Saturday

Not much going on here right now. We were planning to spend the weekend at Valya's orphanage in Andreyevo. But there was a huge ice storm Thursday night and the area around Andreyevo was hit hard. You may recall in the last post where I told you how our driver went into the ditch while delivering a document for us. Well, the rain continued on all night and coated everything with a thick layer of ice. Yesterday, our facilitator told us that all of the Odessa oblast (state or region) was under storm warnings, except for the city of Odessa. There is one more document we need to pick up from Mikolaevka and we were not able to do that, so that will delay our court appt. a little. Now, we probably won't be able to retrieve that document until Tuesday, when we go up there again. As far as I know, this is the final document that is needed to send up to Kiev for final adoption approval. Our facilitator ensures us that we will have no problem with the SDA.

It looks like everything is falling into place for us regarding approval for Valya's adoption. Nothing is certain here, however, and I will believe it when I see it. There was a lot of drama and uncertainty the last three weeks, and we are thankful for your support, encouragement, and prayers.

The drama in our apartment has been the lack of internet. We finally got it turned on late in the evening on Friday. Yesterday morning I put in some much needed hours at work. I am now out of vacation time. Every hour I work is another bit of pay for us. Nancy is a bit stressed about this, I not so much. God has brought us this far, it will all work out in the end.

Friday afternoon, we went over to Orphanage #4 to see Sergey and their St. Nicolas (Nikolai) program. Some of the kids sang, and others played their accordians. It was great to see their talent. There is a girl in Sergey's class (6th grade here), Karina, who is a very talented singer. She is being adopted by the Nasekos family, who is also here in Odessa right now. They stayed in the apartment with us for a time but are elsewhere now. We often run across them as there are limited visiting hours. The Nasekos' brought roses for all of the girls in Karina's class and gave them after the program. There will be another progam on Monday for Christmas (I think), then another one on Friday, for New Year's. The children have been busy preparing for 3 programs within a week. They memorize everything.

Yesterday, Grandma Lela, her driver, us, and Sergey, had a late lunch together. We received permission to take him from the orphanage for a couple of hours. It seems weird that he will be our child, and everyone knows it, but it is near impossible to take him out. Grandma Lela was able to pull some strings. Lela asked Sergey where he wanted to go, and we went to a cafeteria restaurant nearby.

In the evening, Nancy and I left Mark at the apartment and went downtown by ourselves. We took our flash drive down to a photo shop to get some prints made, and visited the Aphena Galleriya. This is a 6 floor mall that is very nice inside. Nancy needed some therapy for herself so she wandered in stores for as long as she wanted. I sat downstairs in the food court goofing around with pictures on the computer.

In Thursday's post, I mentioned how the exchange rate was climbing and was over 9 grivna to the dollar. Overnight it tanked. On Friday it was at 6.5. There are rumors in some places that banks were running out of grivna at the high exchange rate. No one seems to know what is going on. We had been accustomed to only exchanging a couple day's worth of money at a time, as the rate had been continually going up. Now it has fallen around the country and everyone wishes they had exchanged more on Thursday. We wonder what will happen next week.

Today, we will hang out at the apartment. It is too cold to do much outside, which is a shame as there is lots to see here. We will go downtown tonight for English church in someone's home. These people are missionaries, school teachers, and employees of American companies with business here. Oh and of course American families here to adopt.

Tomorrow, we will stay in Odessa so that we can see Sergey's program. Then, we hope, up to Andreyevo for a couple of days to have extended time with Valya and her friends. I plan to take lots of pictures so you can get an idea what it is like up there.

I promised to post some pictures onec we got broadband internet. So here are some, they are kind of random. Remember you can click on them to make them bigger.



Here is a picture of a woman receiving a speeding ticket in front of our apartment in Odessa. Here, the policemen do not sit in their cars like they do in America. They park the car and stand next to the road with a little handheld radar gun, about the size of a camera with a big lens. If they want to stop you, they have a baton that they point and wave at you and you need to stop. It is very efficient. They can stop three cars this way and give them all tickets simultaneously. They do this even out along the main highways, which look like interstate highways in America. This time of year, the policemen wear heavy thermal overalls with reflective material on the sleeves and legs. They are very visible and everyone highly respects them. On December 1st, a whole bunch of new traffic laws went into effect regarding speeds, number of passengers, seatbelts, price of fines, and other things. It is very expensive to have a violation now. Oh and the woman pled her case to the policeman but in the end was unsuccessful.



The Christmas Tree truck has arrived. They celebrate Christmas Jan. 7, not Dec. 25.



The streets of Kiliya. Kiliya is a mid-sized city in the far southwest of Ukraine along the Danube river. The Danube snakes a long way through Europe and empties into the Black sea near here. The river forms the border between Romania and Ukraine. We needed to visit Kiliya as that is where Valya's sister's orphanage is located. The streets were interesting to me because they were constructed of what must have been hundreds of thousands of preformed concrete slabs. It is a terrible way to make a street - it was incredibly jarring to drive on. But then the Soviets had a way of doing things didn't they.



This is the government building in Kiliya. This is where we were expecting to pick up the Inspector to take her to the orphanage for a tense meeting. As it turns out, instead of coming out with the Inspector, our facilitator came out with the document we needed in just a couple of minutes. It was a miracle.



This is the highway to Kiliya. Or so we thought. Actually, we drove 1/2 hr. down this road only to find out it is not the one. We had to turn around and backtrack to get to the correct one. There are very few road signs and even fewer highway markers. In America it seems like there is a highway marker every mile. Here, there are few to none.



Here are a couple of Orthodox churches under construction out in the country. It is surprising to me, or maybe not I guess, that there is money to build these beautiful churches even when the economy is such a mess here.



People in this area love fish. The markets are full of all kinds - fresh, smoked, and canned. You can even get little fish snacks. Kind of like fish jerky. Here I am with little dried fish snacks. They take alot like...dried fish.



In a notary's office in Odessa. Notaries here are different than notaries we have in the US. Here, they are actually lawyers that draw up documents. In this picture, our dossier that we assembled in South Dakota is sitting on her desk. Our facilitator takes it with her wherever she goes, to present to various people as needed. After your original SDA appointment in Kiev, the SDA will give it back to your facilitator for use in-region. The documents in the dossier are each sewn to their Ukrainian translation sheets, and the complete set is sewn together like a book. The loose ends of all the threads on every document, and the bundle, are taped and stamped with multicolor seals that make it impossible to disassemble it without it being obvious. The little shiny black book to the left of the dossier is something like a journal. I am not kidding every document that was typed out was almost completely duplicated by hand in this book. Nancy and I would have to sign in like 4 different places in this journal, as well as the documents themselves. We always need to show our passports to the notary.



On one of the days we went to see Valya last week, we took her a little gift bag, which had some garland in it. She wanted us to take pictures wearing it.



Tense moments waiting in the car in Rozdilna. Rozdilna is the place where Valya and her siblings are registered. In a throwback to Soviet times, citizens are registered in certain places. We waited in the car for 2 hours while our facilitator discussed things with the Inspector here and the SDA in Kiev. I suppose some day we'll laugh about it. But not yet. I have more pictures of Rozdilna, but I want to make a separate post about the place, because there is interesting history here.



Looking at an I-Spy book with Sergey at #4. The kids really like the book. Note, if your are coming here from America, bring one or two along with you.



Here are some of the kids putting a Lego set together. When the kids went to Kiev for the music field trip last week, they all received a Christmas present of some kind.



Luba and I. She is really sweet. She is gentle and never yells like the other kids. After we first met her, Mark commented that we should adopt her. But she is not adoptable as far as we know. We do know that she has several siblings.



Visiting with Valya last Thurday afternoon. Pictured with us is Lienna, our Ukrainian roommate. She translated for us. Here, we are working on English. We gave Valya a notebook to keep and study. And yes after 13 years I did shave off my goatee. I guess that is long enough.



This is Valya with her best friend Anya. Anya is 15 y.o. and it must be sad to see her best friend moving away. She would really like to come to America. But her time is running out, unless she has younger siblings. Mark is concerned about her and asked if we could adopt her. She is older than him yet he doesn't seem to mind. I don't know, that seems hard to fathom right now. Maybe some of our friends back in Mitchell? Hint hint. Mark understands what it is like to lose a best friend.



Playing with Valya. Hot Potato with her stuffed animals devolved into dodgeball.




Our driver did WHAT?!! He slid his car off the road due to icy conditions. We got more time with Valya than we were expecting. It was something of a tense drive out of Andreyevo later.



Our facilitator went to Rozdilna the next day without us and gave us a couple of pictures of the conditions there.



While they were getting ice and snow north of here, we were getting rain in Odessa. They do not have storm drains in Odessa, maybe nowhere in Ukraine. Soviet infrastructure is minimal. Whenever it rains, lakes and puddles forms everywhere. When we walk near Orphanage #4 we have to hop from island to island.



Picture with Sergey. I had to take several shots of this one. Just as I would take the picture, Sergey would tickle Mark in the ribs. He is quite a character.



Getting ready before the St. Nicolas Day celebration. Sergey wasn't part of the program, so he didn't need to change. Other kids in his class, did however. The dorms are locked up during the day and are only open during the evenings. So they were all changing clothes in their playroom. The girls kind of crouched behind the supevisor's desk, while the boys just changed their trousers in the open. There is a hangar in one of the closets with several pair of dark slacks on it. The boys pulled that out then looked for a pair that fit them. Their supervisor, Nataliya, shown in the picture, would help them. Dasha is shown here ironing her outfit. The kids are very responsible with their things. They do not have a parent to do things for them.



At the St. Nicolas Day program. There is an auditorium on the top floor. Some of the children participated in a program where they sang songs in Ukrainian. A couple of the boys played accordian solos. Here is Grisha. Afterward, the orphanage director gave a message. The concert was wonderful and their performance would have made any parent proud. How sad there were none, however, except for us and the Nasekos'. I recorded the whole thing on wide-screen DVD from the front row. If you're a family coming for one of these children soon, you can pay me large sums of money for a copy. But it will be so worth it. You see we have this big expense right now...






Grandma Lela came to the program. She is an American missionary who has been in Odessa about 15 years. She has given love to kids when there was no one else to do it. Many times she helps provide for their medical needs as well. She has prayed for these children for years and is thrilled when a family comes for them.



After the program, we had a time of visiting. Michelle came by with penpal letters. The kids love that. If you would like to be a penpal, send me an email and we'll see if we can get you more information.




Waiting for Sergey to come to take him to lunch. The have a wall with artwork. They have some good artists in the orphanage.



On the way to eat lunch. We had four of us in the back seat. Sergey needed to sit on Mark's lap.



Lunch with Grandma Lela and Igor, her driver today. Igor is a gentleman from her church.

Sergey Said "Da"

It is morning in Odessa. This post was written last night. The internet connection here gets flaky at night and I wasn't able to post it. I will post it as is without editing it to say yesterday, etc.

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Hooray!

We finally had our appointment this morning at Sergey's orphanage. Our facilitator Oles, or Sasha, called on-time today and told us to walk down to the Inspector's office. This building is on the next block south of us. Well the blocks are enormous here but still it only took about 5 min. to get there. Sasha and the Inspector, Alexandra, were waiting there with a taxi to take us to the orphanage. We didn't know what to expect about the Inspector and what he or she would be like or look like. I had expected someone older. But she was young with supermodel looks and dressed very classily. It seemed hard to believe this person had total power to put an end to our adoption of Sergey. Well Sasha did not realize that Mark was with us and had gotten a fairly small taxi. He told me to sit in front and then he, the Inspector, Nancy, and Mark were squeezed tightly in the backseat of this little BMW. I would have loved to take a picture of them. The irony of the situation was killing me. Here Nancy was smooshed up tight against this lady that had the power to put an end to our adoption and they were packed in there like school friends.

The taxi ride was about 10 min., and when we arrived at the orphanage, we were led in to a lady's office. Her name was Dina and she is the orphanage social worker. She is a middle-aged woman with big reddish-purple hair. She asked us all kinds of chit-chat questions about Obama, Hillary Cliton, how much we tip waitresses in America, other odd things. But she had obviously read our homestudy because she knew many things about us. She asked which church denomination we belonged to? We told her Reformed in America. I didn't expect that would mean anything to her but Sasha added something about it being Calvinist, which we did not mention, but which she seemed to understand. It was surprising to me that either of them understood that as I would bet there is a fair number of people who go to our own church that wouldn't even know that. We talked about how we knew Sergey. We had pictures along that we took last summer, some of which are on our blog. Let me tell you those pictures went a long way to making her and the Inspector comfortable with this adoption. For example, it turns out that Dina is a dog-lover, and one of the pictures was of Sergey, Mark, and Sparkle together. So of course we had to talk about the dog for awhile. Like what kind was she? (She's a Teddy Bear Shi-Tzu mix). What was her name? They both looked at the pictures carefully and smiled. They also asked about Valya, and we showed them a picture of her as well. How do we know her? She was a friend of two sisters that were adopted by friends of ours, the Tolly's, in our town. At some point Sergey showed up, since he had been summoned when we arrived. He had been in class. They asked him if he wanted to be adopted by us and he told them in Russian, "It's OK". No they said he had to say "I agree" or "I disagree". They got a laugh out of that. Do you know about this girl that they are adopting? Yes, we had told him about her last summer. Then they gave him various admonitions such as he needed to obey his parents and do well in his studies. In the end, the Inspector stepped aside and filled out a couple of forms, both of which we eventually needed to sign. We don't even know what they were. Didn't bother to ask, just did what they said.

Sergey has a 19 y.o. brother whom he hasn't seen for seven years. He must talk to him occasionally because Sergey knows his phone number by heart. They said that the brother will be coming in on Saturday to sign a paper that he agrees to the adoption. We will try to find out more details because we would love to meet him and take a picture of him for Sergey to remember him. Sergey also has a grandmother. She's in the picture somehow so we are also going to try to find out more about that.

They told us to come back after 2:00. So we hugged Sergey goodbye and walked back to our apartment.

At 2:00, we returned back to the orphanage, and met with the director. Her name is Anna. This time we didn't have an interpreter along, and she didn't know much English, so we waited for Sergey to arrive so that he could translate for us. Again, most of our conversation was smalltalk. She spent the majority of our time talking directly to Sergey and we don't know what she was telling him. One part was interesting, however. She also asked us about or church denomination, are we Catholic or Protestant? She told us that the children in the orphanage do not attend church but that we shouldn't pass judgment because when they leave the orphanage they are free to attend whichever church they wish. Apparently, she is not familiar with Proverbs chapter 3. Whatever. Finally, she told us we were free to visit Sergey fron 2:00 to 5:00 every afternoon. We are not to take him from the orphanage nor visit while classes are in session. At the end of the meeting I asked if we could take a picture of her and Sergey. She seemed surprised but pleased at the request and said something in Russian but I recognized the word, "souvenir". "Da, souvenir," I said.

After the meeting, we were free to go with Sergey. He gave us a tour of his world, including his classroom and various other places, such as the clothes washing room, shower room, bathrooms, art room, music room, and playroom. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the playroom meeting his classmates and playing games. Mark and I taught some of them to play Dutch Blitz. They had fun with that.

The next step for us is a court appointment, which we do not have yet. We and Sergey will need to go before a judge in Odessa and he needs to approve the adoption. He will ask all of us many questions, but we don't anticipate any trouble. After court comes a mandatory 10-day waiting period where officials try to contact any known relatives and allow them or others to come forward and contest the adoption. Just because they contest, however, doesn't mean they would prevail. They would have to agree to adopt him and prove that they have the means to support him. And where were they the last 7 years, and why did they not go visit him before? If there are no complications at the end of the 10-day waiting period, Sergey will be legally ours and we can take him out of the orphanage.

I explained to Sergey that we would try to visit him every day but that we are not sure that we would be able to do so. We also will be traveling to Andreyevo or somewhere abouts to visit the Inspector for that area. It will not be the same one we had in Odessa. Which is too bad. I think we're on her good side. Eventually, if all goes well, we will be able to adopt Valya. If so, we will intend to actually stay at her orphanage for several days so that we can get to know each other. Our adoption situation is a little tricky because the two orphanages are 150 km. away from each other. We obviously can't be in both places at the same time. It is premature to be concerned about it right now, but I hope this is a problem that we will have.

My impression after our meetings today is that these people genuinely care for these children.

The last point I will make about today is that I am truly amazed at the attitudes of these officials toward us. We have heard anecdotes about some of these same people behaving much differently toward other families. I believe the prayers of our friends and family are having an effect here. Before today I would never have believed that these meetings could be jovial, but they were. They were actually fun. How can we explain that? God is blessing us. Thanks to you all for interceding for us.

Here are some pictures from the day.

We walk from our apartment to the orphanage. It takes about 20 min. This is our apartment building.



This is behind our apartment building. It is where the entrance is.



This is the main street in front of our apartment building. It is very busy day and night.



They do not have clothes dryer appliances in Ukraine. Everyone leaves clothes out to dry after washing, either indoors or outdoors.



There are stray dogs and cats everywhere here. Here are some of them. A pack of them will chase cars out of parking lots or bicycles riding by. They are all friendly. The cats are feral, however.



This is the neighborhood of the orphanage. There is a public elementary school across the street from the orphanage.



This is the front side of orphanage #4 in Odessa. It was recently painted. But they only painted the side facing the street. The sign says Shkola Intyernat #4. Orphange #4 is actually what they call an Intyernat, which is a boarding school as well. There are kids here that go home on the weekends, also older kids who are attending a nearby technical school. There is room for 400 children here, but at this time there is only a little over a hundred or so.



This is Sergey and the director of #4, Anna, in her office. The picture on the wall is of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushenko. The book on the desk next to Sergey is a visitor's log that visitor's must sign. She has two little girls of her own. One of them was playing outside of her office with an older boy. I assume he was assigned to watch her.



This is Sergey's classroom. The 6th graders are in the same room all day. He showed us his school books.



I got a laugh from this picture of a page in Sergey's geography book. Kiev Ukraine is the center of the world! There is also a poster on the wall that shows cursive cyrillic letters.



Sergey showed us an American Rifleman magazine that we had sent to him in one of our Care packages. It was well worn from lots of use by the boys. They love looking at the guns and bullets and stuff in there. Boys are boys everywhere.



Two Dasha's. While we were in there, a lady named Dasha was tutoring a classmate of Sergey's in English. Her name is Dasha as well, and will be adopted by the Strainick's soon. Sergey had also been tutored by her in English by the family that hosted him in the US last December and summer.



Sergey gave us a tour of the orphanage. Lots of long hallways in there.



This is the dining hall. They got all new tables and chairs last week.



There is a bookcase with several pictures of adoptive families. Here is a picture of the Hoffman's from last summer. They will be adopting a girl from Sergey's class soon.



Here Sergey is showing us his treasures. Everything he owns is in this shoebox. He will be allowed to take this with him when he leaves. Everything else stays, including his clothes and shoes. When we go to take him from the orphange for the last time, we will need to bring him clothes to change into.



This is Babushka (Grandma) Lela. She is an American from Florida who has spent many years here in Odessa at this orphange. She provides love to the children. Every time she comes she kisses each child on the lips and tells them that she loves them. She tells us that many tell her that no one has ever told them that before.



This is Nataliya, the playroom supervisor. The kids really like her. She is having a baby soon.



Here we are playing Dutch Blitz with some boys. It takes a little to get used to. They should be experts by the time we leave Odessa.