A Rainy Thursday

Greetings to all,

It is a rainy Thursday but we did manage to visit the children today for a few hours. We spent most of our time in the "sportsroom" where they can use soccer balls, exercise equipment, badminton, etc. We also introduced the travel game, "Trouble" which kept all of us occupied for an hour.

The ladies who cook graciously invite us for tea and lunch each day. Today they served bread with peanut butter or honey. That was nice, as I can't seem to find peanut butter in any of the local grocery stores.

Yesterday, a few of the older orphanage boys brought in a big 2 foot by 1 foot block of something wrapped in plastic. (It was heavy) Giles thought it was cheese, but actually it was a block of honey!

We have moved to a flat which is located on the fifth floor of a building in a quiet neighborhood. There is a living room with a pull out bed, a bedroom and kitchen and bath. The kitchen was lacking some of the items needed to cook, etc., so we went out to find a few things. Today we bought a can opener, plates, bowls, and a cutting board. The rain prevented us from doing any further shopping today. Actually, the roads were flooded and difficult to cross without getting a soaker, so we had to find an alternate, dryer route back to our flat.

We can use the internet because Zhenia bought us a modem which we connect to our computer and it works over the cell network. That is so nice for us since we won't be returning until the end of the month! Actually, Giles will return early for work, and I will be here with Ben, and then with the other two when we officially adopt them.

The court date is on for next Tuesday. Then we have a 10 day waiting period, after which they will be ours! We're not anticipating any problems at this point, but there are no guarantees, so we would value your continued prayers.

Today we told the children what their American names would be. Anastasia will be Anna Lynn, and Zahar will be Christopher Zahar. Anna thought her name was beautiful, and Chris had a big smile and kept repeating, "Anna, Chris, Benjamin, Anna, Chris Benjamin!" They are great kids!

Thanks to all who are emailing! We love to get mail. :-) FYI, we cannot receive large pictures easily due to the bandwidth limitations, so if you send us pictures, we ask that you would reduce them to "e-mail size". We happily receive your kind words and we love to hear how all of you are doing as well.

Visiting Day #2

We enjoyed our second day visiting Anastasia and Zahar at the orphanage. They gave us the playroom to visit together. There is no interpreter so I get to fill that role as best I can.

As I spoke with the orphanage workers, I mentioned that Zahar is sooo... and they said, "Energetik!!" Yes, he has lots of energy and loves to run. We saw him back way up in the playroom, pretend to spit on each hand (like a pro), and run like a bullet, ending with a handstand on the couch! He also has the ability to sit quietly, as we saw during lunch, and even pray out loud for God's blessing on the meal.

Anastasia has a sweet disposition. She tolerates her brother tackling her occasionally, and runs with the boys, but she also likes to do quieter things. Anna has shown us some of her finished clay art projects.

We stayed for lunch which was quite good. They served borsch, bread and gretchana (which is buckwheat). The orphanage workers ate at our table and we learned that they are college educated people who serve in the orphanage as a ministry.

The orphanage has no help from the government and they run on help from charities. They do the best they can on a shoestring. Even though they lack material things, the 11 children who live there are well loved, and the staff, from the orphanage director on down, have a real heart for children.

We explored the town today, and found a nice park. We sat at a shaded table while Ben went out to gather grasshoppers. Next to us were a table of 4 older gentlemen who had a double clock that they used as a timer to play chess. They were quite serious. The sight took us back to the Disney short animated feature from Toy Story where the old man with thick glasses was playing chess with himself. Giles had to sneak a picture!

We saw Abby's cousin in the park too :-)... Ben had to go over and pet her.

Living in the hotel is a bit challenging... I broke a saucer while washing dishes in the bathroom sink. And the toilet "shifts" whenever weight is applied. (Enough said) At least we have access to some nice shops in this area. We purchased some toys and games in the local toy store to bring with us tomorrow.

We found a good pizza place just down the street, so that's nice too.

Ben enjoys spending time with his brother and sister, and is still managing well with his homework. We are giving him some tougher addition and subtraction problems!

Zhenia is currently in Kiev, so we've been on our own here. He'll be back tonight as tomorrow he'll be running around town doing the paperwork needed to secure our court date (hopefully next week). It's nice to have things finally moving along!

The Big Day Has Finally Arrived!

We would like to introduce you to our two new children, Anastasia and Zahar, ages 7 and 6 respectively!

What a special day for all of us, as we visited them in the orphanage for the first time today. :-) I think it was a bit overwhelming for them at first... can you imagine being told that you will have parents, a new brother , and will move to America within a month!

Truly, within an hour they were taking our hands and touring us around their orphanage, introducing us to their sweet cat and slightly mangy dog. Oh yes, and the 2 baby turtles. All 3 kids were outside having races and laughing. Friends for life. :-) Isn't it amazing what God will do?!

What a pleasure to meet them. We all bonded so quickly. Anastasia loves to draw and paint, and Zahar (quite a name, eh?) is very athletic. He asked Giles to put him on his shoulders multiple times and they went running all over. He taught Giles a different way to play checkers and I guess they tied!

Anastasia gave Ben 2 stuffed animals, one of which was her favorite. She is a real sweetheart!

The director of the orphanage is an evangelical protestant pastor's wife and she has such a heart of love for the children. They have been well loved and well taken care of.

We are in a hotel here in Alexandria (near Novorgrad). We found a great supermarket nearby. It's nice to have a refrigerator in our room. And internet in the lobby of the hotel.

We plan to visit the children each day. Benjamin is looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow. We hope to post pictures of the orphanage and the town soon!

Traveling Tomorrow

After yet another delay, the SDA will have our referral ready for us tomorrow at 4pm. Yay!

That is an answer to prayer since we learned that this is an inservice WEEK for them, and they are not supposed to be working with adoptive families at all this week. We thank the Lord that He made the way and we're so happy to be on to the next step!

We must be out of our flat by noon, we'll store our luggage downstairs, probably go to the park, make a stop at McDonald's, and be at the SDA to pick up our referral by 4. Then we will travel to Kirovograd by car. It is about 3-4 hours away.

We will go to the orphanage on Friday to finally meet this boy and girl. Ben cannot wait, and he's all smiles!

We treated ourselves to a night at the Kiev orchestra the other day. Ben was a bit squirmy, but did OK for the most part. (The fact that there was a group of uniformed soldiers seated directly behind us may have helped ;-)

We'll keep you posted how things turn out.

FYI, If Ben looks like he's feet are a couple sizes too big in the photo below, it's because he's wearing his father's shoes

Biding Our Time

Greetings to all,

The holding pattern continues. The document did not arrive on Thursday as promised by FEDEX. Zhenia had to go to the FEDEX office on Friday to get it. He had it translated right away and brought it to the SDA by 2pm, only to find that nobody was there. They had some kind of inservice day! So we will submit it on Monday and hopefully see the children on Tuesday. Zhenia is also very surprised at the number of delays we've had.

We remain here in Kiev, biding our time. We got tickets to the International Philharmonic Orchestra for Sunday. Looking forward to that! We asked Zhenia if there was a circus in town, and he is checking into it. The weather has been very nice and in the 70's for the last week so we've been going to the park every day. There are about 150 steps up to the park so that is our daily workout.

We have done more exploring too. They have a small beach on the island in the center of the Dneiper River. There is a nice walking bridge that we took to get there. Ben had to try his hand at fishing after building his own fishing pole with a stick and a piece of fishing line he found. Once on the beach, we realized that few people were entering the water...(it looked greenish.) There was one exception. Most of the 8-10 people we saw were elderly... one man who looked to be in his 80's was wearing just his worn out skivvies as he walked by us. A few minutes later we glanced in his direction only to realize that he was skinny dipping! Yikes! I guess age has it's privileges.

Closer to home, there is a beautiful underground mall 2 minutes from our flat, which is comparable to any mall in the US. They have this great gelato place which we have enjoyed several times!

Other than that, we go almost daily to our grocery store which is located under the ground floor of a clothing store. Kind of odd. It's busyness rivals your worst day at Wegmans, and it is magnified by the fact that the aisles are small and you have to pay the cashier who is in the room that you are shopping in at the time. (There are about 5 small rooms of various products.) I committed a boo-boo today. I forgot to pay for my jelly in the produce room and created a jam of people as they waited for me to go back and pay for it and then return to the front to pay for my other items. At least all the ladies there smile at us and are they seem impressed because Ben loves to help us shop. They know us well now and have been trying out their English skills with us.

Our main concern as we have been waiting has been helping Ben with his schoolwork. We do reading and spelling in the morning, and math and his journal in the evening. Ben is doing a great job and we are proud of him for his effort.

Blessings,

Deb and Giles

Holding Pattern in Kiev

Things are moving a bit slower than we would like and we're still holding steady here in Kiev. As we mentioned previously, the older of the two siblings we hope to adopt is 7, but our current homestudy is only approved up to age 6. So we're currently awaiting an addendum to arrive from the U.S., via Fed Ex, approving us for an older child. Of course, we'd much rather be at the orphanage visiting with the children, but regulations are regulations, and without the official notarized, apostilled home study addendum in hand, the SDA will not provide the referral needed for permission to actually visit with the children. Currently we expect the document to arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. (It left the states on Saturday, but unfortunately, there is no such thing as an "overnight" letter from the U.S. to the Ukraine). When the document arrives, we anticipate being able to immediately travel to begin visiting with the children. From what we understand, there orphanage is located about 5 hours away by car.

We're all itching to be moving forward, but realize that the situation is out of our hands. We're therefore trying to make the best of things while waiting. Fortunately, our flat is well situated near the center of Kiev. A large plaza and a couple of nice parks are located nearby which, with the recent nice weather we've been having, we've been able to visit daily. On weekends especially, there always seem to be special events and concerts going on, which we've been able to take advantage of. This weekend there was a big sports/olympics event in downtown Kiev, with the main street closed off, and exhibitions by a variety of athletes. Ben, and 25 or so other kids, enjoyed playing in this giant inflatable soccer field. Last night they had a big concert celebrating (we think) the 15th anniversary of some aspect of the nation's recent history with fireworks and crowds of people. The nice weather has also given us ample opportunity to get exercise by walking around exploring different areas of the city.

Ben managed to make friends with a Ukrainian boy about his age this past weekend while at the playground. The whole thing was a riot to watch because the boy knew very little English and Ben has forgotten most all of his Russian/Ukrainian, but they somehow managed to bond over slide stunts and making hunting apparatus with sticks and string--no words necessary! (Speaks volumes about how males communicate...)

Our coordinator Zhenia stopped by our flat over the weekend with his little three year old son, and we headed off to the local toy store to look for a gift or two for the new potential members of our family.

This morning we treated ourselves to breakfast at McDonald's. You might be surprised to know that even though our flat is located only two minutes away, this is only our third time eating there since arriving in the Ukraine. By Ukrainian standards, the food is somewhat expensive and considered a bit of luxury. Many of the menu items are the same as in the U.S. and taste identical --burgers, fries, Egg-McMuffin, Happy Meal, for example. There are a number of differences, though. For example, pancakes, as we know them, don't really exist here. On the McDonald's menu they are replaced by bliny (similar to crepes). The salads are also completely different, without any lettuce, but having instead tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. The coffee is MUCH stronger than the watery stuff served back home, and has a distinctive European taste--definitely not for those with weak stomachs.

The weather looks nice again today, so we may try to take a walk across the Dnieper River (on a bridge of course) to check out the park/beach located on a big island in the middle.

That's it for now!