Liz,

I'm not sure if we met either time at the Austin airport this summer.  My husband and I hosted 4-year old Alina, part of the same Taraz group as your child.   We miss her terribly and are counting the days until we can bring her home.  We're certainly not looking forward to travel at this time, and even less happy about leaving our 6-year old son home while we are out of country, but we are resolved to bring Alina home -- the sooner, the better.

Based on conversations with Ginger and Chris, it sounds like we may face the travel adventure at the same time -- although I'm not sure when.

We have completed our dossier (although I haven't sent the originals to Ginger); completed our home study & sent into INS recently; and we've already done the INS fingerprinting.  So I guess the next steps are INS approval, shipping stuff off to Kazakstan, and getting our Kazakstan visas.

One of the hardest parts of the Kidsave program is not being able to communicate with the kids when they return.  She is in the Ulan orphanage in Taraz.  Alina speaks only Kazak, no Russian, so I'm not sure how I'd communicate with her long distance even if I had an address or phone number.  Fortunately I have received periodic emails from Larissa, the escort that came to Houston with the children this summer.  Her husband, Sergei, has been to visit the children in Taraz & she sent me a picture of Alina.

Sorry to ramble so.  I'm anxious to talk to you about your child, your travel plans, possibilities for hiring an escort, etc.  Please feel free to call or email me anytime.  Here is my contact info.

Shelley Corman (husband Kim Erb)
14126 Scarborough Fair
Houston TX 77077

scorman@enron.com (work)
cormanerb@cs.com (home)

713-853-7083 (work)
281-531-0385 (home)
713-857-2103 (cell)