Today was a special day. It was the day of the program at the orphanage that I wrote about yesterday. We went later today to be there especially for the occasion. We thought we were going to be late because traffic was really heavy getting across town today. We really had to hoof it up the hill from the bus stop to the orphanage. One thing I can tell is that all the walking we are doing is paying off. Even after the charge up the hill, I was felling pretty good! I am looking on the bright side. Loosing weight and getting in better shape are pretty good side effects of this extended stay, but I’d be ready to head home tomorrow if the judge offered!
Anyway, back to the program. We walked in right on time. N and several of the older kids we down by the entrance we used to come in already in costume. I saw her when we walked in the door but Denise was right up on her before she recognized her. She was all made up in her gypsy/babushka costume. It was hilarious. She was adorable. You can tell she loves it, but she has a little bit a of shy streak too. It’s cute. Anyway, we said hello and made our way upstairs to the little theater room. We saw most of the kids we know from visits to Hattiesburg and a few we have met since we have been here. There were lots of “hellos” and hugs, and we snapped a ton of pictures. We’ll be sharing a bunch of those later. I know many of you will be dying to see them. We got away without the cable to download our pictures to the computer so we are looking for a card reader, and if we find one, we’ll send them back. During the program, I also shot a few video segments that I hope turned out so that we can share. The highlight of the program for me was seeing N sing with a quartet of girls including her best friend. She sings beautifully, and you can tell that she really enjoys it. We watched the video of that song back, and we laughed that the video isn’t very good because I kept having to wipe my eyes while I was shooting it. It was wonderful. We finished the afternoon by having a long Skype conversation with the Drakes. It was hilarious at one point to see Vadik one one side of the computer and 4 girls on our side chatting away. He was the man! We were cracking up!! On a more serious note, the last couple of days has brought cold weather. The temperature tonight will dip into the lower 20s and the wind chill will be in the teens. Even before we left N’s room tonight it was cold. She was wearing a cost in her room. My heart just breaks for those kids. I can’t get that off my mind tonight! As I sit here just a few miles away in a warm and comfortable apartment, I see the faces in my mind of so many kids that I love who are cold tonight, and I feel helpless.
Today, we finally hear from the judge and received our court date, January 12. Not what we were hoping for but not as bad as we had feared. That will likely put us back in Hattiesburg at the end of January. The time that we lost with the confusion over K’s situation and the holidays are partly to blame I am sure, but in the end it probably does not make more than a few days difference one way or the other.
We are really enjoying out time with N. Today, we spent time watching her and some of the other kids rehearse for a Christmas program. It was great to see N along with a number of the kids from the past 2 summers of our hosting program singing, dancing, and acting. They are adorable and so talented. We have been invited to attend that performance on the 6th of January as well as an New Year’s program tomorrow. We will be taking lots of video and pictures that we can’t wait to share when we get back to Hattiesburg! I know there are many of you that will be anxious to see these performances. We also got to Skype with Erick, Nicholas, Nana, and Papaw this afternoon. N seemed to enjoy the few minutes of interacting with her new little brothers. We have noticed that she is good with the little ones at the orphanage, and we hope that carries over to home! The boys are very excited about their new big sis, and she seems to be taking the prospect of little brothers in stride. She is really sweet with an esay going disposition. Lot’s of smiles and not too much seems to ruffle her feathers. I really picked at her a little tonight. The second Mississippi State shirt has made it’s appearance, but I haven’t seen the Bama shirt yet. If you’re keeping score, that’s momma 2 and daddy 0! We have got to fix that! We’ll see if my teasing did any good! We will let you know how the program goes! Blessings, Rick
Today was a really great day! When we found N this morning she was wearing her new Mississippi State hoodie from mama and the necklace we gave her with the daughter inscription. I can’t complain about the hoodie since all the Bama gear we brought is short sleeve, but I have noticed her wearing a houndstooth scarf, so I will be counting on equal time when we get her stateside! Anyway, we got a wireless modem on Saturday, and today was our first day to take it to the orphanage. Boy did that make a big difference. We could “talk” with N and her friends using Google Translate without a lot of difficulty. We found out that N and her best friend were making plans to go to the city center to feed the pigeons. We asked if they would like to meet us at McDonalds for Ice Cream. They wrote a note to the Director and asked permission. She said yes, and we made a date. We hung out in N’s room with several of her friends for a long time just laughing and talking on the computer. It was hilarious hanging out with a bunch of silly girls. I think we are getting a taste of what life will be like. We left at lunch time and came back to the city center for lunch and a little rest. While we were at the apartment, we set up a little surprise. The girls have really been wanting to talk to the Drake boys, so we Skyped with Barbara and set up a call. Then, we rode the bus back to the orphanage at 4 and met them and all rode back to the city center to McDonalds. We grabbed some food and called the Drakes. Watching that video call was a hoot! The kids had a great time. We laughed at N trying to hide outside the camera range eating her hamburger (especially when a pickle fell out of her mouth). Teenage girls are more the same than different no matter where they are from. I think it really began to sink in to us tonight about how different our lives are about to become. Most of our lives have been spent ministering to teenagers, but we are now about to have one! Oh my!!!!!! Let the fun begin!!!! N really seems to be a sweet girl. I know there will be challenges. Everyone is on his/her best behavior right now, and we have yet to start parenting. Pray for us that we bond well during this time and that we use this time wisely. We want to make the most of our time with her. We still have no word on court. Not that we expect to before next week. Please keep praying. While the Judge holds the power to set the date, God holds ruling authorities in His hand. We assume that everything with our papers is moving along. We expect that our paperwork should be back from the SDA later this week so that we could have court next week. Blessings, Rick
First off, let me say Merry Christmas to everyone back home. We had a great day today. As some of you know, Ukraine celebrates on the Orthodox calendar, so Christmas here isn’t until January 6-7. In that respect, today was just another day for everyone else around here. We had quite a day in the midst of normal for everyone else. We went to the orphanage early to see N. We took her some Christmas gifts (3 shirts and a watch—2 of the shirts were Mississippi State and 1 was Alabama. Not sure how that happened, but we’ll correct that in due time!) We still couldn’t communicate much. Galya ended up not being able to go with us. We mostly looked at pictures from summer before last. A couple of her friends hung out with us. It was a good thing. The extra girls kept things lively and kept it from being too boring. When we left, we decided that we really needed to get the wireless modem so we could use Google Translate to communicate a little better. We caught the bus thinking that it would loop back by the store where we could get it...we were wrong! It went the other way. We went to the other end of town. We thought the buses went in a loop. The bus driver put us off at the end of the line!!!! Ha!!!! At that point, we just cut our losses and caught a taxi back to our apartment and started over. With a little cellphone translation help from our buddy Sergei once we got on the right bus and got to the store, we got the Internet modem and we are in business. So now I think we are in a better shape to communicate. We are also looking forward to getting on Skype with the Drakes. If the Mills and the Jordans are reading this, look us up on Skype or get our info from Barbara, we’d love to get her on with your kids too! We can arrange a time via facebook. Technology is amazing. Later in the afternoon, we were able to be with the boys and Nana and Papaw while the boys opened their Christmas presents. They moved their computer into the living room and pointed the camera at the Christmas tree and we sat in front of ours while we were connected by Skype. The connection was a little slow and dropped a few times, but it was sure better than missing it altogether! We could tell that Erick in particular was a little pouty this morning and so were his momma and daddy to be honest. Today was a tough thing to miss. Pray for the boys. We miss them terribly. It is great being able to see them and talk to them every day on the computer, and we are thankful for that, but we miss them so much it hurts. It is balanced some by looking at N and realizing how much of her life we have missed, but we don’t want to be away from any of them. We plan to go to church tomorrow and then to take the day to rest. We will not see N. Then Monday we will resume a regular schedule. She is out of school, so we will go earlier in the day to see her. On Thursday, they will have a New Year’s program that we have been invited to attend as their guests. We hope that we will get to see her sing. We’ll let you know. Also, Please keep praying that we hear something about our court date. Everything hinges on the Judge’s decision as to when she will schedule our court date. That’s all for now! Again, Merry Christmas, Rick
Today was a good day on the adoption process front. We didn’t hear much in the morning. I tried to write some this morning on a curriculum project that Tony and I have in the works. I got a little bit accomplished while we were waiting to go for our interview late this afternoon with the Inspector’s boss. At about 1:30, we decided to walk down to McDonald’s. (Btw, we have decided that we may be like Jim Bob and Crystal and eat there every day! I am admitting it. It’s such a drag to shop here and we don’t really trust the meats the in little groceries in downtown. The Potato House is good too, but we figure McDonald’s for one meal plus fruit and vegetables will probably balance out. With all the walking, we’re going to be in great shape by the time we get home!) Anyway, just as we sat down to eat my phone rang and said we needed to get to the Inspector’s ASAP. They were ready for us. So we choked down our lunch and dashed back to the apartment. We got to the Inspector’s office and waited for Galya to go over our paperwork to edit out any mistakes. Then, we went into an interview with the Department Director. We have been through two of these interviews before. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have been concerned. This is the interview where they ask about why you want to adopt. Why you want to adopt from Ukraine. Do you know about the child’s history and medical condition and can you afford another child and so on. Our concern was the unknown from all the drama of the past week. Well, I am happy to report that there was nothing to be concerned about. The interview was routine. It took about five minutes. There is an Italian couple here adopting now too and their interview was much longer! I guess he figured if we had done this here twice before how much could there be left for him to ask!!! Anyway, our paperwork is done here and off to the SDA for processing. It should be submitted there Monday and picked up Wednesday. That would mean that it would be back here Thursday evening or Friday morning. From that point, we are just waiting on the Judge to set a court date. As we understand it, the Judge will not consider our petition for a court date until January 4 but could act on it almost immediately as the court docket is empty until January 13. Since there is this Italian couple also trying to get a hearing now, we are hoping and praying that the judge will go ahead and get us out of the way while she has time in her schedule. We had a little confusion about seeing N today. We were supposed to see her after our meeting, but she was late coming back after a holiday outing. We waited at the orphanage for 2 hours and only got to see her for a couple of minutes. We hope to get to see her more tomorrow. We did get to sit in on a presentation that one of the local businesses did giving a bunch of toys and sports equipment to the orphanage as a Christmas gift. We got to see two of the older boys from this past summer and the one boy left from last summer and the two remaining girls from this past summer. There were hugs and smiles all around. I did think it was pretty funny at one point. I caught a look at the Italian couple who saw us hugging and greeting so many of the kids, they look a little puzzled. We’re going to have to figure out how to point and grunt our way through explaining it to them! They probably won’t care. They have their hands full with a 5-year-old little ball of energy from the boys group that will keep them on their toes for sure. We know that things are winding down and gearing up back home as everyone gets ready to celebrate Christmas. We love and miss you all so much. Half a world away, it brings an interesting perspective on the Season and the Reason. Don’t forget as you treasure the gifts and the foods or the family and the friends that the greatest gift of all is the news God sent forth His only Son into the world that we might have the opportunity to be adopted into the family of the Most High! Blessings, Rick
