Small Town

Yesterday we receive the completed paperwork from the orphanage director.   Today (Tuesday)at 4:00p.m. Roman picked up the completed paperwork from the Inspector and also discussed a possible court date.  Roman left about 5:30 with the paperwork and is on his way to Kyiv to deliver it to the SDA and check on our Interpol clearances.  He will probably not return to this town until court.  Another facilatator called him and asked him to come to another region 6 hours away.  There is an American couple that is having problems adopting 2 siblings and Roman has worked in this region before and knows the director and inspector.  We have found that is a very important thing in the adoption process is to have a person that knows the region and the people.  If not, I think your process can be quite difficult and drawn out.  Roman has been great!!  He is soft spoken, but very knowledge, a hard worker and reads people well.  He also is part child psychologist..., with great insight into Alona's behavior and her past.
Please pray for a quick court date; they are talking about it being next Monday or Tuesday possibly.  Which would be a BIG blessing!!  It is not that we are tired of Ukraine, but this is a really small town we are in and sometimes it is uncomfortable.  Everywhere we go Alona knows someone.  Alona knew the young lady at the trampoline place, because she goes to the orphanage and cuts hair.

Maria and Alona

At the carnival, she knew one of the girls operating a ride.  She looked to be 16 or 17 and had been in the children's shelter with Alona years ago.  At the mall we ran into the librarian, on the beach we ran into a neighbor of Alona's when she was little.  Yesterday, we ran into another child that had been hosted by a family in our town.  Last night, Mike and Alona walked to this hamburger place and Alona insisted that the girl behind the counter was her "Sister".  We got Roman on the phone to talk to Alona because according to all SDA, orphanage, inspector, etc., paperwork Alona has no sister.  He found out that this young woman is more like a distant cousin of Alona's bio mom.  She is in her mid-twenties and married to a 43 yr old.  We know that Alona's bio mom lives in a rough section of this town, somewhere near the orphanage, which thankfully we are not near.  Her mother has many, many problems (like most of the orphan's parents have); however, we do not want to run into her or have her cause any problems.  Alona has never waivered in wanting to be adopted by us and since she is almost 12 she has the right to decide where she wants to live.  Her bio mom has shown no signs of wanting her in the past or of trying to straighten out her life; nevertheless, we would like to leave this town without any problems.  Everytime Alona runs up to someone she knows or they call out her name, Mike and I wonder "why didn't any of these people help her".  Even in the simplest ways, by just visiting her at the orphanage or making sure she had a toothbrush or toothpaste.  It just breaks our hearts, not just for her, but for all the children here.

These last two pictures are from the window of our hotel room.  New roofs are definetly needed.

Pictures & Trivia

If you are coming to Kyiv region and have allergies to cottonwood or similar trees... beware!!  It is like it is snowing cotton and the trees are just loaded.  Roman said that it will get much worse.  It piles up along the streets and there are people constantly cleaning it up.  So bring benadryl or claritin.
Also, the sun comes up at 4:55 a.m. and goes down at 9:05p.m.  much different than last January when the sun didn't come up until 9:00a.m. and went down by 4:00p.m.  It makes it a little difficult to sleep, but that is okay because the weather is much better this time of year. We have not seen many flowers here, but in Kyiv they were everywhere.  Also, every night that we have been here fireworks go off around 9:00p.m. for only a couple of minutes.  Do not know the reason why, but hope to find out before we leave.

Entrance to orphanage

Road that runs in front of orphanage

Inspector's Office

Father of the Day Award

Mike gets the "father of the day award" today.  For those of you who know him, you know he is a freak about germs.  He is definetly OCD about washing his hands and you better never want to take a drink from his cup.  The only one allowed to do that was our son when he was little.  Well today he actually swam in the river with Alona and let me tell you the water is brown, brown, brown.  In 6 inches of water you can not see your feet.  Ramon, our facilatator, reassured Mike that he would not get any skin diseases from it, but we shall see!!  Alona was so, so happy!!  Mike didn't wear his underwear to swim either; he went for a more full coverage look.  I knew that men wore speedo swimming suits over here, but did not realize that they also swim in their underwear.  Ramon verified that I was seeing right and he also pointed out women in their bras and underwear swimming. 

The town we are in is really small, and today when Mike was swimming this girl kept looking at him and then saw Alona and yelled "ALONA".  Guess who it was.  Olya the girl that our friends the Kyles hosted last Christmas.  She and Alona talked and swam for a long time together; unfortunately, Olya was shy and did not want us to take a picture of her ( I got one from a little far away). She did say she goes swimming a lot so maybe on another day I can get one.  She said she was doing well and she looked happy and very pretty.  The first question she asked Alona was "going to America with parents?"  Alona told her YES!!  We did tell her that her family "the Kyles" think about her all the time and that they all miss her (especially Brett).  Alona told Ramon that Olya was her best friend in America.

We made a morning trip to the orphanage, then to inspector's office, then lunch, swimming, and then back to play Go Fish and make puzzles.  I bought one 260 piece puzzle, but that only took about 1 1/2 hours and we were done.  So I might have to go back and get a 500 piece one:) 

Forgot to mention it before, but Alona has mastered backwards flips on the trampoline after about 6 times.  Of course she has the belt attached to her, but she managed doing 12 without stopping.  We have decided to enroll her in gymnastics when we get home.  She has a lot of energy and that will be one way to get rid of some it.

Mike's blog debut

I (Mike) am writing today. We started today with our morning breakfast provided by the Hotel. It is pretty good but I can see that it will get old after a few days. (I normally don't eat eggs for breakfast but they do a good job of cooking them.) We walked a few miles (going to the store, buying a bathing suit for Alona, buying groceries, the regular) and we stopped and ate at a place that has little log cabins to rent and a restuarant with indoor and outdoor seating. The place was very nice, it is close to the river so the atmosphere was great. I had barbecue ribs (I thing Texas has nothing to worry about) and Michelle was wiser and had a salad. Alona had calamari but she did not eat very much (a little chewy). Ramon our facilitator had sausage balls (his was pretty good).

We then took Alona swimming and I passed on swimming today. I did not bring a bathing suit but we noticed (Michelle more than I) that several of the men were wearing underwear as their suit. Most of the women had on bikini's no matter what the age or size. We are not in Kansas anymore! (Reminds me of The Wizard of OZ)

There is a park with carnival rides accross the street from the hotel, so we took Alona after swimming over there and she rode a few rides. The first one was a ferris wheel and I don't think we will have to ride that one again. Alona did not like the altitude. (I think I did see the space shuttle go by). Then she rode some swings that go around in a circle. She liked that one and rode it twice.  There was one really strange one, she looked like a hamster:

I can tell Alona wants to do everything she can at one time. I think she is afraid that she won't get to do anything tomorrow. She wants to eat everything at once also. I can tell that being at the orphanage has been hard on her. I wish I could explain how things will be and can be in America. That she doesn't have to try to go go go. We will be here tomorrow and one day she will be with us everyday. (She may get sick of that). Alona is still the same girl who wanted to give things away to strangers. She gave a necklace to a lady who worked a jumping trapoline ride. (She was very nice and helpful)

Well I am tired of writing and will let Michelle take over this. She does a great job I must say!

Please continue to pray that God will guide our steps over the next few days. We still think it would be great for Alona to have a sister, but it may not be possible from this region.

Today was a fun day!!!

We had no paperwork or anything today, so we celebrated by just having fun.  We have a young man, Ramon, who works with our facilatator and will be handling everything locally for us.  He has been working with adoptions for 11 years and is very knowledgeable about the paperwork but also about the children.  He has a very big heart for these children!!

The director of Alona's orphanage is different; but it has been beneficial in someways.  One way is that she lets us take her anywhere.  So today we took her and bought her some new sneakers.  The ones she had on were filthy and too little for her.  I actually think she will probably lose her toenails on her big toes eventually.  We then found this pizza place that had shuffleboard, these trampoline things, arcade games, etc.,  We then went and saw KungFu Panda 2 in 3 D (in Russian, of course).  Then we went to the river and went out in a canoe type boat.  We in between have played about 50 games of Go Fish.  So we are tired, but very happy!!

We survived a road trip!!

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but it was a paperwork day!!  I will start with the blessings!!

    1)  We get to spend a lot of time with Alona
    2)  Mike and I have both stayed healthy..., which is really a blessing since he was sick almost the entire time we were here last January
    3)  The food is really good (even Mike likes everything)  It is all so fresh from the vegetables to the homemade pasta.
    4)  We are staying in a hotel that has really nice people working in it, air-conditioning, free breakfast, and is close to the center of town.  We can walk to almost anything we need, so we are saving money on transportation.  We also have a complete kitchen in our room, so we can cook if we want to.  We had really planned on staying in an apartment, but they were all farther away and not much cheaper.  Oh, and the hotel only has 6 or 8 rooms in it.  There are only two rooms on our floor, so it is really quiet.
    5)  The orphanage director finished 95% of the paperwork we needed from her.  She said she will finish the last 5% on Monday.  This is a major blessing, because she had told us on Thursday that she probably could not do it for 10 days..., which would have been a major delay. 
    6) We are only 1 hour and 15 minutes from Kyiv
    7)  The van we took to Kyiv had padded headrests -- very much needed since my head hit them a few times




So yesterday at 2:30 we were down to just needing our signatures on a couple of documents and this is where the road trip began.  This small town has two notaries. One said she had 10 people ahead of us and could not do it until Monday.  The other notary said she had not done adoption paperwork for the last few years and she refuse to help us.  So a road trip to  Kyiv was necessary..., UGGH!!  Imagine driving in an older van (curtains in the windows), no A/C, windows down, driving 120 kilometers an hour, and only using the brakes to come to immediate stop never to slow down.  10 minutes of the drive felt like you were sitting in one of those massage chairs while getting a pedicure; the next hour and 5 minutes was a totally wooden rollercoaster drive.  I am just glad that neither Mike or I get car sick.  Mike just kept looking at me, would laugh, and say "remember this is an adventure".  I just kept thinking I waited 16 months to come and adopt Alona and I am going to die!! 

While the notary did the paperwork, we went to this neat little cafe to eat and they had ICED green tea with mint!!  What a treat!!  Then we went back and signed everything and back to our small town we go.  Unfortunately, we got stuck in Friday rush hour and we did not get back until 8:30.  We have learned to grab a bottle of water, protein bars, etc., because you never know when a simple task will turn into a 6 hour adventure!!

Reality of the situation

I don't want to sound like a downer the day after we finally got to see Alona; but I thought I needed to be truthful.  The orphanage was totally depressing!!  I had heard how awful they were before we even hosted Alona, but then somehow had been lulled into thinking they were just bad.  I guess I had read so many blogs that talked about loving caregivers, food that was not bad and buildings that were liveable..., not Alona's.  It makes me cry to even think of a child having to live there one day.  I can now see why the orphanage director wanted us to stay outside the whole time.  I had to use the restroom while we were there and the director let me use the one off her office, so you would think it would have been the best and it was gross!!  I took pictures on my phone and will try to post them later.  The water was out so you had to wash your hands in a pail of water that was sitting on the floor.  Needless to say, I did not use it!!  The hallways were long, dark and dreary.., literally no lights.  The little bit of playgroud equipment was needing repair and the grounds were overgrown with weeds.  I can see why the children don't play outside but roam the streets.  And only one caregiver ever smiled or even acknowledged us.  I could write it off as maybe they didn't like Alona, but I watched them interact with a precious little boy named Vlad (the youngest at this orphanage--he is 4yrs old) and they appeared heartless.  There was no supervision of the older children.  I actually saw a boy about 16 come out of one of the doors with a cigarette in hand (not lit) but totally out in the open for anyone to see.  This orphanage is for older children, ages 10 to 16 unless they are a sibling group.  But it was like they had already written these children off as hopeless or unworthy.  I believe there are good orphanages in this country with caring individuals; but please DO NOT get lulled into believing that these children are okay.  We got asked all the time "why Ukraine?", "why not help a child in the US".  Our response was always "God called us to Ukraine" and Mike and I believe that with our whole heart!!  After seeing the conditions of this orphanage, I also can not believe that the conditions can be compared to anything in the U.S.  I also know why Alona can be so strong-willed because if she wasn't she would have never survived-- not her previous life nor her life in this orphanage.  Sorry to be such a downer.., but this is the REALITY of the situation.  Promise my next post will be more uplifting, because God has truly BLESSED us by opening our eyes and hearts to Ukraine.  I have said many times, that even if we never were able to adopt Alona, she will always be our daughter; and I would never want our lives to go back to the way it was two years ago.