Better Days…

It’s 8:30 am and we’re going through our normal morning routine. Kim is in the shower, Jacob is watching Dumbo while doing his breathing treatment. Kim (my personal Barista) has made our Starbucks, with a paper towel filter, this is an upgrade, as we were using toilet paper for a filter. Kim has become quite proficient, and if this whole nursing thing doesn’t work out, I’m sure she could have a future at Starbucks. We just checked our emails and comments from the blog, and as always our spirits our lifted. I’m not really sure who is reading the blog, but we’re happily surprised everyday to have new comments. All of your support is so amazing. We really want to say thank you.

We went to orphanage yesterday, not really in the best of moods. God has a funny sense of humor, and really knows how to lift our spirits when we weren’t expecting it. The head worker in our daughter’s room, Inara, had asked us to take pictures of the kids. She brought in costumes for the kids in our daughters group, which they call a family. The orphanage here is pretty progressive, which doesn’t seem to fit. The children are divided into groups or families. They are divided by age, and live in a building with their own sleeping, eating, bathrooms and family room. They have tables for eating, and tables in the family room for doing art and homework. The kids all go to a public school, which is across the street from the orphanage. The school is so full, that there are two shifts. Our daughter goes from 8 am to 1 pm. The next group starts around 1 pm and goes until 6 pm. The kids seem to take school very seriously. At Grade 5, they begin learning English, so some of the older kids like to come and chat with us. We really enjoy it, and I think they do as well.

As always, I’ve fallen into a tangent. Back to the pictures, Inara is so great with the kids. It’s obvious she loves them, and really takes good care of them. She has taken it upon herself to teach the kids to dance, ballroom dancing that is. As Kim mentioned the show was pretty spectacular. To see these little orphans, waltzing across the room, in near perfect symmetry took my breath away. The Surrealism here just blows me away.
Okay, another dang tangent. So, Inara brought in these costumes for all the kids to wear. The kids were dressed as a policeman, a nurse, a chef, a carpenter, a hairstylist, a soldier and few others I can’t remember. Inara’s plan was for us to take the pictures, get them developed and she and the kids would create a collage, and it would say “You can be anything you want to be…” It’s a message for these kids, and all the kids to come.

We were and are so happy to take the pictures and get them developed. The kids were so good at posing. We went around the orphanage for effect. The nurse had her picture taken in the infirmary (Jacob go to be the patient, he was stoked), the carpenter got to go to the maintenance shop, where it appears they make and repair all of their furniture. The chef had her picture taken in kitchen. The kids had so much fun, and really loved the individual attention they all got. I promise we will post these pictures, they turned out so great. Inara was so proud of each child, and ensured each kid in her “Family” got to take part, including Jacob, who has become the mascot of sorts.

We had such a good time yesterday. After the pictures something remarkable happened. Everyday we enter the orphanage our daughter runs up and gives Kim a big hug. When we play, she holds my hand, let’s me carry her around etc, but yesterday at the end of the picture taking she ran up to me and gave me a big hug. She had never done that before. She calls me Papa, and Kim Mama, and always includes Brat Jacob in everything she does. I think the bonding is going well…

We had a nice dinner with our new friends Marcia and her daughter Sara (Jacob’s new friend) and Sherrie who is from Canada. Sherrie is a test adopter, as she is one of the first to adopt from Kazakhstan. In fact Canada doesn’t have an embassy in Kazakhstan, so she will have to go to Moscow for passports and other immigration paperwork. Her process is much more difficult, so pray for her. As her success could open the door for more families (from Canada) to come and rescue these kids.

We have court today, so Kim will complete this entry after court…Jenafer, thank you for the effort, and hopefully your lack of sleep will pay dividends for us.



Addendum AFTER our court hearing today

IT WENT WELL!!!!!After so much stress, our court hearing went very well. We were taken to a room in the municipal government building right next to our hotel. Once inside the room, we waited as about 6 different men and women in suits walked in started talking and going over paperwork. Vera, our coordinator, was with us, and they immediately started looking at pages in the document and then asking questions to her. I got very nervous because I thought that meant there was something wrong with our paperwork. After much paper shuffling and banter back and forth, we were escorted into another room with a long conference table. A nicely dressed woman proceeded over the hearing, and asked a question to Vera first. Vera then asked us if we knew that our child had been adopted and “returned” prior to this. We said yes. Then the woman asked several questions to Vera again, and we got the jist that she was reading in the earlier social worker paperwork that our child was quiet and not smiling around us. Vera jumped up with her digital camera, and Jeff took ours out of our bag. We both found LOTS of pictures to show her that now our child is laughing and smiling during the entire visit each day. She seemed pleased with that. They asked us questions like, “Who will watch her while you are at work?”, “How will you care for a child that will require so much attention?”, “How will she be able to go to school if she speaks Russian?”. Apparently we had the right answers to the questions. This was lucky because we were worried we were making a bad impression right out of the gate, since literally the minute the hearing started, Jacob said, “I have to go potty”, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the hearing under the table. When I apologized that he was not sitting in his chair and explained that he had not had a nap for the day, they actually laughed and said, “He is just a child, don’t worry!” At the end, the woman running the hearing started talking and then Vera translated. She said, “We wish you the best of luck with your life. We hope that you have a long life of good health with this child and with your whole family.” I started crying immediately just out of joy that we had passed. I told them through my tears that we are so thankful for the privilege of being a parent to such a wonderful little girl, and I promised that we would be good parents to our child. The nice thing is that two of the committee members had tears in their eyes, too, while I was crying, so I think that they understood what I was saying. I know there is so much more to add about the experience, but I am a little frazzled right now. I am sure that I will remember a lot more later, but for now, we are going out for a celebration dinner with our wonderful coordinators, Vera and Medet!