Wed-Thurs-Day for Thanksgiving!

Wed & Thurs.
Sorry , This is late in being posted. We have not been able to access the internet since about 10 a.m. Thursday.
When we got off the train Wed. about 10:30 am we dropped Mom and Jacob and luggage off at the hotel which was right next to the train in depot in Kherson. We had to climb upstairs to the hotel as it is above the shops. No elevators – 20 steps – they do not know what handicap accessible is here it appears.
5 min. later we were back out the door in a taxi – Richard, Irina (Era) and myself headed towards the Inspectors office. The Inspector is a person who has a lot of authority in a region. It is similar to what a judge would have. We waited in the taxi for over an hour while Era went inside and talked to the Inspector lady. The Inspector wanted to see Richard and I and talk to us to find out why we wanted to adopt. Then she put her seal on the document that allowed us to go to the boarding school. When we got there the assistant director met us and talked to us and told us that they knew we were coming and was hoping we would have been there earlier as the director wanted to talk to us himself. He had to go to another town for some business and would not be back till after 3 p.m. We said our good byes and said we would be back after 3. We took another taxi back to the hotel –picked up Mother and Jacob and had lunch in the café below the hotel.
We had to wait till after 3:30 before Era got the call that the director was back at the boarding school and got into another taxi to the boarding school which only took us 10 min. to get there. The director was a very nice man. He wanted to know why we wanted to adopt. He believes children should be part of families and is very happy that we wanted to adopt. He wanted us to speak to the lawyer for the school, and also with the lady doctor. The boy has been very healthy since he has been at the boarding school. They then brought in his teacher and everyone said how nice, kind, loving, good student that this boy is.
By Ukraine law no pictures are allowed to be posted or name given until they are legally adopted. The teacher then b brought in the boy a very nice looking boy. The director and all of us talked for a few min. to the boy and then the director said Era, Richard and myself could go with the boy to a classroom to talk. We talked and talked and the boy mentioned about his mother and a father but we know that he does not know who his father is. We do not know who this man is. The boy said his father comes to visit him. The boy is not sure if he wants to be adopted. His Teacher came in after awhile to sit with us, and I think to make the boy more comfortable. The time came for their supper to be served, so we said our goodbyes get in another taxi and came back to the hotel. Era said we needed up early Thurs a.m. to be at the boarding school at 8:30 so we may see the boy before his classes begin. We all were really tired after a long day, got baths and went to bed by 10 p.m. A bed not moving or bumping felt really good and we slept great!


Thursday- Thanksgiving Day
We got up at 6:30 this a.m. out of our nice comfy beds that Mother and I especially appreciate after sleeping on couches for two weeks. Mother and I went down to the market to look for something for breakfast as the café would not open in time. They have a lot of nice cakes and some pastries, milk, sausage, juice. We got a few pastries some OJ and drinks and took them back to our room to eat. We, including Jacob met Era after 8:30 as she was on the phone making arrangements for our visit. We got to boarding school about 8:45. We had to wait in the secretary’s office of the director and come to find out the Inspector was already there and was taking everyone to task because she hadn’t received any proper documents from anyone to visit the boy. This took awhile to get sorted out as she was speaking to everyone who had oversight of the child about this lapse in regulations. Then the next we knew the boy appeared –all smiles in his school uniform. We had taken him a squishy ball, and glow in the dark sticks and showed him how to use the glow in the dark sticks. We were with him, in the secretary’s office, for about 20 min when he had to go back to class. He gave all of us hugs and left. We still did not know if he was willing to be adopted. The Ukrainian law says once you are 6 yr old you have to be present when final adoption proceedings are held before the judge and the judge will ask the child if they want to be adopted. If they do not want to be adopted – they can say no and the adoption will not go through. We were told we could come back at 3p.m. to see the boy. So we took another taxi back to the hotel. It was about 10:30 a.m. The taxi only cost 12UK or $2 US. We went upstairs to get Mother and talk for a bit then went to have lunch at the café downstairs. Era had found an acquaintance that she could stay with tonight, so we would not have to pay for her another night at the hotel. She as well as Gregory is always thinking of how to save us money. She picked up her suitcase that she had left in our room and went to her acquaintance. We rested and try to start emailing. We have been trying all afternoon and evening and have not had any success with the internet.
Era came back and got Richard, Jacob and I about 2:55 p.m. and off we go in another taxi. We went into the foyer of the school to wait for the boy to come out. This evidently was nap time for him. While we are waiting we meet another girl and an American family. The family has known this girl for 1 ½ yr and wanted to adopt her. She has wanted to be adopted as well, but there have been a lot of complications with it and now she is too old to be adopted. They are working on getting a student visa for her as well as adopting another child in another city. The girl is also showing her wonderful needlework and she ended up giving one she had done of a bird. She was just beaming when the family was there and is so excited about having a family and her joy was totally overflowing. A little while the boy comes thru the front door in his regular clothes to show us where he sleeps and plays. This is in another bldg. and there is also a little room that we can sit and talk with him – just he, Richard, Jacob, Era and I. Our translator, Era starts to talk to him trying get him comfortable with her and us. During her long conversation with him she tells him that his mother no longer wants him and her parental rights have been taken away. His life will be here at the boarding school, he will have no other life than here at the boarding school. After a little while of talking and he and Jacob playing with a doodle board the little boy says he would like to be adopted and live in America. He is concerned about his mother and this other man who has taken care of him before he came to the boarding school. He does not want to hurt their feelings about leaving. So I suggested to him that we could write letters and send pictures and presents back to them. To let them know how he is doing. So that was just what he needed and it was at that point he said yes he wanted to be adopted. We then pulled out Jacob’s PSP and it took the little boy about 2 min. to figure out how to work it.Jacob was very excited this whole time waiting to see what the boy would say. Jacob wrote on the doodle board “I now have a brother” and he kept saying “go brother, go brother” while they were playing the game.
His mother had lost his birth certificate and this is the beginning of all the paperwork that has to be done before we can go in front of a judge and get back to Kiev. Era is looking or an apt. for us to move into hopefully by tomorrow to save money and to be able to cook things that Jacob likes as well as us. Era has already started to mountains of paper work involved. It is more complicated when a child is in a boarding school rather than an orphanage. Orphanages are for children up to 6 and once they are 6 they go to boarding school. Basically all the same just a different terminology for the age of the child. This boarding school is one of the nicest that Era has been to. Some boarding schools are very poor and the children may only get a new pair of socks and underwear twice a year and only get chocolate on special occasions like birthdays, Christmas etc. Their diet would also be limited on how much food they could have. The children at this school have access to all of the modern movies, video games, candy, etc. They have a very nice lunch room, bedrooms, which have several beds in each room, modern classrooms, basketball area, soccer field, etc. Everyone from the Director to the cleaning lady in the foyers has been very nice. We will send pictures after we see the judge and get the official adoption decree. We are still hopeful of getting home before Christmas.
Thank you very much for your prayers and support. The Lord has truly blessed our family.