Thursday, June 7,2007

When we woke up this morning, we decided to go grab a quick bite to eat at the coffee shop across the street. We knew that Sasha would be coming today and he told us that it would take most of the day to sign paperwork, so we wanted to be ready when he called. We ate a quick breakfast and hurried back to the apartment. After an hour of waiting, Sasha called. It was 9:30 am and he told us he had to make a quick stop and then he would be over to our apartment. We waited…and waited….and waited. By a little after noon, we were hungry and we knew Fred wouldn’t have much of a chance to eat on the train in the evening, so we decided to call Sasha. Fred called Sasha and asked if we had time to get a bit to eat. Sasha said that he would be here in 20 minutes. We knew that wouldn’t give us enough time to get to the center of town to eat and we didn’t have much food here, so we ran down to the corner store. We bought a loaf of bread and rushed back to our apartment to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. After another hour of waiting, Sasha still had not arrived. It was very frustrating because if we had known that we didn’t have to do anything in the morning, Fred could have spent his last day with the girls! When Sasha finally arrived, it was 2pm. He asked us to pay him for train tickets and then we headed off to the notary to fill out applications for passports for Amina and Khrystyna. On the way to the notary, Sasha told us that we would be meeting Khrystyna’s brother at 4 pm. I was a little concerned about the time table because the train to Kiev leaves at 4:30pm. When I asked Sasha about this, he said that they would be taking the train from the capital of the city and that it leaves at 7pm. We got to the notary, spent 45 minutes filling out paperwork, and then got in the car to head to the orphanage. Mark and Christine were at the notary too and they got into a separate car to head to the orphanage. Unfortunately, Sasha had some things he wanted to take care of so we rode around in the car with him for an hour before going to the orphanage. I’m not sure why he didn’t have us ride with Mark and Christine, but who knows… When we got to the orphanage, Khrystyna’s brother was already there. When we got out of the car, the girls ran over to hug us. Khrystyna had been sitting on a bench outside of the orphanage with her brother and his girlfriend. It was easy to see just by looking at them how much they love each other. (I’m not sure if I’ve explained anything about Khrystyna’s brother, so let me give you a brief rundown… Khrystyna’s brother Sergey is 20 years old and moved in with the family of a friend when their mom stopped taking care of them. He is the one who arranged for Khrystyna to be placed in the orphanage because he knew they would take care better care of her their. Although he wished he could take care of Khrystyna, he is currently at the University on scholarship and is working 2 jobs. He doesn’t have the time or the money to raise a child, however, he has been encouraging her to find an adoptive family. She has turned many families down over the last few years! He visits Khrystyna regularly and makes an effort to always bring sweets or other treats to her when he comes to visit. Two weeks ago, he signed all the papers for court saying that he thinks it is in the best interest of Khrystyna to be adopted by us. Now, back to our meeting of Sergey.) The girls ran over and hugged us and said hello when we got to the orphanage. We decided to go introduce ourselves to Khrystyna’s brother. Fred and I both know enough Russian to introduce ourselves, so we introduced ourselves to Khrystyna’s brother Sergey and his girlfriend, Vika. They both don’t speak much English, but they were very nice. After a minute or two, we asked Sasha to translate and he came over and invited us all to come into the orphanage with him. Sergey, Vika, Khrystyna, Fred, and I all headed into the orphanage. We had to wait in the room with the loud bird until Ludmilla was ready for us to come into her office. We took some pictures of Khrystyna and her brother while we waited and then we headed into Ludmilla’s office. Sergey’s girlfriend, Vika didn’t come into the meeting. Khrystyna only stayed for the first part of the meeting and then Ludmilla told her to go play outside. During the meeting, Ludmilla told us more about Khrystyna’s brother and what a good kid he is. She also told us that over the years, both she and Sergey have really hoped that Khrystyna would find a good adoptive family. She said that they were always surprised when Khrystyna turned down an adoptive family and that they both kept praying that Khrystyna would find a good adoptive family. Ludmilla said that after meeting us in March and spending time in our home, she told Sergey that we had been handpicked by God to raise Khrystyna and she thought we would be a great family. She said that Sergey felt the same way. She then told us that now Sergey would be one of our relatives. At this point, he got up and came over and hugged Fred and then he hugged me. He hugged me like he didn’t want to let go and held on for a minute. It totally made me cry. When we sat back down, we told him that Khrystyna will be able to call when she wants and we got his phone number and address. We also told him to call us if he ever needs anything. Sasha suggested that he may someday want to come study in the states and we said that if that was what he wanted, we’d be happy to do what we can to help him. Sasha told Sergey that the most important thing he can do if he wants to come to the US is study English. Ludmilla also suggested that we give Sergey some money as a token of our appreciation. She had talked to us about this in March when she was visiting and she suggested we give him $100 USD. He was very appreciative. We wished we had more money with us to give to him! We had a few Master Spas polo shirts with us in Fred’s suitcase that were in still in the packaging, so we let Khrystyna give those to him after the meeting. She was so happy to have something to give him and he looked really happy to receive the shirts. After giving him the shirts, Khrystyna and Sergey started kicking the soccer ball around. We wanted them to have as much time together as possible. After a few minutes, Sasha came out of the orphanage and said “I’m leaving now. Fred, you are coming with me.” We told the girls that dad was leaving and to come say goodbye. It was the quickest goodbye ever since Sasha was already waiting in the car. After Fred left, Khrystyna went back to playing soccer with Sergey and Amina and Masha ran around acting silly. I have no idea what had them so amused, but they were both laughing hysterically. I was able to get some great video of Khrystyna playing soccer with her brother. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have to say goodbye to a sibling, knowing that it could be years before you ever see each other again. I wanted to have something to give Khrystyna so she could remember him and I thought video was a good idea. It wasn’t too long before Sergey said he needed to leave or he’d be late for work. Khrystyna hugged him and Vika and then they walked away. Khrystyna had the saddest look on her face as she stared after them! I can’t imagine what Khrystyna and Sergey are feeling. Today has probably been one of the hardest days of their life. After Sergey left, Mark, Christine, and I said goodbye to the girls and headed to Amstor for lunch. We were all starving at this point. We ate dinner, did some grocery shopping, and headed to the internet café. As our time at the internet café was nearing its end, total darkness and total quiet filled the room. The internet café had lost power. It was quite eery how quiet it was without the sounds of fans from 45 computers. The only sound to be heard was the shuffling of 90 feet heading toward the front counter. The front counter was directly behind where Christine and I were sitting. My laptop and Christine’s laptop provided the only light in the place. We quickly packed up and headed out of there before chaos broke out. When we got up to the street, we saw that the whole side of the street was without power. Thankfully, we were pretty much done in the internet café before we lost power. Our driver was waiting when we headed outside and he took us back to our apartments. I was completely tired and emotionally exhausted by the time I got home. I spent some time on the phone and then headed for bed.