Michele's Mom

Hi All,

I just received a call from Michele that her Mom passed away shortly after 5:30 PM Pacific time. Please continue to pray for Michele, her sister Lisa, brother-in-law Jim and step-dad Berl and extended family and friends. I know they are hurting and could use great comfort and strength from God right now.

Thanks,

Bruce

Update & Prayer Request

Hi All,

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has offered support and prayers over the last couple of weeks. It has been a tough couple of weeks, but we seem to be settling in and turning a corner on understanding how to integrate Natasha and Pasha into our home and care for and love them. Please continue to pray that N and P feel welcomed and loved.

On a side note, we received a call this morning from Michele's sister. Michele's Mom had a choking accident last night while attending a dinner. They were not able to revive her fully and she was admitted to the hospital and is on life support. Needless to say Michele is quite devistated at this unexpected event, especially on top of the adoption/integration process we're working through.

I was able to get her a flight today and she is in Santa Barbara right now and will be meeting with her sister and step-dad to determine next steps. Please pray that she has strength and comfort during this difficult time. Pray that her faith would be strong and that she would be a mighty witness for Christ. To our knowledge, her Mom is not a believer, nor are her sister or step-dad. So, while this is devistating to us, it must be utterly hopeless to them. Please pray that they would be comforted and strengthened as well.

Thanks again,

Bruce

Final Public Update

Hi All,

Many have asked about further blog entries from the DeYoung clan. We have decided that we will continue to blog, but the blog will become private. So, this is the final public post. We welcome everyone to follow the happenings in the DeYoung household now that our extended family is all together. I'm not sure how turning the blog to "private" works, but if you'd like to participate, please let us know.

Thanks,

Bruce

Home

Bruce, Natasha and Pasha were greeted by a loving group of sweet friends and Leah (she is also sweet and loving but family :-) ). Wow it was exhausting waiting for them I can only imagine how they felt.



Natasha and Pasha were overwhelmed but did just fine with the big group of people all staring at them. Bruce just started walking to the car. I'm kind of serious. He was ready to get on out of there.



They are all tucked in and I can hear someone snoring upstairs...glad they aren't in my room.



People say we should have some honeymoon time before we face the hard stuff. I'm all for that honeymoon stuff to last as long as possible.



Abigail, Bradley and Benjamin are glad they are finally here.



Wow we need a bigger house.



Thank all of you for your prayers for these sweet kids. You can't know how much of a difference you lifting us up to the Lord has meant. Keep it up we will need it.



I'm sure Bruce will give you more info once the jet lag wears off.



Blessings,



Michele

In Frankfurt....waiting

Our trip through KBP (Kiev Airport) was fairly uneventful. Our driver showed up promptly at 2:45 and we were at the airport by 3:30 (yes, AM). We waited until the ticket counter opened and then checked in without problems. Security went fine.

The customs lady asked to see our court documents, which thankfully Nadia had told me to keep handy. She left for a few minutes to go to a back office with our passports and boarding passes, which made me a little nervous. But, by this time Mrs. Campbell (family from Indiana who adopted a 6-7 year old boy) was in line right behind us. She said her facilitator told her to expect some of these types of shenanigans from customs just as a ploy to freak you out. I don't know what she did behind closed doors, but she came back and allowed us through, and that's what was most important.

Now we're sitting in the Frankfurt airport at our gate waiting for our flight. We have about 5 hours to wait, so I'm sure we'll get up and walk around a bit eventually.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Denver.

Thanks,

Bruce

Here are a few pics from the last few days.

First, one of N, P and our facilitator in Kherson, Tanya:

Here we are having lunch with the Houghton's, Julia and Karen Springs:

Here's the group after taking the fernicular up the hill and walking across the church square (can't remember which church):

And Richard insisted that he take a picture with me actually in it.

And, finally, here's a pic of the kids with our translator in Kiev, Nadia.:

Home Tomorrow!

Wow..I think I left too many thing until the end. Right now that doesn't matter because they are coming ready or not.

The flight into Denver is schedueled to arrive at 3:45pm. They do have to go through customs so who know when they will emerge from the glass doors. The flight is Luftansa 446 if you are wanting to help with the grand welcome at the airport and want to check on the flight status.



Can't wait to see Natasha Grace and Pasha Timothy...and of course Bruce Alvin :-).

Tix Changed For Tuesday

Coming home Tuesday. See some of you at the airport. Time for bed. Have to get us all up at 2:15 am for a 2:45 am pick up.

Bruce

Have Visas!

Hi All,

This has been a long day, but the net result is good! We have Visas and can now come home. I am trying to get our Wednesday tickets changed to Tuesday and if the change fees aren't too high, we'll come home tomorrow. If they are exorbitant, we will come home on Wednesday.

Our day started with a 6:45 wake-up call and then Oleg picked us up around 7:30. First stop was the US Embassy where we submitted our documents and completed the Immigration Visa request forms. That took about an hour and when we submitted them, the assistant said our Visas would be ready tomorrow at 2PM. I asked if there was any possibility of having them done today. She said she wasn't sure if we could get everything done, but they'd try. So, she said come back at 2PM.

From the embassy we went to the medical clinic where we waited for about an hour before our doctor arrived and was able to see us. The exams went fine and by about 12:30 we were finished there with our medical docs and headed back to the embassy. However, we had about an hour to kill and we had not eaten since a light breakfast at around 7am. So, we stopped and got a bite with our translator Nadia.

Then at 2PM we were back at the embassy where we met 2 other families waiting to get their newly adopted kids' Visas. One family was from Indiana and the other from Texas. We were happy when we were called up by the consolate representative who said they would probably be able to get the Visas today, but it would take another hour. In that hour we chatted with the other families and they received their Visas. Then we received ours too (!) at around 3PM.

So, we are officially done and will be heading home soon. We are awaiting confirmation of seat availability for flights tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of Wednesday. We're hoping to travel tomorrow and be home a day early.

I'll do a final update once we have seats confirmed.

Thanks!

Bruce

In Kiev Again!

Thanks to Michele's stealth (and brief) post, you know at the very least that we received our passports yesterday (Friday). Tanya called me at 3-ish and said that the passports were ready. So, we all headed over to the passport office with smiles on our faces as we anticipated a simple "pick-up". Well, you'll recall "it's Ukraine" so it was a little more involved than that.

When we arrived, Tanya went into the passport office and came back out moments later looking frustrated. Apparently, we were missing a stamp from the director and the director had stepped out. They did not know if or when he might come back. It was now about 4-ish so we just sat and waited outside. Finally, around 5PM we were ready to leave when he showed up!

Again, we thought, this will only take a few minutes....but, you got it, "it's Ukraine"! over an hour later they finally called us into the office where I double-checked and signed for the passports.

We had hoped that we could catch a night train back up to Kiev on Friday night. Unfortunately, Tanya had found out that, since the quarantine at the universities had been lifted and school was supposed to start again on Monday, there were no seats whatsoever to be purchased beforehand.

So, Tanya went to the train station around 8PM to be "first in line" to get any tickets that became available due to "no shows" or "special" availability. We waited at the Bible House for a call from Tanya. She called at 8:05 and said, "I have tickets for you and the taxi is on its way to pick you up." We met Tanya at the front of the train station and then made our way to the train car where our cabin was.

It turns out that our "special" tickets were for the cabin normally occupied by the ladies who "manage" this particular car...kind of like the train car "attendants". We didn't have "real" tickets, as these were obtained "under the table" and actually illegally. But hey, "it's Ukraine", so I was fine with it. Once we got on and took off, I sealed the transaction with the train attendant (i.e. I gave her the cash!) and we settled in for the night.

I don't think any of us slept too well, but we all knew that in a matter of 13 hours we'd be in Kiev on the next and final step of our journey.

Oleg met us at the train station and took us to our apartment. It is a very nice apartment, newly appointment with everything. It was a little more expensive than I had anticipated, but they dropped the price by $30 a night when I asked if they had anything cheaper. Sometimes, it pays to be a Dutchman! The apartment is about a 10 minute walk from the main Independence Square.

We just returned from a very much needed lunch at Cenentano's down by the square and Natasha and Pasha are watching TV while I check email and post to the blog.

We're hoping to go to church with Pasha's friend Julia tomorrow and then hope to meet up with Karen Springs in the afternoon. Monday we will go in the morning to complete medical exams and then to the US Consulate to get immigration Visas. If we're done with everything on Monday, I may just try to get us tickets home for Tuesday. We'll see how it goes.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to head out and get some groceries. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers. The last couple of days I've especially appreciated them.

More later,

Bruce

Spoiler Stealth Post

They have passports! he he

No Passports Yet...

I just spoke with Tanya. She was at the passport office to find out if our passports had arrived. Unfortunately, no passports arrived today from Kiev. So, now we will wait another day.

This means that we will not be able to come home early, as we had hoped. Please pray that the passports arrive tomorrow (Friday) or Saturday. This way we can get to Kiev in time to complete medical exams and US Visas and fly home on our scheduled return flight on Wednesday, November 25th.

We are all well, though all ready to take the next steps toward home. I had a bit of a "freak out" day today as it really set in that Michele and I now are parenting 5 kids, two of whom speak very little English! Yikes. Pray for patience, peace and endurance as I get us through the process in Ukraine, and then for the same as we arrive home to begin our new lives together as a family.

That's it for now.

Later,

Bruce

Have Kids....Will Travel...

Well, even if I don't know when we'll travel, I can certainly say "I have the kids!" Tanya and I stopped by the market this afternoon and picked up a bunch of cookies and candy and juice for Natasha and Pasha's roomies. We also brought a bagful of things for each caregiver. They were all very thankful. I took as many pictures as I could and I will post some later when I have a chance to breathe.

I don't think there were any tears in Pasha's group of friends. You know, they're all boys after all.

Natasha's roomies were a different story. All of them were very teary eyed and sad to see her go. We will be able to go back to the orphanage before we actually leave from Kherson, so they were happy about that. Nevertheless, I had to fight back my own tears watching them say good-bye. These are kids who have known each other for many years and are like sisters, no doubt.

One of Pasha's caregivers (whose name I can't recall) told me through her broken English that she was at the orphanage when Pasha showed up at the age of 3. She's known him and been part of his care ever since. I definitely got a pic of her with Pasha.

We also had a short sit-down meeting with Roman and Nikolai. Nikolai had some very nice things to say about Michele and me. Through Tanya, he said that he feels he is a pretty good judge of character when first meeting someone, and he told Natasha and Pasha that he believes they have very good parents now. He also told them to "be nice, work hard and do well in school."

Tanya will find out tomorrow the definitive answer about passports. Pray that they will be done tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. I'm itchin' to get home and get everyone together.

Thanks for your prayers.

Bruce

Here are a couple of pics from dinner tonight. Pasha was sitting on the other side of the table from Natasha and me.

T minus ? and counting....

Well, I was hoping to deliver good news today about the readiness of the passports, but alas, it is not to be. I just spoke with Tanya who had just visited the passport office here in Kherson. We are waiting to receive the confirmation of Natasha and Pasha's new ID numbers from Kiev. Once that is done, the passports can actually be scanned and sent up to Kiev to be printed. Had the IDs been confirmed today, we would have had a high probability of getting passports on Wednesday. Now, it will be at least Thursday or possibly Friday. So, we wait, and hope and pray that tomorrow brings better news.

The weekend overall was quite fun. I spent time with N and P both Saturday and Sunday. I learned that they really like to play UNO. It was quite fun just to hang out and talk about various things like foods they like and don't like, things to expect in our home when we get to Colorado, etc., etc., etc.

I brought their suitcases over on Sunday and then immediately left with a load of Pasha's wash. I was thinking that if we were going to leave on Wednesday, I needed to get his wash done so it has time to dry. Now we have plenty of time. When I returned from the Bible House, I brought a huge suitcase that Michele and I brought out with us on our initial trip in September/October. We knew we did not want to bring it back with us, so I brought it to Natasha and asked her if she thought Jana might like it. Since Jana will be leaving the orphanage next summer, I figured she'd have the most need for it. And, indeed, she was happy to take it.

The funny thing about returning from the Bible House was that Pasha had pretty much already packed all his things in his suitcase and Natasha had her cupboard cleared out and packed already too. I think they're ready to get out of Dodge! :)

Today I learned that I will be able to sign final papers and take them out of the orphanage tomorrow (Tuesday). So, that is the plan. Tonight I told them to enjoy their last night in the orphanage, because tomorrow they would be staying with me. I hope they have a good night. Tomorrow, Tanya and I will go get some cakes, pies, cookies, candy, and fun stuff and we will have a sort of celebration after classes are done. Then we will say our good-byes and head back to the Bible House.

Since we will now need to stay in Kherson for a couple more days, Tanya and I will look for a short-stay apartment tomorrow. The Bible House has been great, but it will be much more convenient to have a kitchen to cook in and more of a "home" to hang out in. The kids won't go back to school...we'll just hang out, watch movies, learn English, go shopping, etc.

Please pray that the ID's are confirmed and ready for tomorrow and that we can get passports on Thursday. If we can get to Kiev on Friday, there's still an outside chance that we could fly home on Sunday. It's a stretch, but I'll give it my best. Otherwise, we will likely just stay until Wednesday and fly home on our scheduled flight. Also, please pray that we find an apartment that is convenient and available starting tomorrow. I have several folks looking on my behalf.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading.

Bruce

A Long Day...But A Good Day

My day started at 5:30 this morning as I awoke to meet Tanya at 6:00AM for the trip to Genechisk. This is a town about 2 1/2 hours drive south and east of Kherson, pretty much on the Black Sea.

While Tanya sawed logs in the front seat, I could bearly fit my lanky legs in the back-seat of the Tercel-sized vehicle, so I was pretty much stretched across the whole back seat. I spent my time listening to Toby (Mac), Audio A., and several other albums that are on Bradley's IPOD (thanks bud!).

We arrived right on time...8:30AM. Genechisk is the city where both Natasha and Pasha's births are registered and where we needed to have the two new birth certificates issued. We weren't sure if everything would go well, but thankfully the "not-so-nice" administrator lady was out sick and her "much-nicer" assistant was there to help today. So, by 10:00 AM, we had two new birth certificates with us listed as the parents of Natasha and Pasha, and we headed back on the road for another 2 1/2 hour drive back.

We got back to Kherson around 1PM and then spent the next 2 hours getting new IDs filed and getting the new birth certificates "notarized" by at least three different offices. Even Tanya was flabergasted at the number of people with their hands in this pot.

Around 3:00 we picked up Natasha and Pasha to try and tackle passport scanning today as well. Tanya had been told that we would be able to be seen shortly after 3:00, so we arrived at the passport office about 3:20. There we waited...and waited...and waited. The kids are not entirely healthy, so they both had masks lazily fitted over their noses and mouths. We played games on my cell phone and on the IPOD. Finally, at 5:00PM, they were ready to see us. We got pics taken and I signed the papers for the passports. They are supposed to be ready by Wednesday! Yay!

I got home a little before 6 after dropping the kids off. I hadn't eaten much all day, so I jumped a bus down to Bourgeous and had some of the best salad and borsch with pampuschkas. I'm now back at the Bible House trying to do a little bit of work before I fall over asleep.

Please pray for Natasha and Pasha's health. They seem to be getting better but I'd like them to be feeling completely well when we leave next week. Also pray for Natasha as she was quite serious tonight and Tanya said she is a bit anxious about everything. I'm not sure if she is anxious about the process completing successfully, or just about the impending move to a completely new culture. In either case, pray that she (and Pasha too) experience God's peace over the next several days.

Thanks for reading!

Bruce

Court Docs In Hand...

Well, not my hands specifically, but Tanya's hands!

So, it is official. Our family has just expanded by 2! Now the final paper-push starts.

Tanya thought that we were going to travel to Genichesk today (Thursday) to take care of birth certificates. It turns out that we will not go until tomorrow. Apparently, this particular regional office is notorious for being problematic. With some assistance from Roman (the orphanage lawyer, who rocks!) we believe that we will be able to get everything done in one trip tomorrow (Friday).

So, we have to be at the Genichesk city registrar's office right at 8:30AM on Friday and it is 200+KM away. We'll be leaving from the Bible House at 6AM and Tanya already told me she'd probably be snoring a good portion of the drive! (She's not a morning person. :)

We are hopeful that we can get everything done right away in the morning and then return to Kherson to finish up the rest of the paper work in the afternoon. Our goal is to be able to submit for passports on Saturday. Please pray that everything goes as planned.

I can't believe Michele stealth-posted from Colorado! She's sneaky! I think I've got a sinus/ear thing going on, so I'm taking antibiotics and sudafed and doing my saline nasal lavage each day. Natasha had a bit of a fever yesterday and the orphanage doctor told her she would not go back to class at least until Monday. She wasn't terribly sad about that!

I also met Pat and Terry yesterday. They are a couple from south of San Antonio, TX who are here adopting as well. They took a blind referral from the SDA for a sweet 14 year old girl at the same orphanage as Natasha and Pasha. Her name is Viola. They had their 1st court date on Wednesday so are now counting the days to the end. I hope to connect with them at some point in time for dinner.

Well, it's not the most exciting or entertaining post, but at least it keeps you up to date.

I'll post more tomorrow after our trip to Genichesk.

Later,

Bruce

Cheater Post From Colorado

Hi Friends and Family,
I'm pretty sure a blog negates the need for a Christmas letter, WooHoo!!!

Obviously things are a bit boring in Ukraine right now. I talked with Bruce and he seems OK, just bored and a bit down and getting sick. Natasha is also sick with a fever and soar throat. When the kids get sick they get worried that things won't work out with the adoption. We have told them that they are ours sick or not. I'm sure they hear things for others that keep them worried though.

Please keep Natasha, Pasha and Bruce in your prayers as they finish up in Ukraine.
Thanks
Michele

Extra! Extra! Read all about it....

Alas, the chickens are no more. Okay, I know this is not about the happenings with the DeYoungs in the Ukraine, but I had to post about it anyway. Hey, I have my blog-o-sphere faithful to answer to!

I spoke with Michele and the kids yesterday and the sad news of the day was that the last of our chickens (the 4 remaining), met their early demise on Saturday. Apparently, a wily fox (I know coyotes are "wily", not sure about foxes), grabbed three of the four for a nice meal after the coop door was accidentally closed without the chickens inside.

I know you're all wondering about the fourth. Apparently, in a classic "fight-or-flight" response, she realized she was no match for the fox, and ran out the side gate into the street. There, on a street where we have maybe 20 cars pass per day, she met her early fricassee under the wheel of a passing auto. So sad.

Michele's final word on chickens? I am the "chicken whisperer"...and we may only have chickens if I'm around. Hmmm....maybe Natasha and Pasha will be my little "chicken wranglers" with me.

Life here in Ukraine carries on 1 day at a time. The weekend was actually quite beautiful.

I spent a good bit of Saturday morning with Natasha and Pasha and my new-found friends at the orphanage. I asked if they needed anything from "outside" to which they replied "fruit, candy and socks". So, mid-day I headed to the outdoor market and spent all of about $8 to buy bunches of bananas, bags of apples and oranges, some chocolate bars and, of course, 7 pairs of socks. They were thrilled.

I went to church on Sunday and sat in the congregation repeatedly saying to myself, "'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am also' means that God is indeed here...I just don't understand a word he is saying right now." That's alright though, I know from the overhead slides the pastor was talking about лущаофжвл, йзлсоащулвоф, and аофзсдаурлы. (I may have misspelled some of that.... :) )

Sunday afternoon I went back to visit at the orphanage again. Natasha said she had not felt well in the morning, but Jana had brought her some medicine (maybe vitamin I or T?) and she felt better. Pasha seemed fine, just still coughing all over anyone and everything. We played UNO, looked at pictures, and I took pictures of several friends who said they also wanted to have a family.

This morning I received a call from Tanya. She had heard from the orphanage that 50+ kids now are sick with the flu. She wasn't sure what flu it is (I suspect they really do not even know if it really is the flu), but suggested I not go by today. I may just pop in for a quick "hello" later today. The bummer about so many kids being sick is that their "isolation" area is not nearly large enough to handle that number. So, it means that kids who may be sick will be hanging out in their normal rooms around the rest of the kids, which is a recipe for more spreading. Hopefully, they can keep it under control.

Well, that's it for now. In addition to my exciting adventures, work is keeping me busy, so I better get some of that done while I have the chance.

Final court papers will be ready Thursday. Pray then that ID re-issuing, birth certificates and passports will go speedily along!

Thanks,

Bruce

A Crazy Exciting Day!

Well, not really. I'm just messing with you!

It was really more of the same. Although I did learn a few things about Ukraine or maybe about myself today that I'd like to share with you:

1. Sitting in a restaurant for your one meal out each day can be kind of lonely.
   Sitting in a restaurant for your one meal out each day while playing Sudoku on your borrowed cell phone rocks!
   
   
2. Walking the quarter mile or so through the old cemetery on the way to downtown at dusk is not so scary.
   Walking the quarter mile or so through the old cemetery on the way back to the Bible House in pitch black at 8PM is a bit more scary, especially when someone is walking behind you about 20 yards the whole way.
   
   
3. Being here by myself does not give me much opportunity to speak English in sentences longer than a few mono-syllabic words. Even when I speak English with someone who clearly understands English, I still use the same few mono-syllabic words (and even a little bit of a Russian accent....).
   
   
4. I know I have super human hearing when I can pick up an English word spoken in a hallway filled with kids at the internot (Today I met a couple from Texas adopting a 15 year old girl at the same orphanage as Natasha and Pasha. I hope to meet up with them for dinner or something soon.)
   
   
5. Surgical masks are like gold (and I scored one today for free!).
   
   
6. You don't need to ride the buses to get around Kherson...you just need good walking shoes and a lot of time on your hands (I haven't ridden a bus yet, and have walked every where. I'm not getting on those buses....you just know they're filled with all those people who have swine flu and haven't scored a free mask like I did!)
   
   
7. Even if you don't speak Russian, you can still usually communicate OK with servers helping you at restaurants. It becomes infinitely more difficult when all the servers in the restaurants are wearing surgical masks and all you have to go on is eye contact!
   
   
8. A few good chuckles watching a re-run of The Office can really lift one's spirits.
   
   
9. Hearing a 14 year old girl tell the 14 year old girl that you're adopting that she would like to have a family too, breaks your heart no matter how many times it happens.
   
   
10. Aw heck, I don't have anything else. I just wanted to have a list of 10 things on my post today.
    
    

Well, the only real news of today is that our request to have the 10 day waiting period waived or reduced was denied. Oh well, at least we tried. Tanya said that the judge was sympathetic but there was nothing she could do about it. So, we wait. One week from today we'll have the final court decree and we can start sprinting again.

Thanks for everyone's prayer support. Please pray that Pasha would feel well soon and that Natasha and her roomies would use the hand sanitizer I gave them today! :)

Later,

Bruce

Wait Day Numero Uno...

Even though I've only been here 3 days, I'm already starting to get into a rhythm. Here's a typical day in the life:

8/9AM - drag myself out of bed...feeling a bit woozy from my double dose of Nyquil the night before (Nyquil rocks to get over jet lag in a jiffy!!)

9-12 - Catch up on work stuff...emails...reports....blah blah blah.

12-1ish - Go out for a walk either to town or to the outdoor market. Have my "eat-out" meal and protein for the day.

2ish - 3 or 3:30 - Catch up on more work stuff.

3:30 go see Natasha and Pasha for an hour or so before they have to go to "homework class". Due to the swine flu scare, I may not take them out of the orphanage, but I may go in.

5ish - Walk around a bit...enjoy the sites of Kherson...see who's burning what in the streets...say "hi" to the little black dog...make my way back to Bible House by 6ish

6ish - Have some "dinner" .... usually Ramen noodles, some yogurt, dried fruit, a couple of those wafer things they have here that I love (!), and of course, a coke light!

7-ish -10-ish - More work usually as folks are in the office and sending me emails and asking me to do stuff.

10-ish - 11-ish - Watch a recent TV show using ninjavideo.net (last night I watched 2 episodes of House...it was awesome!)

Yep...that's my routine. I've been getting tired around mid-day since my body thinks it's 3 or 4 AM...but I push through it with a little caffeine.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I sat with Natasha in her sitting area. I hadn't re-installed the Russian-English-Russian translation software on my laptop since returning to the states. My laptop contracted a "virus" when Michele and I were here and I had to rebuild the entire system when I was at home. Anyway, re-installed the software and configured the Russian keyboard so that we could chat. A couple of Natasha's suite-mates were hanging out and interested in seeing what I was saying and asking questions. One of her roomies told Natasha that she would like to have a family too. Every time I hear someone at the orphanage say that, it just breaks my heart... So I'll be coming back with pictures for all you families who are feeling the tug to adopt! :)

Pasha came by for a little while too. He proudly displayed the missing tooth that was loose yesterday but came out last night. We chatted just for a few minutes then he was off doing something else (I think his caregiver called him to help clean).

By 4:45 Natasha's caregiver came in to tell the girls it was time for study classes. So, I packed everything up and headed out.

When I got back to the Bible House, I called Tanya. With all the hoopla about swine flu in Ukraine, I asked her if she would be willing to go to court and ask if they would waive or reduce the 10 day waiting period. She will be at court today (Wednesday) and will ask. She doesn't know what the judge will say, but I figured "nothing ventured, nothing gained!" Please pray that the court would decide in our favor and help us speed up the process. So far, the closure of the SDA for 3+ weeks is not affecting our process. But I don't want anything else to happen that could hinder our coming home in November.

Enough for now. Time to get some work done.

Later,

Bruce

Been there...done that.

Until today, I could not say the above about attending Ukraine adoption court. Now I can! Yep, I received a call from Tanya last night while waiting for the train that court was scheduled for today (Monday) at 1PM.

After arriving in Kherson this morning at about 6AM, I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep at the Bible House where I'm staying once again. Then Tanya and Oksana (regional inspector) picked me up and we headed to court.

The three of us met up with Roman at the court building. Due to swine flu worries, all the schools and internots are "closed". For schools, this means that no one is going to school for the next 2 to 3 weeks. For the internots, this means that the kids may not leave the premises. So Roman was at court representing Natasha and Pasha.

Court only lasted about 20 minutes or so. The judge asked me a few questions (where do you live, what do you and your wife do for a living, what is your home like, do you have additional children, etc.). Then Oksana and Roman both did their part and the judge read a bunch of documents. There were two additional ladies in the courtroom and Tanya told me they were "public assessors", I think that just means that they were there to observe and be witnesses to the process. I did notice, however, at the end that the judge asked both of them if they had any questions for me or concerns about the adoption. They both smiled at me and indicated they had no objections (I think that means I made a good impression).

So, that's it! We are now in the 10 day waiting period. We will receive the official court decree next week Thursday (11/12) at which time the adoption becomes "really official". Thereafter, we will apply for new birth certificates and passports, a process which can take 7-10 days. Once we have birth certificates and passports, the three of us will head back up to Kiev where we will get medical exams and immigration Visas. The plan is to head home on the 25th...and I'm really hoping we can do that to enjoy Thanksgiving in Colorado!

After court, I walked to the internot and was able to see Natasha and Pasha. They were happy to see me and both gave me big hugs. I tried to communicate that we had had court today and that everything had gone smoothly. I then tried to explain the timeline by drawing pictures and explaining what the rest of the process would look like. Between my pictures and their understanding some basic English, I'm pretty sure they know what's going on. When I drew a picture of an airplane with an arrow to "USA", they definitely understood that! :)

Well, that's it for now. I'll visit with them and other kids at the internot each afternoon and for a while on Saturday and Sunday, but won't be able to take them anywhere. It's a bit of a bummer, but we'll make the best of it.

Thanks for all your prayers. Please pray that next week the process to get the birth certificates and passports will go smoothly and quickly. Also, with all the worries about swine flu, please pray that we all stay healthy for the next 3 weeks especially.

Later,

Bruce

Back in the saddle again...

It felt a bit like I was back in the saddle again today after 3 flights (Denver-Philadelphia-Frankfurt-Kiev) and about 14 hours in a plane seat. But, I'm back safely in Kiev and waiting in the train station for the train to Kherson.

There's apparently a significant flu outbreak here, in particular in the western part of the country. So, Nadia told me that they have actually "closed" down that part of the country. No travel into or out of the western region for the next week or so. A ton of people here in Kiev are wearing surgical masks as a precaution. Nadia had purchased a few of those basic "dust" masks you can get at the hardware store (like Home Depot) and she gave me one. She said that the pharmacies are all sold out of the surgical masks.

She doesn't think it's as bad down in Kherson...it's mostly the worry about what might happen in the next week in the big metro cities like Kiev.

Nadia gave me papers from the SDA to take with me to Kherson. I'm really hoping we can have court tomorrow (Monday). Let's get this ball rolling!

I hope all my state-side friends and family remembered to turn your clocks back!

Appreciate your prayers for continued safe travel and reuniting with Natasha and Pasha.

More tomorrow.

Bruce

Back Home

We arrived safely back home today at about 1:30PM mountain time. We had to do two "OJs" in the airport to make both our connecting flights. Happy to be back home and hanging out with the Colorado kiddoes. Hoping and praying that the Kherson kiddoes are well.

Thanks for everyone's support and prayers over the last month. We'll pick things up again when I return to Ukraine in a couple of weeks to finish the process.

Bruce & Michele

Back in Kiev

The overnight train from Kherson to Kiev was uneventful. We actually did get some sleep and enjoyed seeing some of the countryside as we approached Kiev from the south.

After arriving, our facilitator took us right to the US Embassy where we signed the paperwork that required both our signatures. It took about an hour and then we were done!

Then we were off to meet Karen Springs at her office to retrieve the keys for her apartment, and then our driver dropped us off.

We walked around a bit and had a bite to eat, but it has turned really cold up here in Kiev. Yesterday in Kherson it was actually very summer-like. Today in Kiev it feels like winter is nearly here!

We met Karen for dinner at one of her favorite Italian restaurants near the center. It was a great meal and we've had a great time learning about the work Karen is doing here with CBN and also had some laughs about our experiences over the last several weeks.

Tomorrow is a free day. We leave Friday morning at 5:30 AM (!), so it will be an early morning.

Not a lot of news today. Just want to let everyone know we are safe and sound...hanging out at Karen's apartment the next coupe of days.

Thanks for reading.

Bruce

A Door Closed....A Window Opened....

We are heading to the train station in about 1/2 hour to catch an overnight train back to Kiev tonight. No one was able to reach the region and get ahold of the executive committe member, so we have a new plan. I'll be heading back to the states with Michele on Friday, and I (yep, just me...this is the "opened window") will return for the first several weeks of November to complete the adoption process for Pasha and Natasha.

Gotta go. We'll post more details tomorrow.

Pray for safe travels....

Thanks!

Bruce & Michele

Prayer Requests...

If you think about it today, please pray specifically for the following:

1. That the member of the executive committee in the region where Yana and Natasha were born is available tomorrow.
   
2. That he will sign the document which agrees with the court's earlier decision to allow the separation of Yana and Natasha.

If both of these happen, we will likely (at least as of today!) be able to have a court date on Friday or Monday. If things don't happen in our favor, then both Michele and I will likely come home this week and then come back sometime in November (after Yana's 18th birthday) to complete the process.

Thanks!

No News

Can you believe it........We still don't know if the separation papers are going to be accepted. Well we do know something. We won't make our Tuesday court date. We will tell you as soon as we know anything. The mantra is, Good news, Good news, Good news. Keep praying.

Pasha is sick. Please pray that he gets better soon. Thanks.

Still Waiting...

We had a good day yesterday (Sunday). Met the kids and about 20+ additional orphanage kids at the bus stop to go to church in the morning. Natasha stayed with us during the service instead of going with the youth. We learned last week that she didn't like the "craziness" of the youth service. Pasha did go with the youth and the rest of the orphanage kids did as well.

The service seemed extra long...probably because we didn't have an interpreter and it actually did go a bit over 2 hours! But, we both understand a few words (for example, we knew he was talking about Paul, which is "Pavil" in Russian...and Michele was sure she heard something about "by the blood of Christ"....)

Afterward....(Michele rip's computer out of Bruce's hands!)
Bruce is an absolute Bolg-Hog! I never get to say stuff. He says I type too slowly...which is true.
I would relay information differently. He is all about ALL the facts, I like a little more flavor and mystery as to what is really happening. Later when you and I speak in person we could have a real conversation about the events that have taken place. That is the way humans should communicate anyway ! Unlike Kip, I don't love technology.

Anyway..church was long.
We now wait for the call about separation papers for the girls. Today will help us decide if we stay now and finish things up or if we make plans for both of us to leave and come back when Jana is 18 on the 24th. ( she gives us smiles now when we see her at the orphanage).

I'm sure I have left a bunch of stuff out.....ON PURPOSE. Let's have coffee when we get back, or even talk on the phone.

Didn't my entry wet your appetite?

Bruce is taking the computer back.............

Nope...nothing else to say. Michele summed it up nicely. Oh, OK...one more factual tidbit. On the way home from church we saw a bunch of kids spray painting on a wall on our street. When Oksana came to the Bible House, she said it was "paint festival" or something like that. We all walked down to where they were painting and looked at their work. Pasha took some photos and when we got back to the Bible House did some of his own "artwork" on the art pad. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Later,

Bruce & Michele

Another Miracle...Please?

We just got off the phone with Tanya. We hadn't head from her since our documents had been shipped up to the SDA in Kiev. I could overhear her talking to Michele and heard, "It's not good." I thought, "What now?"

So, here's the scoop. The SDA is not accepting Jana's separation papers. Tanya will go on Monday to the city where Jana and Natasha were born to see if the judge/court there will "OK" the separation. Apparently, the judge in the city where they were born has the power to do this. However, Tanya said it's very unlikely that this will happen, since the Kherson region is strongly against the separation of siblings.

So, we are asking everyone to pray that the judge will look at the situation and miraculously choose to "OK" the separation papers....even if everyone else is saying this is unlikely. We know this is all in God's hands, but our patience is wearing thin and we need to bring this process to conclusion as quickly as possible.

We will update everyone on Monday after we hear back from Tanya. Until then, pray to the God for whom nothing is impossible, that the impossible will happen here in Ukraine.

Thanks,

Bruce & Michele

Moving forward....

Sorry for not posting anything new yesterday. It was finally a day during which there were no "gotchas" and we're thankful for that.

I was able to work quite a while in the morning, then we headed on the #8 for lunch at Сафз Мояе (Cafe Monet). After lunch Tanya called and let us know that she had picked up all the court papers with the conclusion that was promised the day before. She was at the orphanage waiting for Nikolai to sign another paper and hanging out with Natasha and Pasha. So, we headed over there.

Since Michele will be leaving a week from today (all fingers and toes crossed), Tanya wanted to make sure we had the passport/Visa request papers signed and notarized. So we spent the afternoon waiting at the notary's office, then getting some food for Tanya, Natasha and Pasha, then waiting some more at the notary's office and then heading back to the orphanage.

There was a lot of hustle and bustle at the orphanage as today (Friday) is the big 50 year anniversary celebration. All the kids (it seemed) were outside cleaning up the grounds, or decorating rooms or hanging artwork that the kids had done. We greeted Nikolai who seemed to be in a particularly jovial mood. Then, after Nikolai had signed the final set of papers, Tanya and Roman double-checked everything, and packaged everything up for the overnight ride to Kiev. Then Tanya was off to the train station to put the package on the train.

We took the kids back to the Bible House where we tried on their new winter coats that Michele had bought at the market, had some snacks and just hung out. Pasha was strictly ordered to be back at the orphanage at 5:30 to help with cleaning the grounds...apparently he "missed out" on some of the work his group had been doing while we were all at the notary's office. So, we brought them back and said our goodnights.

Today (Friday) the package will be picked up at the train station and taken directly to the SDA. The plan is for them to do whatever they do and have the return package ready later today for the return trip to Kherson. Tanya will pick everything up over the weekend or on Monday in preparation for court on Tuesday.

So, we "put one foot in front of the other" (whoever can comment first on what Christmas special those words come from and who sings them...hint...hint...will get a special prize! OK, not really, I'm just trying to infuse a little bit of interest in this rather boring post...) and keep moving forward.

This morning (Friday) we will go to the celebration at the orphanage which starts at 10AM. We're looking forward to seeing Natasha, Zinna and Rimma in their singing/dancing performance. We keep kidding Pasha that he should be up there too, but he's not having any of it!

Thanks again for everyone's prayers. We greatly appreciate them.

Bruce & Michele

Good News!

Tanya called this morning while we were on the #1 bus headed out of town on an "adventure". She had been at the court this morning and had heard that the judge was going to conclude that the two different names referenced on the birth certificate and the relinquishment documents were, in fact, the same person, Pasha's Mom. The court will provide their "official" conclusion tomorrow (Thursday) and all the required papers will be whisked away to Kiev to the SDA.

We will not be able to keep our original court date, but it's only 1 day delay. Our official court date is now Tuesday, October 13 at 11:30 AM.

The only way to explain how a process that typically takes up to 2 weeks could be accomplished in 2 days is that God's hand was/is on the process. We were pretty blunt with Tanya yesterday when we told her that we needed to keep our Monday court date and that Michele needed to be in Kiev no later than Thursday to catch her flight home on Friday. And, we earnestly asked God to make it clear whether we were to take Pasha home or not. We believe He answered in a big way, and we are excited and comfortable with where things are at.

Please pray that the court papers are ready tomorrow (Thursday) as promised and that they get to the SDA in Kiev and back by Monday afternoon. Also, please pray that the judge at our court doesn't raise any stink about either the issue with Natasha's sister or with Pasha's mother.

Thanks again for praying! Now's not the time to stop! :)

Bruce & Michele

Hypochondriac or truly ill?

I know some of you are shocked that I (Michele) haven't posted anything regarding my health yet. Fear not, my self control has wained...let the drama begin!

I have already finished my antibiotics and an I'm eyeing Bruce's. Just before we left Bruce and I both had the swine flu. Now the doctor just said "flu", but I'm sure it was the "swine flu"!

After a few weeks of the "swine flu", I still had a fever. Just before getting on the plane to come to Ukraine, the doctor said it was a "virus". I was sure the "swine flu" was re-emerging so I started taking my antibiotics. I still had trouble breathing the first week we were in Ukraine. I'm sure it was the beginnings of pneumonia. Good thing I had those antibiotics!

We had lunch at a new friend Alys' house earlier and she told us that 30% of the Ukrainian population has TB. I'm sure they've all sneezed on me! So now everytime I have a cough, I think it must be TB!

Yesterday, I noticed a perfectly round red dot on my wrist. I asked Bruce what he thought, and he just shrugged it off. I'm sure I have a botfly burrowing in there. Fear not, I know what to do. I saw a show on PBS about a guy who got a botfly. He smothered the open wound with vaseline and waited for the suffocating botfly to poke it's head out for air and then he grabbed it with a tweezers! I'm prepared!!

I gotta go. Time to wash my hair with lice shampoo. My head itches all the time....

Untitled...

Rather than leave the title empty (i.e. the post "untitled") I decided to name the post "untitled". Why? Because I don't think I have a creative cell in my body right now in order to come up with a title that synopsizes the last couple of days.

We heard from Tanya yesterday (Monday) evening around 6 PM from the region where she and Roman had gone. They did, indeed, find Pasha's Mom. However, she did not have any paperwork that would corroborate the name differences on the birth certificate and the separation papers.

We had thought she could simply sign a new paper with an explanation, have it notarized, and we'd be good to go! Nope...that's not the way it works.

So, Tanya spent today at the inspector's office and then the afternoon at court. The issue is now before a judge to decide whether there is sufficient information to declare Pasha available for adoption or not. This process normally takes about 2 weeks. However, we were very clear with Tanya that we do not have 2 weeks. In fact, we need to have our court date no later than Tuesday/Wednesday of next week in order for Michele to make her flight home and for me to return a couple of weeks later. So, they are going to try to cram into 2 days a process that normally takes 2 weeks! I know what you're thinking...."this is not possible in Ukraine!"

The plan at this time is for Tanya to go back to court tomorrow and make sure that progress is being made, with a target of Thursday to render a conclusion. That conclusion will be either thumbs up or thumbs down on Pasha's availability to be adopted. We have been thinking and praying about this all weekend and are emotionally spent. We go back and forth between anticipating that Pasha will come with us to preparing to break the news to him that he will not be coming with us. I won't say we're quite at "peace" yet with either conclusion, but we strongly believe God is in the midst of this and the conclusion rendered will not be out of his will.

So, we wait...some more. We will have an update from Tanya tomorrow and hope to have more info on whether in fact the courts will be able to render a conclusion on Thursday. Please pray that it happens and pray that the conclusion is clear and that our hearts are prepared either way.

Thanks for reading.

Bruce and Michele

The beginning of the end...and beginning of the beginning...

We've been in Ukraine for 2 weeks now. I wouldn't say it has exactly "flown"by, but we told our Colorado kiddoes today that Mom would be home in a mere two weeks! That sounds a lot better than 4 weeks, doesn't it? So, this is the beginning of the end...in one sense.

In another sense, we are rapidly approaching the beginning of something entirely new...for our family...and for a couple of kids from Ukraine. So, in another sense, it's the beginning of the beginning.

I know, I know, how philosophical of me! Actually, I think it's just the apple streudel sitting weird in my stomach and we just watched the season 6 1st episode of House...which was really about new beginnings and transitions and healing. OK...off topic....can someone please explain why there are so many "House MD" t-shirts in Kiev. It was bizarre!

Anyway, we met Natasha and Pasha this morning for church and we weren't late so the caregiver did not have any reason to be angry with Pasha. Michele sat with Natasha and Rimma. We were so glad Rimma was there because we knew Natasha would not want to go to the youth service without some "encouragement". Here they are on the trolley bus:

Yes, that is a phone connected to Natasha's ear. Hmmm...going to go through some wthdrawal symptoms when we gуt to America, for sure! :)

Pasha stood with a group of girls including Zinna and Vikka. I tried taking a pic, but it was way too crowded and bouncy ыщ the pic was not clear.

At church, Natasha did not want to go with the youth group, but she had told us earlier that she would. We stuck to our guns, and she reluctantly went. I think she is hesitant to do new things and we were really glad to have Zinna there holding her hand!

We had contacted Sergey (friend of Jim and Kari Volf who is Ukrainian but speaks excellent english and who's family adopted two Ukrainian girls) the night before and he was planning on meeting us at the church. It turns out that the church we have gone to is where his uncle is a pastor. So, he showed up and was interpreting for us during the service. It was great....until they introduced an American Bible teacher who was in town for some teaching seminars and who was to deliver the message today! How funny was that! So, we heard an English message that they had to translate to Russian. This was fortunate for us since Sergey could only stay for about 20 minutes and had to go.

After the service, we went down to introduce our selves to the two American gentlemen who were there. The main person was Rick Deighton who is board member with the Nortwest Science Museum in Nampa, ID. Get this though....his home town is Longmont! We had a good chuckle about that. I didn't catch his colleague's name...but hey were both here for the week doing teaching. We also met another American from Kentucky who farms 17,000 acres of land here outside of Kherson with a Ukrainian partner. He comes to Ukraine 3-4 times a year to help manage the farming business. It was a really ineresting morning.

After church, we tried to get Rimma and Zinna to go to lunch with us, but they were sure that their caregiver would not allow it. So, we headed across the street to Oskar and ate at the Oskar Food cafeteria. We all ate our full for the sum of $10. You can bet we'll be going back to Oskar Food cafeteria again!

After Oskar we took the bus back to town and to the outdoor market where we were hoping to shop for pants for Pasha and a winter coat for Natasha. But, it was misty/raining and there were scads of people around, so it was a bust. After giving up on the outdoor market, we walked back to the Bible House where we had some snacks, tried to teach Pasha how to play Gin (I think he partially gets it) and used the English-Russian-English translator program a bit.

Since we had not asked permission from any one in particular to take the kids for the day, we wanted to get them back at a reasonable hour. So, we headed back to the orphanage around 4PM and said our good-byes for the day. We typically see them only in the afternoons after they are done with school during the week, so Saturdays and Sundays tend to be longer days.

After our rather large lunch at Oskar Food (ruining our diet plans, BTW...), we decided not to have a big dinner. So, we headed to our favorite restaurant by the walking mall (we call it the "Pearl Street of Kherson"). We still don't know what the name of this place is, but it was quite cosy inside after the couple of cold rainy days we have had. Here's a pic of the restaurant sign if anyone cares to translate it for us:

We split a really good pasta with chicken, mushrooms and peas smothered in a creamy mushroom sauce and then each had our own apple streudel. Yep, I thought streudel was a German institution, but this restaurant does streudel really well!

After dinner, we made our way back to the Bible House on Bus 8, and watched the season opener of House (streaming video on ninjavideo.net). Now it's time to hit the sack, and prepare for what we hope is an eventful week! We'll update the blog as soon as we find out anything tomorrow. Tanya and Roman are leaving in the morning for the city/town/region where Pasha's Mom is supposed to be living. Please pray they find her and we can carry on with the process. If they cannot find here, we will have some difficult decisions to make.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers. We certainly appreciate them.

B & M

I almost threw-up....

....This was Michele's sentiment while we were driving in a taxi with our facilitator Tanya. We were on our way to her apartment after having said a brief hello to Pasha and Natasha at the orphanage. While we were at the orphanage, Tanya told us that they would likely get the marriage license information necessary from the region where Pasha's Mom had surrendered him, in order to complete the documents necessary to send everything to the SDA in Kiev and get our final court date. She even gave us an estimate that we would have our court date on Monday, October 12th! We were ecstatic.

Then there were additional, somewhat heated, discussions with Roman (orphanage lawyer) and a determination that Tanya would, in fact, have to travel to the region to get the original copy of the document. "Not a problem", she said. "I will go there tomorrow (Saturday) since their offices are open." Great!

Then we got in the taxi to check out Tanya's apartment where we were thinking of staying after the Bible House. On the way there, she was on the phone with Oksana (the regional inspector). Again, there was some heated dialog, and finally she hang up and turned back to us and said, "I have some bad news."

This was the first time in the week that we have been here that she even hinted at anything being "bad news". So, we knew it was something significant.

Basically, after additional phone calls to the region where Pasha's Mom is living, the marriage certificate/document did not have the required information on it to clear up the problems with Pasha's paperwork! Basically, there is no document that anyone can find that will clear this up sufficiently for the courts to accept. She even uttered the dreaded words, "If we cannot figure this out, then Pasha is really not even available for adoption."

About this time, Michele opened her window and put a cold cloth against her forehead. When we stopped and got out of the car, she said, "I almost threw up... With the thought of telling a child that thought we were going to adopt and now we're not!" It was a miserable moment.

But, we will not despair. God is clear in that he calls us not to be anxious about anything but bring everything to him in prayer. So, that's what we're doing and that's what we are asking you to do, too.

After seeing Tanya's apartment, she was on the phone again and working her magic. She told us that she and Roman (orphanage lawyer) will be going on Monday to the region where Pasha's Mom is supposed to be living. Their goal? Find Pasha's Mom and have her sign something that "re-relinquishes" her rights to Pasha or somehow clears up the current name fiasco.

By now you're probably thinking to yourself, "That's got to be like finding a needle in a haystack." and you might be right. But that's the task at hand and we have learned in the week that we've been here that Tanya is a fighter and a go-getter. She even told us, "I can't imagine anything but a positive outcome for this." Also, Roman has presented himself as an ally and we are thankful that the two of them will be searching for this particular needle in the haystack on Monday and Tuesday.

After all this, Tanya assured us that if they have everything ready by Wednesday, that we will still make our court date of October 12th. This certainly was encouraging, and would allow Michele to be home right on time.

We really believe this is God's timing to bring Pasha into our home and be a family to him. We truly believe the same for Natasha, but the focus is on Pasha because of his paper mess.

So, please pray that Tanya and Roman will miraculously find Pasha's Mom on Monday and can get the paper trail nailed shut. Please pray also that we would all (including Pasha and Natasha) see God's hand in bringing us together as a family with our Colorado kiddoes, and that we would even have the opportunity to pray with them through this situation.

Thanks again for all your prayers. Keep them coming now more than ever.

Bruce & Michele

PS. On a lighter note, I have to say that in addition to all of the above, I have this huge zit on the tip of my nose! Aaargh! I think the kids are a little frightened of me at the moment. I remember when I was 18 thinking how great it was going to be to be done with acne when I was 20. Then I thought the same thing at 30....and 40.... Now, it's time for Acutane! No one approaching 50 should be dealing with acne! OK...rant off....I feel better now.

Waiting...Anticipating...

The saying goes, "No news is good news." I don't like that saying. Today we have "no news", but it is not "good news". I spoke briefly with Tanya this afternoon and she said they had no upates on the status of Pasha's papers. Bummer! We were hoping for some miraculous discovery of the specific piece of paper that would clear everything up so we could go to court.

Oh well. We walk the path. God knows the route.

We did spend some time with Natasha and Pasha today. We met them at the orphanage and asked their caregivers if we could take them back to the Bible House so we could talk with our kids back in Colorado. They were accomodating as long as we had them back by 5PM for studies.

We were able to chat briefly with the kiddoes in Colorado before they took off for school. There were only waves between the Colorado kids and the Ukraine kids, but we'll take the baby steps.

Then we called the Volfs and Natasha and Pasha had a chance to chat with Ashley. Ashley is an excellent translator. Her English is amazing after only 8 months in the states. They chatted for 1/2 hour so and then they too had to go off to school.

We had a few snacks and then it was time to take them back to the orphanage. Natasha asked me if we could delay and not go back until 5:10PM. She looked at me with those dark, puppy-dog eyes, and I thought to myself, "Oh boy, am I in for it!" But, I held my ground and said, "No, we have to be back on time so the caregivers continue to let us take you out!" It was a minor "I'm the Dad, and your the daughter" moment, but a good one.

That's it for today. Michele is bummed that she's going to finish her book soon. She only brought one and we haven't seen an English book in any bookstore that we've been in. If anyone knows of a bookstore with English books in Kherson, please do let us know! :)

Thanks for reading. Hopefully tomorrow we have "some news is good news".

Bruce & Michele

What's in a name?

We had a fairly relaxing morning during which I was able to get some work done and Michele took yet another cold shower. :( We'll work with Alex here at the Bible House sometime in the next couple of days to work out the kinks in the "on-demand" water heating system.

We received a call from Tanya to meet her at the orphanage to pick up Pasha for his dental appointment at 2PM. It took a while to find Pasha in class, but he exited and we were off to the dentist's office. Michele stayed there with Pasha and Tanya and I went back to the Bible House to work a while.

An hour or so later, I received a call from Michele that Pasha's teeth were not that bad after all. The dentist filled one cavity and said the other one was not so bad and in a baby tooth. Of course, she took no xrays to confirm, so we will likely have him checked out again once we get back to the states. But, at least this was good news and we're not staring at a crown or root canal right off the bat. $40USD was not a bad sum to pay for the comfort Pasha now has.

After they were done at the dentist, Pasha, Tanya and Michele went back to the orphanage to see if they could meet up with Natasha. Michele was able to watch Natasha practice the dance routine that she and several other girls will perform at the 50 year anniversary celebration that will take place at the orphanage on October 9th. We're glad that we will be able to participate in that. Michele said Natasha danced beautifully and with much grace.

After Natasha was done, they went over to a cafe to have some food, since Pasha had not eaten breakfast and we had pulled him away for his dentail appointment before lunch. Needless to say, he was starving. I met them at the cafe and we sat and chatted for a while. We think Natasha is becoming more comfortable with us as she has started to use some English, which she does quite well. She showed us picture of her mother, brother and sister on her cell phone. All in all, it was a nice brief visit.

During this time, Tanya was running around getting more signatures. It turns out that the orphanage director had not actually signed one of the consent forms yesterday. He was not willing to do so until the regional inspector had given her approval for the refusal of adoption and separation documents signed by Jana. Tanya had those and brought them back to the orphanage for the director's signature, which he did. Then, it was back to the notary's office where we all signed the court request documents and then to the inspector's office to hand off some more papers, and finally we took the kids back to the orphanage for their study time. The regional inspectors are very sweet and came out to the car to give the kids both hugs. It turns out, one of them used to be a caregiver at the same orphanage, so knew both Pasha and Natasha.

So, we are ready to proceed, except for one thing, namely the "mess" of Pasha's paperwork. Unfortunately, his mother's last name on the birth certificate is different from the last name on the paperwork submitted when Pasha was surrendered to the state. This is a problem that has to be fixed before Tanya can go to the court to submit our adoption request. The regional inspectors and Tanya are not sure what to do, so please pray that they would be enlightened and that they would be able to find some paperwork which shows why the names are different (i.e. a marriage license or divorce decree or something like that).

Please also pray for the hearts of these kids. Not only for Pasha and Natasha, but for all in the orphan system. There are so few controls in place during their free time and they have no one really teaching them how to decide right from wrong. And the "wrong" is freely available and luring. Pray, too, that we would be able to have frank discussions with Pasha and Natasha about God's desire for them to have pure hearts and minds. We believe this to be really important as we set the right foundation for us as their parents, but more importantly for God to be their Heavenly Father. We can see that these are two sweet kids and hope that seeds that have been planted will start to grow.

That's it for now. Off to bed and hopeful for good news tomorrow on "Pasha's messy papers"!

Bruce & Michele

Two Signatures...

We "enjoyed" another long day today. Sasha from Agape Ministries was here at the Bible House last night and we had a chance to meet him. He is very nice with excellent english. He invited us to his office this morning for their prayer meeting and then a chat about his ministry to orphans in Ukraine.

We had intended on catching a ride this morning with someone heading to the Agape offices, but when we got up, there was a car accident about 100 feet away from our front door. It probably occurred around 8AM and the traffic was horrendous. I think what we saw typifies some of the Ukrainian culture of "doing things by the book" (even if "by the book" means lots of waiting around for official things to happen....). Here's a pic of what we saw when we stepped out our door shortly after 8AM:

The gentleman (Eric) who was to drive us to the Agape offices finally arrived after fighting traffic a little after 9AM. By that time, the police had finally showed up and taken very direct action, as shown in the following pic:

Yep...he set up 4 cones around the edge of the vehicle that everyone had to drive around. Basically, an entire lane of traffic was blocked and everyone had to go around the cones, with no assistance from anyone directing traffic. And, they did not move the cars out of the way...not an inch.

The craziest thing was that the trolley buses which run off electricity and have two arms extending from the top of the bus to electric wires suspended over the road, had to stop, get out of the bus, pull the arms off the wires on the right side of the street, move them over temporarily to the wires on the left side of the street, get back in the bus and drive around the accident, then get out and do it all over again...in reverse. Here's a pic to give you an idea:

Here you can see the driver pulling the arms down off the right-hand wires and pulling them over to the left-hand wires. Needless to say, traffic was still snarled when we left at 9:15AM.

We enjoyed spending some time with Sasha and learning about his heart for the orphans in Ukraine. His ministry, Agape, has staff who go into orphanages in several regions of Ukraine, and teach Bible classes. Sasha works with the orphanage directors to make these Bible classes mandatory because, as he said, "If you make it optional, only 1 out of 20 kids will come. When it is mandatory, they may grumble at coming, but after a while they learn to enjoy it, and many have come to know Jesus through the process." Sasha is looking for a family to come to Ukraine for a couple of years to work with these orphanages, specifically in developing more programs in more orphanages throughout Ukraine. If you're interested, let us know and we'll get you in contact with Sasha!! :)

After meeting with Sasha, we did a little bit of shopping at Oskar's (the large department store above the bowling alley) and then headed home. We were waiting to hear from Tanya about any plans for the day. Finally, after lunch, she called and said she would be at the orphanage around 2:00 and we should come as well.

When we arrived, Pasha was there and we walked with him to Roman's (the orphanage lawyer) office. Natasha was still in class as she has 8 classes and is in school until 3:40. We sat with Pasha for a while and used the new translation software I downloaded earlier today from PROMT. I spent quite a bit of time looking for something that could be entirely installed on my laptop and would work without using a service that depended on a connection to the internet. PROMT appears to work very well and I have a 30 day trial to run it through its paces.

The tool worked pretty well. The only problem is that I had not loaded the Russian language add-on for Windows, so we could only do English->Russian translations. This still was fun, and allowed us to ask Pasha some questions without having the translator there to help us.

Natasha arrived in Roman's office, along with both Natasha and Pasha's primary caregivers. Then we were called to Nikolai's office (the orphanage director). We sat around a table while Nikolai oversaw the procedings. We did not know (Tanya had not told us), but we were there to witness the signing of all the papers the orphanage is required to provide to the inspector's office. This includes the papers that both Natasha and Pasha sign, saying they are OK with us adopting them, as well as the paper Jana was to sign, refusing the adoption and OK-ing the separation with Natasha.

Natasha and Pasha signed their papers, and both looked a little nervous, as if they were thinking, "I sure hope I'm doing the right thing!". Then Jana walked in and sat down next to me to sign her papers. Roman read the words on the paper to her and we all waited for her to sign. She sat there for about 10 seconds, and you could just sense that this was not going to happen. Then, she pushed her chair back, and as she wiped the tears from her eyes, walked out of the office. We pretty much all sat stunned in our chairs as the caregivers and Roman went out to figure out what was going on.

So here we were, with one set of papers to be signed, all looking at each other, wondering what to do. We eased the tension a bit by giving Nikolai the picture of Ashley and the Volf's that Kari had given us. He enjoyed seeing it (I think...). Then he proceeded to tell a fairly lengthy story of an adoption that had gone wrong... AFter about 45 minutes and multiple phone calls to find out where Jana was, the decision was finally made to leave Nikolai's office and allow Jana to (hopefully) sign the papers without all of us staring at her.

We made our way back to Roman's office and waited. About 30 or 45 minutes later, Roman came in with a look of relief on his face, and told us that not only had Jana signed the papers, but Nikolai had as well!! So, we had the two signatures that we needed and all the paperwork from the orphanage so that we could "officially" start the process tomorrow. Thank you, thank you, for your prayers. Michele says that she "smiled the Holy Spirit" at Nikolai, and that's what did him in!! It could very well be true.

Tomorrow Tanya will head to the Inspector's office and then to the notary and hopefully to court to get things going. There are still hurdles ahead, especially with the early separation of siblings and the "mess" of Pasha's papers, so don't stop praying!

We have more stories to tell, but this has gone on long enough. OK, maybe one more. When we were at the Agape offices, we were standing in the hallway waiting for Sasha and I noticed a picture on the wall. Hmm...one of those faces looks familiar. Sure enough, it was Natasha. A closer look revealed that Ashley was in the pic as well. This was a pic from 3-4 years ago at a camp that Agape put on and that Natasha and Ashley attended. It's a very small world, indeed. The exciting thing is that we hope and pray that seeds of faith were planted in both girls. Here's a pic of the pic:

Natasha is pretty much in the middle and Ashley is just to the right and below her.

That's all for now. I have to get a little bit of work done before heading to sleepy land.

Thanks for reading!

Bruce (and Michele)

Acid-Wash and Mullets

I'm waiting for the kids to be done with school and for once Bruce is not on the computer :-).

I think the title of my entry says it all. We are so far out of style here( thankfully) people stare at us. I tell them in English ,"This is acctually slightly cute at home, people said they like my shoes just before we left."

Pasha's mini-mullet is kind of cute on him, then again, maybe after the dentist we could find a hair place.

Bruce downloaded some Russian/English translator on his computer. I'll let you know how it works out after todays visit.

Signed,
Hungry in Ukraine

The Ups....the Downs....

We were so tired from our full day out on Sunday that we actually slept in past 8AM this morning. When we left Tanya on Sunday, she said she was going to the orphanage Monday morning to work with Roman (the orphanage lawyer) and get the documents signed by Jana. She told us to expect a call from her sometime after 11AM on next steps.

She called to let us know that the orphanage director (Nikolai) was not willing to sign the documents as it is "not the way it should be done." She apparently continued the discussion with Roman and Nikolai most of the morning and called again to have us come to the orphanage around 2PM. We met her there, and also greeted Roman and Nikolai. While Nikolai had not yet agreed to sign the papers, he had softened a little and allowed Tanya to have the kids' birth certificates. This was important since we needed them to go to the notary and actually start part of the paperwork process, instead of waiting around sitting on our hands.

So, we left the orphanage without seeing the kids, since they were still in school, and headed to the notary (right behind Cafe More for those who know Kherson... :). When we arrived, we realized that we needed our passports, which we did not have, so I headed back to the Bible House on the bus to get them. When I returned, Michele and Tanya were sitting outside having a cup of coffee at the cafe, and after giving the passports to the notary, we sat down to wait.

We waited at least an hour and a half, maybe more, sometimes I lose track of time when sitting around doing nothing. Then we were ready to sign the first of many documents. These were the basic documents saying that we are officially asking to adopt Natasha and Pasha, and these we could do without having Nikolai's signature on the separation documents from Jana.

One thing we were able to do while waiting was to pop into an internet cafe and have quick chats with all three of the kids back in Colorado. That was refreshing and we were so happy to have had that opportunity. They are being well cared for, but we still miss them!

So, by around 5PM, we were finally done there and Tanya headed to the inspector's office to do some more work and we headed back to Bible House. We got back to Bible House and I ended up working for quite a while and then we headed back to Cafe More for dinner. We had told Natasha and Pasha yesterday that we likely would not see them today as we didn't know what our schedule was. And it turned out to be a good "heads up" since we spent most of the morning waiting for Tanya's call and then most of the afternoon waiting with Tanya at the notary's office. We will definitely see them tomorrow again.

Serge from the Bible House brought up two New Testaments last night, which are Russian/English. We will give these to the kids tomorrow when we see them in the afternoon.

Oh, one other thing. We learned today that, besides the issue with Jana, Natasha's papers are in good order. Pasha's papers, on the other hand, to use Tanya's words, "Are a mess." There are some problems that she will likely have to travel to another region about 200K away to correct. This could add a few days... :( However, she is still hopeful that we will be able to get through this process (assuming Nikolai signs Jana's release papers) in time for Michele to come home on the 16th of October.

So, here we are again, continuing to need your prayers. I think God is bringing new meaning to the idea of "praying constantly", which is actually a good thing! Tanya is hopeful that Nikolai will sign Jana's release papers tomorrow. Please pray that God would prick his heart to do so. Please also pray that "the mess" of Pasha's papers can be squared away quickly and not cause too much delay.

We miss Abigail, Bradley and Benjamin terribly and want to give this process a kick in the pants as best we can so that at least Michele can get back home to be with them.

That's it for now. Hopefully, we'll provide more good news tomorrow!

Bruce & Michele

What a day!

Sorry for not posting yesterday. We had a very long day and were too blitzed to blog when all was done at about 9:30PM last night.

We were able to meet Pasha and Natasha for church Sunday morning. We were there at 8:30AM and we had to run to meet the bus because we were waiting for them in the wrong part of the orphanage. Pasha's caregiver was none too happy about having to run to meet the bus. Tanya (our facilitator) met us as well to help with translation, and she told us after we all got on the bus that the caregiver told her that Pasha is actually her favorite and a good boy. That was pretty funny to hear after the scolding she gave him!

We're still not quite sure what church we went to! It was a "Christian Church" (Tanya thought it was a Church of Christ), but realistically, we didn't understand a word for the two hours we were there. We did understand a couple of songs ("Great is Thy Faithfulness" and a version of "Holy, Holy, Holy") and while everyone else sang in Russian, I sang in English (quietly, of course).

I think Pasha normally goes to a youth service during the main service, but he and Natasha stayed with us. I think Natasha was just too nervous to go do something new, since she does not typically go to church. Even when we saw Zina up front waving to Natasha to come with and Natasha smiled in recognition, she chose to stay with us, as did Pasha.

Tanya did not stay for church but before leaving confirmed that we could stay with the kids and take them out to lunch. So, after church, as we were walking to the bus stop, Michele decided to call Oksana, a friend of Heidi and Felix's whom we met at the Bible House a couple nights before. I may have mentioned earlier that Oksana was at the same orphanage as Natasha and Pasha here in Kherson. Through a sad set of circumstances, she has aged out (she is now 19 years old), but in the process has become a strong believer in Jesus and a real shining light. She is currently going to the university her in Kherson and just learned that next year she will be going to a Bible college in England where she will also continue to study English. But her heart is for Ukraine and she will be coming back.

Anyway, Oksana happened to be going to church just a block or so away, and was happy to meet with us and go to lunch. Well, she was a life-saver for the day as she speaks English very well and was able to help us communicate with the kids. And when I say, "for the day", it was the entire day! Here's a pic of Oksana, Pasha and Natasha:

We went downtown and had lunch at Zeppelin's which was excellent. The kids ate 'til they were full, as did we all. Then we walked around through a park in the downtown area and had delicious ice cream cones, which were on sale! The Dutchman in me really came out when I saw that I could get 3 scoops for the price of 2!! So, 3 scoops for everyone!

After the ice cream cones we walked a ways to a place where there's a beautiful overlook of the Dnipr river (not sure if I have the spelling right). Then we decided that we should head over to Oskar's for some fun and a little bit of shopping. But before doing so, we were nervous that we were going to get in trouble from Pasha's and Natasha's caregivers for keeping the kids after lunch. So we had Natasha call and ask if it would be OK to keep them longer. "No problem. Just have the home by 7PM." (My translation of course.)

Oskar's is a fairly large shopping center which has shops and games and even bowling on the main floor and then a large grocery/department store on the second floor. We took the bus over there and bowled for an hour. That was pretty hilarious! By that time, Oksana and Natasha had gotten a hold of the camera so were taking snapshots of everything and everyone. (We probably didn't post that we lost our camera somewhere in Kiev and ended up buying a new one there at City Com, which is the Kiev-equivalent of Circuit City.)

After bowling, we went upstairs and bought the kids some essentials (toothpaste, shampoo, deoderant, hair gel, etc.). Then it was back to the Bible House where we chilled in our room for a while. We showed them the clothes that we brought. Some will fit, others will be too big, but they took them all back to the orphanage to distribute to their room mates/friends. We had a chance to talk alot about the adoption process and timing and their names and all sorts of stuff that probably merits a separate blog entry.

The one funny thing that came up was about the timing of the adoption. I think it was Natasha who asked Oksana about if we would be coming back in a year to take them to America. We explained that, if Jana (pronounced Ya-na) was willing to give her consent, then the process would likely be done by the end of October or early November. If Jana did not feel comfortable giving her consent, then it would probably be sometime in mid- to late-November. They were clearly surprised at this and their eyes opened wide when Oksana explained. Pasha commented that he was excited to be in America for Christmas as he really likes Christmas!

The best part of the afternoon was getting a call from Tanya. She had been in discussion with Roman (the lawyer at the orphanage) and Roman had spoken with Jana. Jana has decided to give her consent! When Natasha heard this, she let out a big sigh of relief and had a big smile on her face. So, Tanya will be meeting with Roman this morning (Monday) to get the papers signed and then we will go with her to a notary to start the process!

After that news, we packed everyone's stuff up and headed back to the orphanage. While there, Michele asked to have a look at Pasha's teeth. He had drawn some blood while using a toothpick after lunch, so Michele was concerned that there may be some issues. Sure enough, he has a fairly large cavity (Michele thinks she pretty much knows what to look for). Oksana knows of a good dental clinic close to the orphanage and Tanya has a friend who is a dentist, so we will make sure we have both Natasha and Pasha check out this week.

We said our good nights and told them we would probably see them on Tuesday, since we did not know what Monday's schedule looked like.

After leaving, Oksana came back to the Bible House with us and I helped her out a bit with a PowerPoint presentation she had to get done that night. She was very thankful to have it done (and not have to go to an internet cafe and spend grivna to do it!) and I was happy to help out. By the time she was done and we had her PowerPoint saved to her USB stick, it was after 9PM. We said our good-byes and Michele and I happily landed in bed for a good night's sleep.

We woke up this morning about 8AM and both feel pretty refreshed. Tanya will be calling us sometime later this morning to let us know the schedule for the day. Until then, I'm going to get some work done and Michele is busy doing something in the room.

Thanks for all your prayers! Keep praying, in particular that we would not encounter any further glitches as a result of Jana giving consent even though she is less than 18 years old. This all still has to be approvied by 2 judges, so pray that there would be no "hassle" with that.

We'll post more tonight.

Thanks again,

Bruce and Michele

post by Michele

Nothing really new to report..I'm actually trying to stay awake for a bit longer.

We saw the kids today. We played frisbee, soccer and threw the football around . I made some earrings with Natasha and Pasha tried his hand at one. Later I thought " Great now I've used all our non-verbal fun things in one day!" I'm sure we will figure out some more activities.

We are going to try and go to church where Pasha has been going with a few boys. We aren't sure the caregiver for that day will let us take them..or even let us go with them. Pasha says this person can be unpredictable. I'll let you know.

I'm the slowest typist in the world so... that took about half an hour, time for bed

In Kherson...Day 1

We had a "quick" train ride from Kiev to Kherson last night. Apparently we were on the "express", as we left Kiev around 8:30PM and arrived in Kherson at 5:50AM. There wasn't a whole lot of sleep that happened on the train, but we both had our own sleeping areas and did our best.

Tanya picked us up at the train station and took us to the Bible House where we will be staying for the near term. Serge was there and let us in at 6AM! We quickly found the room and tried to sleep for a couple of hours before Tanya came back to pick us up for our appointment with the regional inspector.

That appointment went well. We showed her the pics of Ashley and Josh that the Volf's sent along and she remembered that process very well. We left the photo album with her and she really appreciated that.

We answered a few questions for the folks in this office and had some additional discussion about Natasha's sister Jana. There was (and is) some concern about how to handle the fact that Jana will be 18 and unadoptable in just a few weeks, but until then legally may not be separated from her sister. We have heard all along that Jana does not want to be adopted, she has a boyfriend in the army and wants to stay in Ukraine. So, the plan was simply to go to the orphanage and meet up with everyone and figure out the next steps.

We arrived at the orphanage and walked into the "lawyer's" office (Roman) and there were Natasha and Pasha sitting on the couch. We were introduced and they both gave nervous smiles. We made some small talk with Roman and Tanya and the kids and then Jana walked in as well. Clearly she was upset and had been crying. We did not know what to think, but we just decided to forge ahead.

Jana only lasted a few minutes before she got up and asked Roman if she could leave. Roman said she needed to leave to calm down. Then a discussion ensued that was not something we had anticipated.

Apparently, yesterday Jana had spoken with both Roman and Oksana (a former orphan at the Kherson orphanage who aged out a short time ago and now helps out with some intrepeting and is a good friend of Heid and Felix's) and clearly said that she did not want to be adopted. But today seemed to be a different story. Shortly after this, Nikolai, the orphanage director came in and was a little upset that we had not reviewed all the papers before actually meeting the children. So they were whisked off back to class and we reviewed all their files.

After finishing the review of the files, Jana came back in with Roman. They had apparently just had a conversation during which Jana wanted to talk with us about "possibilities". It was a very difficult moment, since basically we were asked point blank if we had ever had any intention of adopting Jana (since we had a referral for her from the SDA). By this time Jana was shedding a few tears as was Michele, but we said that we did not believe it was in our family's best interest to adopt a child of Jana's age. In fact, our social worker in the states recommended that we not adopt older than our oldest bio children.

It was a bit of a heart-wrenching moment since we never ever wanted to have to tell a child that we did not want to adopt him/her. But here we were, essentially doing just that. However, beyond our own personal convictions about the age(s) of the children we are looking to adopt, the timing of her 18th birthday in October would make it impossible to complete the process of adopting her before she became "unadoptable". A true catch-22.

Jana left the office and we stayed around to discuss our options. Phone calls were made and discussions occurred. We made another trip back to the inspector's office where Tanya discussed the possibilities with the inspector and her colleagues. Then we went to lunch and chatted.

So, we basically have two options: 1) If Jana will sign a letter refusing the referral for adoption and sign a letter agreeing to separate from her younger sister, then the likelihood is that we can continue the current process now. As of the end of today, Jana was not ready or willing to sign either document, so we will just give her some time over this weekend to see if she can figure things out on her own. Also, there are still potential glitches in this option as this separation has to be approved by the local judge and apparently by the judge in the region where the girls were originally turned over to the state (a different region than Kherson). This brings us to option 2) We could simply come home now and come back at the end of October when Jana is 18 and not adoptable. On the surface this seems like the only sure-fire option, but we have many questions about the logistics of how it will work and, obviously the additional costs of getting Michele and I both back here again. So, we will discuss this more over the weekend and hopefully have some clearer direction on Monday.

After all of these discussions and our lunch with Tanya, we headed back to the orphanage to hang out with Natasha and Pasha. We immediately met up with Pasha but it took a while to find Natasha. We went back into Roman's office and when Natasha arrived she was clearly upset. We didn't know why and she really wasn't ready to talk, so we just sat next to her and tried to comfort her and let her know that we would do whatever it takes to make this happen. It took a while, but after the 4 of us (Michele, Natasha, Pasha and I) left the office for a walk around the grounds and up to their rooms, Pasha actually was able to get Natasha to open up a bit and her mood certainly lightened.

We saw both their rooms and the 4 of us sat with Tanya and talked about many things for about an hour or so. Then Natasha had to leave for Italian class and Pasha for dinner, so we gave hugs all around and parted until tomorrow.

Michele and I walked back to the Bible House, then to dinner and grabbed some groceries. I did a bit of work and answered emails from my colleagues and clients. Now we're ready to get some sleep.

We'll be back at the orphanage to hang with the kids tomorrow afternoon with Tanya. If you would, please pray specifically for the following:

1. That Michele and I would have clear direction on our next steps after the weekend. We are both much more at ease after having spent time with Natasha and Pasha, but there are clearly decisions about the proccess and next steps that we will have to make.
   


2. That Jana would be comfortable with the decision she has to make this weekend and that God would touch her heart. We want to make it clear that we will do our best to stay in contact with her and allow her to stay in contact with Natasha if she wants and even help her to come to the US for studies or visits.
   


3. That Natasha would not be anxious, that God would bless her with a calm heart and that she would know that we will do what we need to do to continue the adoption process with her and Pasha.

Well, sorry for the long post. Time to hit the sack. Here's a pic of the 4 of us in Natasha's room/sitting area:

More tomorrow.

Bruce and Michele