| Our Adoption Story Page 2 |
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| At 7:00 p.m. we meet our Regional translator for the first time, along with our driver. She is very young and very full of life. We instantly like her. We head for the train station. Our train is scheduled to leave at 8:15. We have to wait for our driver to go ask which cabin is ours. We are in cabin 11. It has 4 very small beds, maybe 2 1/2 X 6' long, very hard like a lightly padded bench. It has cooled down very nice, almost a bit chilly. We had to rent our linens for 6g each. They supplied a wool blanket, a thin mattress, like a comforter, and a very lumpy pillow. I then decided to check out the restrooms. It was very nasty just as we had been told. The toilets were some kind of black metal, the floor was wet (wonder why), but it did provide what was needed. You could not use the restrooms anytime the train was going through a town or stopped anywhere. They flushed right out on the track. I sure wasn't about to sit on it though. We had a chance to talk to our translator quit a bit now and got to know her better. She has 2 sisters, one is blind, and her parents are very poor. She is trying to work hard to help them out. She is very kind and sweet. We snack on some of the food we brought. We decide to try to sleep at 11:00. I was awakened at 1:30 to Jay trying to open our cabin door. He was jerking, and jerking. It just wouldn't open. HELP!! We are locked in. I try to help him to no avail. By this time our translator wakes up also and wonders what in the world is going on. Jay finally digs in his bag for his leatherman and finally manages to get it open. Never leave home without one of these. What a trip. We finally got back to sleep. Thursday - April 12th - We woke up at 7:30. Just can't sleep. We see much poverty along the countryside. We eat our oranges, eat our very compact bread, and drink some juice for breakfast. We arrive in Kherson at 11:15. Our translator goes to find a taxi. She comes back and tells us "No English". The taxi will charge more if they know we are English. The taxi driver is a kind old gentleman. He took us to the orphanage. The Director was'nt there so then we went to find a hotel. We checked into a room. Actually it was a double room in one. The main room had a large L shaped couch, a hutch with table service. The second room had 2 single beds that were pushed together, and a dresser. The bathroom was small with a shower stall, no curtain, a water heater plugged into 220v just above the shower. The toilet was setting crooked which made you lean against the wall when you sat down. It really did look like a barbie toilet. It was a much better toilet than what was at the Adoption center. That one was a squat pot. It was about 6" off the floor with tread places on each side for you to stand and squat. Not very convenient but suited the purpose. I can't explain the feeling I had when I first saw it. Jay says it was diffinitely a Kodak moment. At least everything worked OK. The hot water heat had been turned off the first of April so the room was a bit chilly. Our translator then called the taxi to take us to the Inspectors office to get permission to visit the orphanage. Our translator wasn't sure if we needed permission to visit the orphanage or not. It's not always required. Good thing we did though. The Inspector was out to lunch so waited until 1:00. When we went in to meet her, she looked very sober. almost Hitler like. We wasn't sure what to think. Our translator did lots of talking and finally she smiled a bit. She had several questions for us. She wondered how we thought we could raise 2 more children when we already had 4. In Ukraine, 1 is hard enough, 2 is almost too much. They are just very poor. We even wondered if we should persue 3 but she told us the head Judge doesn't take kindly to families that want more than 2 kids. She agreed to give us the letter of permission and told us she would do all she could to help us. The head Judge was on vacation at the time and wasn't scheduled to be back to work for another week and a half. We thanked her and went back to the hotel for a bit. We were to return to the orphanage at 3:00. When we arrived back to the orphanage, we met the Director. She was very kind. She also was concerned as to how we would raise 2 more children. I'm not sure if they would have understood, "If the Lord directs, He will provide". We could tell she really cared about the children. We were told that one of the sibling groups were just admitted to the hospital for some test and would not be available. She had lots of questions, then she took us down the hall to another room. There we waited while she went to get the children. The room looked like a play area. It was very clean, nothing fancy, just comfortable. When the director came in with the children, it happened to be the first sibling group we saw pictures of at the AC. Their names were Dema and Yulia. Dema came in, got a chair for Yulia then sat down, crossed his legs. What a gentleman. Very polite. Yulia was much more timid looking, and just looked scared at times. Our translator started talking to them. Dema started telling all about a movie, I believe 101 Dalmation., they had seen. He was very discriptive with all the hand motions. Yulia would stop him from time to time and fill in more detail. What an imagination, he seemed very intelligent. We have our translator ask them a few questions. Dema wants to learn English, French, and teach us Russian. He has big ideas. After a bit the Director takes the children back to their groups. We ask a few more questions, then tell her we do like the children. We asked her is she had any more sibling groups. She told us "No". We asked her if it would be OK just to walk around and observe the other children playing outside. She thought would be OK. Psalms 130: 5-6 When we went outsied, some of the younger children were out playing, some of them would come up to Jay and call him Papaaa! We told the Director we would plan to come back on Friday morning to play more with Dema and Yulia. We called a Taxi then went back to the Hotel to relax and find somewhere to eat. Our translator found a very small Cafe just on the other end of our Hotel. It was very good. Of course after not eating since breakfast, I think most anything would have tasted good. We pray and ponder the events of the day looking for a clear direction from the Lord. We think of their family need, Dema would go to school in the fall and be seperated from Yulia, for some reason, the other sibling group would not be available, their birthdays were, we thought, the sames months as ours (Dema's in October and Yulia's in March), they became available at the end of February, the same month as we finished our paperwork. Even though we certainly didn't feel worthy to have such healthy children, we did feel God meant for them to be ours. God is always a step ahead of us. It would be nice if everything in life had this many clear pointers. Maybe we just don't always pay attention. Psalms 150. Tomorrow we would e-mail our Elder (Head Minister) from our church and ask some words of wisdom. Proverbs 4:7. We are very exhausted but it has been a good day. Friday - April 13th - We are up by 8:30. Our translator goes out to find water and brings back some kind of wafers, (Ukrainian sugar wafers). We head over to the orphanage at 10:00 and wait for the children to come out to play. We feel better toward Dema and Yulia after last evening and it is fun to play with their groups. After and hour or so it's time to leave. We come back around 4:00 to play again. We don't get to see Dema this time and are a bit disappoinited. Oh the need for attention. The children just love to play. Then we go to find an Internet Cafe to send some updates. We found out it was only a brisk 15 min walk back to the hotel from there. Then back to the little cafe for supper. The salads here a bit unique. I tried red beet salad. It was cold, cooked shredded red beets with minced fresh garlic and a mayo dressing with pecans. It really was good. Got to bed around 11:00. Saturday - April 14th - Up at 8:30. Slept very well. We went back to the orphanage at 10:00. Today a local church is going to be at the orphanage presenting a special Easter service. When we arrived, all the children were in a large room, all dressed up. The church handed out small bags with little gifts inside. The children then got up and sang a few songs. Yulia kept peeking at us and a big smile. It was soo touching. It just brought tears to my eyes watching these poor children so happy singing so beautiful. Some will never know true happiness with a family. They sang a couple of songs I recognized the tune, Kum ba ya, and "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus in the moring, Jesus in the noontime...." Don't know the title to it. Afterwards, Dema came running up to us to show us an English name on his card he recieved. They are just so excited. We than went back to the hotel to relax a bit. We still are not able to find an apartment. Hopefully will hear soon from Oxonia. Continued on Page 3... . |