Our story is not unlike that of many others and today we finally know what the feeling at the end of the journey is all about. The road has been long and there have been many times that we’ve questioned the path we chose, but are so thankful that we continued to pursue this treasure together!
We began talking about adoption even before the birth of our son in 2003 because we knew it was something we would plan to do in the future.
In April 2005 we decided to sign a contract with Adoption Ark and proceed with adoptionl. We traveled to Kazakhstan in November of 2005 and met our little girl. Then, we completed the court process.
Carys Karina Mink was officially our little girl and we were so happy. Carys means "to love" and her given name Karina means "dear little one".
In December we returned home a week before Christmas to wait on the mandatory post-court appeal period of fifteen days. After a few unexpected delays in the passport process Carys came home to us on February 24, 2005.
She is eager to learn and has already started school. She has taught herself many new things in only a short amount of time such as riding a bicycle, working her MP3 player, English words, and a little cooking. She seems to fit right in to every group she comes into contact with whether it is family, church or school.
She is a gentle soul and is kind to everyone she meets. We have been truly blessed that we were led to her and have found this little missing link that belongs in our family.
We are so grateful to Alla for her many efforts to help us adopt our little girl and for all of her support during the process. We will not forget her kindness and the many hurdles she helped us to jump along the way. Whenever we had an issue she was there to help us solve it and always had an answer to our thousands (sorry Alla!) of questions. Adoption Ark stayed true to our contract in every aspect and for that we are grateful as well as pleased with the services they provided. They went above and beyond to help us in many ways to overcome unexpected delays at the end of the process and ultimately got our daughter to us as they said they would and at no expenses above what they quoted to us.
This shows their true integrity and dedication not only to their clients, but also to the children they work tirelessly to place in good homes. We thank you Adoption Ark sincerely for helping us complete our family. We would like to especially thank Linda Podas for getting us started initially and also Alla Afinogenova, our coordinator, who so graciously helped us through the adoption process to reach the ultimate goal of a child for our family.
Sincerely,
The Mink Family (Rusty, Tara, Carys and Dylan),
Bryant, Arkansas