The judge who granted us parental rights had asked how we planned to bridge the language barrier between our kids and us. I responded that I was learning Russian very quickly. Some of it worked and some of it didn’t – but it was a real ride for sure. And language was just the beginning.

When we adopted James and Thomas we knew their cultural and religious background was the Eastern Orthodox way, a very concrete framework. Add that to the fact that they had only visited a cathedral once, and their knowledge of God was very concrete and literal. This was very different from the informal church we attend, but the differences never really occurred to us. Before taking them to church we asked our interpreter how we should tell the boys we would be going to church. She said "Mwee eedyem K-Bohg." I wrote it down, practiced it and finally told the boys, using those words, that we would be going to the house of God.

We had arranged for our pastor to conduct a public dedication ceremony, in which he would speak of them to the congregation and say a prayer for the boys. When the time came to go forward and receive the blessing our pastor touched each of the boys on their shoulders. They seemed a bit uncertain, giving a lot of weight to the moment. They were very still and looked at the floor. I thought it was interesting that they were so reverent after so little exposure to ceremony. But soon it would all become clear.

When another person approached the podium, Thomas furrowed his brow and looked at me.

"I thought he was Jesus!" he said, pointing to the pastor.

It turns out that "Mwee eedyem K-Bohg" means "We are going to visit God."

The wonderment of the church and the concept of God were changing for the boys as they began to learn the somewhat informal, abstract ways in which we perceive spiritual matters in the U.S. However, the concrete ways in which we relate to one another as a family began with something I hadn’t expected.

It took some time and a lot of other families to show our children that we – the four of us – mirrored them as a family structure. At a friend’s house James saw a large portrait of the couple’s children hanging on the wall. In another room the family portrait loomed over the fireplace and James repeatedly said, "Semya." I did not know what this word meant until we received our family portraits back from the photographer. James and Thomas clapped to see it on the wall and James immediately made the connection, saying "Semya! Semya!" After the pictures had been posted throughout the house, the children began to see that we are to them what other parents are to their children. As a semya, or family, we belong to one another and from this foundational idea, the building blocks of family are being placed for all of us.