. Once we brought her to the apartment from the orphanage, she immediately opened up to all, becoming quite the cheerful little chatterbox with unending curiosity. She is very affectionate to us all as are the other three to her. We have no worries about all four siblings bonding as one family!

What now? We have to wait for the rest of the paperwork here in Karaganda, a city of about 500000 people in icy central Asia (it has ranged from -15 to +35F while we are here). On Friday when that is complete we will fly to the country’s former capital of Almaty where the US still has its Consulate. There the children will have medical exams and more paperwork will be submitted. Finally on Tuesday, December 23^rd we should have our exit interviews and they will get the visas allowing them out of Kazakstan and into the US. With any luck, on Wednesday (Christmas Eve) we will be flying to Frankfurt, Germany, leaving at about 4:15AM. If we can get the seats, the connecting flight to San Francisco will arrive there the same day at 12:30PM. However, the crowds of the Christmas travel rush may well make that impossible. So how we will return – and when – remains to seen. Flash (12/15): Lufthansa has cancelled their flights from the 24th through the 27th. And the 28th is booked full. So we have *no* idea when we're returning. Other airline options are $2000 to $4200 more. We'd like to be home for Christmas but not *that* much - there are too many other bills to pay!

Contacts: Celeste can be reached at home at jimhorn@svn.net or (707) 795-7955. Jim can be reached in Kazakstan at wb9syn@hotmail.com or, until Thursday evening, by telephone at 011-7-3212-438158.

Our old Web site: Can be found at http://www.svn.net/jimhorn/old.htm