Lots of UNO

Today Kevin and Pam arrived into town today. We had a nice time catching up a bit with them. We went into town to get some food for dinner. We found some little sidewalk stand type of markets and got chicken, veggies, fruit, water and some coffee! The Greers were beat from taking the night train from Kyiv to Odessa so while they rested we went and visited V and B. We took along an UNO game and played for more than 2 hrs. The kids didn't know the game but it is easy to catch on to and great for practicing colors, numbers and a few simple commands like "Draw 4" :-) Soon we had more kids joining us. There was lots of laughter as they would save all the 'dangerous' cards to pick on each other with. We taught them how to shuffle cards and do the waterfall and they were quite intrigued. When Robert did an UNO version of 52-card shuffle they all just about lost it and scurried to pick up the cards. We left about 5pm and walked home in the dark and the fog. Pam cooked up a great meal with the chicken and veggies which we all really enjoyed.

Friday - Extreme Sportin’ around town!

As we were about to leave the Christian Clinic our missionary host mentioned to us that riding in the taxis are an ‘extreme sport’ in this country. Well, today we had lots of that. We jumped in the taxi to visit the kids. It was a work in the garden day for them, however, B was waiting at the gate for us. He was so excited to see us. We went around the building and he called to V who was tilling the ground with some other kids. She dropped the tool and came running to us! We spent some time playing with them in the garden and more picture taking. Then we got a call that we had to go pick up another letter and make some copies. So, a taxi came and we zipped off, picked up the letter, took a taxi ride to the notary to make more official documents, took a taxi ride to a building that was falling apart (not unusual), went in the side door, thru a little hallway and in to a very small room where people ran a little business making copies. The taxi waited and it was back to the main orphanage (the kids are in a different location about 1 km away), then back to visit the kids and wait. So we played some little games with the kids to practice their English and learn a bit more about them. We had a deck of cards and so we worked on numbers and suits. They liked trying to get the suits and numbers right before the other one and it was good practice for them! Soon a teacher came in and she had the children write an official letter stating that they agree and want to be adopted by us. Once that was done it was off in a taxi again to get the packet of documents from the main orphanage office and hustle to the Department of Education before she left early on this Friday. As we entered, her assistant told us that she was doing an interview for a local newspaper so it would be a moment. At least she was still here! We had a short wait before she returned and began going through all our documents. While she was doing this the reporter some how found out that some Americans were in the office so she wanted to interview us about the American holiday of Halloween. We agreed, so she asked her questions and she snapped our picture for the article! Wow! In the mean time our paperwork was all in order so the official agreed that she would file it today with the judge and hopefully by Monday evening we will know when our court date is. We jumped back into the taxi and through town, around the potholes and we were back at our place, ready to crash and spend some time in total amazement at God’s work.

Thank you to every one who is faithfully praying! We rejoice that God is good and things are going quickly. We realize that on the other end of things with the American visa it may well go slower for our situation and God will still be good for He is in control!

Please keep praying for the judge to meet with us quickly. We have heard that the judges in this area can be difficult and delay meeting with people dragging the whole process out. We have flights for Nov. 15^th but would love to come back early if at all possible because then the back end of the process can be bumped up by a week so I am not trying to come back with the children on Dec.23^rd as it currently stands.

The Greers will arrive to Belgorod tomorrow morning so we are eager to see them and spend some time together! Pray for their travel on the night train to be safe.

Thursday, just hangin’

We got over to visit with the kids around 9 am. They gave us big hugs and we sat and talked a bit. They showed us some books; we played Carcassonne. V came with a pad of paper and pen and eagerly wanted us to write their new names and they practiced saying them over and over. As friends came by throughout the day they would tell them their new names. We were taking some pictures of their rooms and they seemed to enjoy that. I let V use the camera and boy did that open things up. Every where they went they began taking pictures – the sports room, friends, the chess club room, staff ladies who are obviously dearly loved, the craft room, I think they photographed every item in that craft room! We sat and had tea with the woman who is their craft teacher and very grandmotherly. She was asking all about us taking the kids and began to tear up some as we talked. She spoke about the children’s grandmother who can’t take care of them because she is not healthy, and how clever the children are. The kids scooted off to eat lunch, which seemed to take all of 2 minutes and they were back! We stayed for another couple of hours and then had to take some papers over to the lawyer. We took a LLLOOOONNGG walk back to where we are staying because we were trying to find a restaurant. We never found a restaurant or anything close, but we eventually came to a place where we could jump on a bus. We took the crowded little bus and got off near our place. It was a very fun day with the kids…but we are tired!
So it was a simple dinner and crash into bed!

Meeting with Viktoria and Borys

We arrived at Olga’s office and were ushered in right away. Lyudmila explained our day to her and Olga exclaimed that it’s typical, but God must have wanted us here today. We then sat down to some business and she asked for the infamous letter! She then told us how this would all work. She needed to know for sure that we wanted to continue with the adoption, we would then hear what they know about Viktoria and Borys and their background and then V and B (nicknames) would come in to see us, and Olga would have a talk with them. She needed to officially hear from them that they wanted to go to us and our family, in order to proceed with preparing documents. This would be followed by a conversation with the orphanage doctor about their physical condition, vaccinations, etc. Then we would have time to talk with their teacher about their education. We could ask any questions that we would like and even we could ask later if questions came up. Olga told us that no question was considered to be stupid.

We heard from Olga about the children’s background and the reason for their parents losing parental rights. They had come to the orphanage in March 2000 because their grandmother is an invalid and couldn’t care for them. So they arrived at the ages of 4 and 3. They are both good students and very industrious. Time and space right now doesn’t allow me to go into too many details, but we will share more later about what we are learning about them. Both of them were dressed really sharp when they came in. Bora wore a little black suit without a tie. Vika was wearing a beautifully knitted sweater. They were beaming with smiles. Then they were asked to leave and wait in the other office. We had our time with the doctor and then the teacher. Olga went out for a bit and we found out later that Vika had been crying. You can imagine how hard it is when your friends have been the other kids in the orphanage. She was nervous about leaving them, but torn too because she wants to be with us. Olga told her that this is the best choice because none of these children can stay here forever. Only a few more years and they’d be out on their own in some way. They came back in a little later and the question of name change came up. We discussed the options. Borys after hearing Olga tell him, "Now Borys, what kind of American name is that! No one has the name 'Borys' in America!" firmly decided to lose that name completely. Viktoria decided to keep it as her middle name. Once the judge approves the adoption, we will introduce you to the children!

The Lord Moves in the Heart of Kings!

We had come early to the Department of Education, but it was an arranged meeting for this day by our adoption lawyer and facilitators. The woman in charge met us but said to Lyudmila that we could not receive our letter until she had a notarized letter stating that Lyudmila could represent us. It had to state that Lyudmila could receive this letter for us. Lyudmila told her that this was irregular and that going to the notary was not necessary. She then told Lyudmila that she couldn’t help us until she had something from the notary. Lyudmila came to us and told us what was happening and didn’t know if maybe the law had changed. She made phone calls and eventually it was decided to visit a notary and talk it over. This lady told us that it was not necessary also and that she had no reason to write the letter or the proper codes to place in this notary letter to make it work, so she would not do it. With more phone calls to the lawyer and facilitators in Kiev they decided to get on the phone to the SDA in Kiev. Meanwhile we needed to wait, so we took a walk to a nearby park. On the way Lyudmila took us to a little Christian bookstore. It was practically the size of our walk in closet, but it was completely full of books and materials. We went to a park and took some time to get to know our translator.

Lyudmila is a pastor’s wife. Her husband pastors the Evangelical Presbyterian church in town. She shared with us that she has been a translator for many years, but before she was a believer she translated for missionaries at all kinds of speaking events. Eventually, after translating the gospel message hundreds of times, she realized her need for forgiveness and the Savior! She has 2 children who are 19 and 10 years old. Her daughter is studying economics in Odessa.

While Kim and Lyudmila talked further I began a couple of pictures. We also watched as an older man kept taking little children for rides on his two little electric powered cars. He walked alongside and took them all over the park. He had a little police car and an off road type and grandmother’s and mothers paid him about 75cents for a 5 – 10 minute ride. After about 2 hours of this we decided it was time to go. The Department of Education office was only open till 12:30 according to the sign. Lyudmila called Gene and he took us home. Lyudmila went to teach an English class. After arriving at the clinic we slept for a couple of hours. Then we decided to make a call to the Kiev facilitator, Marina. We told her of our take on the situation and she immediately started telling us that it’s time for action. She told us to contact Lyudmila and get Gene to take all of us back to this office and tell that woman that we’ve come for our letter and that Lyudmila is just our translator and that a notary letter is not necessary. She had been in contact with the SDA in Kiev and they had confirmed this. So that’s what we did. We arrived at 3:00pm. Robert knocked on the door and then opened it. Both women looked shocked, but allowed us in. Robert explained that we were there for our letter because we have a letter from the SDA and that Lyudmila is just our translator and that we are representing ourselves. She asked for our papers and passports and then a total transformation took place. Her assistant started preparing our new letter, while she began to smile and ask us about our children (have we met them, their ages, etc.) She instructed us that the letter needed to be signed by an official in another building and that we’d have to wait about a half hour while she personally takes the letter to get the signature. We told her we’d take a walk and Lyudmila took us in the direction of the building from which this lady would have to get the signature. As soon as we walked out of the office and the door shut, Lyudmila told Kim she’d never seen anything like that before; that was amazing! We spent some time talking at another park. There was a fountain here and someone had put detergent in the water so it looked like a great big bubble bath! Next to it were some young guys with about 5 mechanical “ponies”. Again they gave children rides on these. The seat and the stirrups worked to make the pony (which had wheels) look like it was galloping along!

The half hour turned out to be a whole hour, but we had some good conversation with Lyudmila. She told us that Belgorod is 2500 years old. It has a huge fortress that was built in the 1300s and had withstood many invasions until the Ottoman Turks took it. They had it for 300 years. While we stood there Lyudmila saw several of her students and received phone calls from others. One called saying that he and the other 3 friends had all passed their big test. This meant that the 4 of them, members of a jazz band, would be able to get the job on a cruise ship as part of the entertainment.

Eventually the lady came out and handed us our letter. We told her thank you and immediately called Marina. She told Lyudmila to call Gene and get over to the orphanage as fast as possible because Olga, the orphanage director was waiting for us. We later found out it was her day off, but she had come in that day and waited because she was expecting us to arrive and wanted to get things rolling right away. Gene picked us up and he truly sped us over to the orphanage offices.

Overnight Train to Odessa – Fast Car to Belgorod

Our hosts in Kiev were a delight to stay with. Their hospitality was fantastic! After the embassy visit we walked through the city to their home. The old town sits on a high hill and the embassy is on the slope of that hill. On our way back we stopped at an indoor market. It was quite a mixture of booths with everything from butchers and cheese sellers to vegetable, fruit and flower sellers. We picked up a nice flower basket for Irina and went on our way while we noted the possible places to change money. The people and government of Ukraine need prayer. They had a bank collapse back in the mid-nineties where all deposits and withdrawals were frozen. Nobody could get money. It helped them survive. Now with the current crisis in government related to the disagreement between their president (pro-western) and prime minister (pro-eastern), the effect looks very similar to the last time. The $ and Euro continues to get stronger here and that’s effecting the banking and credit system. They have again frozen the deposits and withdrawals. People are afraid to put their money in banks, but keeping the money at home is not safe either because it potentially makes them a target. Please pray for all of this.

We received our referral letter and adoption dossier on the way to the train station. A very fun taxi driver named Misha took us to our facilitator and then to the train station. Yulia gave us our tickets and then the dossier saying, “These are your adoption documents. They are extremely important. You can lose yourselves, your luggage or whatever, but losing these documents will severely delay this adoption.” We still have our documents, our luggage and ourselves! 

Misha took us directly to the station and escorted us to our room on the train. We slept a bit better on this train. It was a faster train, which meant more movement, but that seemed to be better than stopping 10 or more times. We arrived in Odessa at 6am and were met almost as soon as we stepped out by a taxi driver named Gene (pronounced “Je-Ne”) hired to bring us to Belgorod. He was the fastest taxi driver we’ve had yet! Gene took us to Belgorod. In this part of the country we are near the Black Sea. The countryside and villages are much like our days in Czech, except that the buildings and homes are much more run down. There are farms and fields and there was lots of fog. We traveled over a bridge that spans a bay of the Black Sea. The bridge is the kind that has a center section that lifts straight up for ships to pass under it. After another 20 minutes we were in Belgorod by 7:30am. Gene tried calling some people but found nobody answering. Possibly it was too early. We eventually spoke with Tasha, the lawyer involved with adoptions and with our facilitators. She encouraged us to get to our hotel at the Christian Clinic in town and then go with Gene to meet with Lyudmila, our translator. We didn’t know exactly where the Christian Clinic was though as we had only a phone number and nobody was answering. But, when I was speaking with Kim about it and said the words “Christian Clinic”, Gene piped up and said, “Christian Clinic?”. The next thing we knew we were on our way through Belgorod. We arrived at this medical facility, which has rooms upstairs. We then left our luggage, took our backpacks and documents and went with Gene to find Lyudmila. Gene picked her up at her home and then we went to the department of education. Here we were to receive a letter of referral in exchange for our letter of referral from the SDA in Kiev. This would allow us to go to the orphanage.

Big Help and Encouragement at US Embassy

On Tuesday, the day we received our letter of referral from the SDA, we decided to take a chance and see if there were papers that Robert (and I?) could sign now rather than making another trip to Kiev at the end. In this way we’d be able to save money and since timing might be crucial later it would be a big help. I called the US Embassy and spoke with the adoptions department. They thought it was a good idea to come in and sign the documents, which I will completely fill out later on during the final phase. This was a very encouraging time, because the staff at the embassy (some Americans, some Ukrainians) knew of our case and assured us they will do all they can to shorten the expected time frame for getting the waiver. They also noted to us that there is a strong possibility that HIV will soon be taken off the list of medical reasons that require this waiver. However, it has not happened as of yet.

We did find out though that we had missed a crucial form related to the eventual waiver application for B when his visa will be rejected. We misunderstood the form, thinking that it was something to be filled out related to medical authorities after our arrival with the kids in the US. Thus, we, family and friends in the States are trying to get this form filled out with the proper signatures of a pediatrician and state health officer even while Robert is still here. We sometimes feel we’ve had a big financial part of Fed Ex this last year!  We left the embassy much more confident and encouraged. We then began to prepare for our departure Tuesday night to Odessa and Belgorod.

SDA Appointment ~ Letter of Referral

Sunday morning we were finally able to connect by phone with Yulia, our facilitator in Kiev.  Yulia informed us that she would be able to find out our exact time for our SDA appointment on Monday morning and that we should be ready for leaving at 8:30am in case we were the first on the list.  She then called us at 8:30 to tell us that our appointment was scheduled for 3pm.  This was fine because it gave us time to work on other things and to catch up on some sleep. 

We were ready to go and waiting on the corner at 2:20 when Sergei, our host at the bed and breakfast, came running outside to tell us that Yulia had just called.  She had arranged a taxi to pick us up and she would meet us at the SDA.  We had just been commenting on a taxi that had made a U turn near to us, but he was just sitting there.  Sergei went over and determined that he truly was the taxi on call for us.  Off we went through the city towards the SDA, which is located in the downtown area.  It was quite congested with traffic and we truly wondered if we would make it there in time.  We did make it with 10 minutes to spare and Yulia saw our taxi and came running over to meet us.  Since we had never met her before, we just figured the young lady running after our taxi and waving and smiling was there for us. J 

We were taken to the SDA and waited until the 2 couples before us were finished.  Other facilitators began showing up with their couples and they were all obviously from Italy.  Yulia informed us that this shouldn’t be a long meeting because we know the children and don’t have to look at any listings/pictures or make phone calls to get a referral going.  So, we went upstairs to talk with the SDA representative.  She was a very friendly representative and I mean that sincerely.  Her whole demeanor put us right at ease and she asked us to tell her about the kids and their visit to us 15 months ago.  We pulled out the only pictures we have of them and told a couple of stories and then it was essentially enough.  She and Yulia pulled together our official dossier and told us what was to transpire.  We are scheduled to receive our SDA referral letter on Tuesday at 5 to 6pm.  If the facilitator that is on our power of attorney is in town tomorrow, then that person will get the letter for us earlier.  Otherwise we will go at 5 to get it. 

Following that we’ll be taking another night train to Odessa and a facilitator for that region will pick us up and drive us there or we’ll go by train if that proves a possibility.  So, we are on our way and should be able to visit with V and B on Wednesday.  We’ve managed to secure a room at a clinic in the town of Belgorod at a substantially lower rate.   We don’t know if we’ll have internet, but we hope so.  Stay tuned…

Budapest ~ Odessa ~ Kiev

Friday we took a quick hop from Budapest to Odessa. We were the last ones to get through customs, except for the Brazilians who were being escorted back onto the plane to Budapest for lack of visas. In spite of the commotion related to them (I counted 7 border guards handling this situation) the border guard helping us was very focused and handled our situation fairly quickly. Our bags were waiting and we departed.  As soon as we came through security, there THEY were! The taxi driver “vultures” and they came at us from all directions wanting to “serve” us. We changed some money and hired one of these aggressive guys to take us to the train station. We managed to talk him down a bit, but we found out later we probably paid 5 times what was necessary. We’re chalking that one up to “live and learn”. 

Our driver became very jovial along the way since the traffic jams he promised (and the reason for the higher price) were not to be seen. He kept referring to the policemen in the middle of every intersection and saying, “O, no traffic!  Policejty!  Tuk, tuk, tuk!”, and waving his hands like he was directing traffic. Upon discovering that we are from California, he became more jovial. He rambled for several blocks about Schwarznegger, the Terminator, but we have no idea what he was saying about him. He drove very fast and recklessly, bordering on lunacy as he zipped along.

Along the way we saw packs of dogs: stray dogs, big dogs and mangy dogs. (like a bad version of the ‘Go Dog Go’ book!) There were dogs eating out of trashcans and dogs eating out of a McDonald’s bag in the gutter. One lady was either holding her groceries above her shoulders in order to keep the dogs away from them, or she was trying to feed this group and there were too many wanting food for her to handle. We’ve heard stories of the packs of stray dogs in Romania and perhaps it is the same way in Odessa. It did remind me though of one of the most beloved characters of Czech literature, Good Soldier Svejk. Svejk played the town idiot, though he wasn’t at all. He just was lazy and loved beer, gossip and to make the establishment look bad. He was famous for making his beer money by forging pedigree papers for stray mutts and selling them as rare breeds with classy credentials. He could make a lot of money in Odessa this way! ;)

We bought tickets for sleeping quarters on the overnight train and then waited 8 hours to leave at 23:09.  Most of that time, we sat and tried to learn some Ukrainian. We only met one person who spoke some English, so we have mostly relied on our Czech.  Although they don’t speak Czech, it seems to be that we can all recognize some words, which are common, or at least common enough. We are a couple of steps above ‘sign language and grunting’ when communicating J. Most of our time ‘learning Ukrainian’ meant learning the alphabet so we can read the signs.

We found a waiting area for ticket holders. As the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped outside, homeless people began to come in.  They can pay the equivalent of about 20 cents to stay inside and sleep on the benches. One homeless lady sat on benches directly across from us and stared non-stop at us. Finally, she came over asking what time do we leave. We told her and she decided to sit one seat over from us. She gave Kimi a part of a newspaper and was saying something about ”read and understand our politics”!? Later the lady was enjoying watching this one small girl and her father walk around and gave the girl her orange. However, when some other children were just kind of playing around, she got up, started yelling at them, told the guard, and even went to the parents and yelled. Finally, the guard told her it was none of her business, to sit down, shut up or leave. She sat but continued to grumble! When we left for our train the lady was quite glad because it turns out, she really just wanted our spot where we were sitting!

We made it onto the right train and found our compartment. We both slept some but not well. I counted 10 times that we stopped in 9 hours in order to let another train go by. We were able to lock our room and that was comforting.

We arrived at the Kiev train station at 8:44am and promptly tried to find a phone booth. Of the 4 phone numbers we had for contacting our facilitators, nobody answered any of them.  Hmm, frustrating.  We would have called the night before, but the phone we brought with us would not unlock with the pin code our server had given us. We’ll keep working on that. 

We called the people we are staying with in Kiev. They told us to use the metro (subway). The metro experience was like no other. Pushing our way through mobs of people, just following the mob to buy tokens and pay (cuz we had no idea how it works), cramming onto the extremely fast escalators, and trying to figure which subway and direction to go! Kimi asked some mothers standing with their children for directions. They pointed us in the right direction and then went part way with us. We made the transfer to another subway and our host was waiting for us. Perfect, like clockwork!

We slept all afternoon on Saturday, had dinner with our hosts and a pastor friend who is here from St. Petersburg, Russia. They just finished a Bible conference in Kiev.  Pastor Roman helped start a publishing house in St. Petersburg as well as a church ministry. Tomorrow is a day of rest and then we’ll appear at the SDA on Monday. 

The Lord is always good, no matter the circumstances.  Lamentations 3: 19-23 says, “Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.  Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down (humbled) within me.  This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.  The Lord’s loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness.”