Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.......and then an Angel


Hi all!!! It took a little while to get our internet connection up and running, but we are here and things are going well. It was quite a trek to get here, though. We had two long plane trips that took us literally to the other side of the world in a period of about twenty hours. With the exception of about an hour on the first leg of the journey to Germany, Jacob did great. Poor little guy - he only slept about 2 hours total on that trip and he was pretty delirious for a while. Once we landed in Frankfurt, though, he totally perked up when he saw the airport that looked exactly like IKEA. Seriously, yellow and blue with chrome everywhere. While we were waiting for our next flight to Kazakhstan, Jacob met a little boy that was also on our flight. He made friends quickly and discovered that this family was on the same type of trip we were on. When the little boy told Jacob that he was going to Kazakhstan to meet his new sister, Jacob got very concerned and told him that WE were doing the same thing. At first he thought that maybe this family was going to get there first and get our sister. We had to explain to him that there are many children in Kazakhstan waiting for a family. He felt better after that. He slept great on the next flight and we arrived in Almaty, Kazakhstan at around midnight (actually a day and a half after we left LAX). Our coordinator met us in Almaty and got us to the hotel, which was nice. Different than what we are used to, but nice. All of the people that we met in that city wanted to speak English with us and tell us all about their city. They are very proud of their country, which is nice. I thought on that day that I was as tired as I had ever been in my life due to the time change (we are now 13 hours ahead of LA time) and lack of sleep from traveling. I was wrong. The fun was just about to begin the next afternoon when we boarded the night train to our region.

Apparently there are two trains in Kazakhstan. One is a nice train that is not very old called the Spanish train. The sleeping compartments in it have individual bathrooms and the conditions are fine. The other train is the "Soviet train". It has apparently been around since the time of Stalin - it and it's bathrooms! Each train only goes on certain days of the week. Guess which train we had to take? Yep - the Soviet train. Seriously, it was like a scene out of an old bad Russian movie. It started with a chaotic train station with people everywhere rushing all the cars that drove up to "help" with your bags. We had so many bags for the five of us that it took a team of about 8 men to carry the load. We had to cross on foot over on set of train tracks to get to the loading area, and I have seriously never been so nervous in my life. We got on okay, but it was not an experience that I am looking forward to repeating. Hopefully we can take the Spanish train back to Almaty when we leave.

We arrived in our region around 4 am yesterday morning and were immediately greeted by our coordinator here and her husband. They are the most wonderful people. They made us feel at home immediately and took us to our new "home" for the next couple of weeks. They had stocked our hotel rooms with water and food so that we would have something immediately. The hotel is really quite nice. It is very small, but our room is very big with enough room for Jacob to still get his break-dancing groove on in front of the tv, just like at home. We unpacked and got some breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which seems to be there only for us, and then came back up to the rooms where all of us took a long nap. It was nice to finally feel rested for a little while!

The fun began that afternoon at 3:30 when our coordinator came to pick us up to go to the orphanage to meet our daughter for the first time. The orphanage is on the outskirts of town, so we have to drive there. Driving up was very surreal. When we drove into the compound, we saw children all around. My heart has never beated so fast. We were escorted into the orphanage director's office for our initial meeting and okay to visit a child. Jeff and I were so nervous. We weren't sure if she was going to bring several children out at once, or if we would see just one. The meeting was very official at first, with our coordinator presenting our paperwork to the orphanage director, and then the director handing it over to the social worker to meet her approval. After that, though, it was very informal. The director told us that she loves America and has visited with two families that adopted from her orphanage in different parts of the country. We asked her if she had been to California and offerred to have her come visit us, too, when our experience is over. She seemed to like that, and we were told to follow the social worker into one of the group rooms. I am so glad that we had Jacob and my parents there with us, because I was such a nervous wreck.

When we walked into the room, there was a group of kids sitting on the floor. The orphanage worker and the social worker spoke, and the worker went into another room. We were told to sit down on the couch, and a few kids came out of the other room. They were each wearing only their underwear and looked like they had just woken up from a nap. One wouldn't make eye contact with us, and the workers kept telling her to hurry. She scurried from one end of the room to the other, getting clothes on and letting someone comb her hair. She was then escorted in front of us. She was our child. Poor, sweet, terrified little girl. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be a young child who has just woken up from your nap only to be told that "your new parents are here". She had no idea this was happening, and was really terrified. She wouldn't make eye contact or talk when she was "presented" to us. I don't blame her!!!! Our coordinator knows her and talked to her in Russian to explain the situation and to tell her that she had even been to our house, and how much she was going to love it. Jacob gave her the Build A Bear that he made for her, and showed her that if she pressed on the stuffed animal's paw it played my voice saying "I love you" in Russian. Even though she wouldn't look at us, she grabbed onto it and wouldn't let go. We were absolutely flooded with emotion to meet this wonderful little girl that looks like she was born into our family. She is a perfect mix of Amber, Mitchell and Jacob.

The orphanage group room was a tough place to have a first meeting. There are 10 children in her group, and they were all around us for most of the visit. It was so hard to be trying to speak softly to our child so as not to scare her, have her not look at us or speak to us, and then have 9 other children jumping all over us and trying to get our attention. It broke my heart to see these beautiful children. We went outside to the play area with just our child and Jacob. Jacob had a great time playing on all of the play equipment. It was definitely not the safest playground I have ever seen, with huge holes in the ground and metal equipment in disrepair. Our child, however, did not really want to play. She did, however, start sitting next to me wherever we went, which was huge relief for me. We brought a small photo album with pictures of our family and home. We let her keep it, and she must have opened it 25 times during our two hour visit. Every time she would open it, we kept going over all the pictures, mostly of Amber, Mitchell and Jacob. We point to the people in the picture and say "Mama, Papa, brat Mitchell, brat Jacob, and sestra Amber." Funny that brother in Russian is "brat"! Then we would show her the picture of our house and say "Tvoy dom" - this is your house.

When we returned to the group room, she sat next to me on the couch and really snuggled in. She still wouldn't speak to us or make eye contact for more than a second, but hey, I'll take anything I can get! The other kids were so interested in her stuffed animal and picture book, and wanted to take it out of her hands. At that point, so snuggled her little body right into my side and grabbed my hand in hers. She pulled my arm around so that I could have it around her and the stuff we had brought her. Progress!!!!! Yay!!!!! Then we were told that our time was up and it was time to leave. She did actually look me in the eye and let me give her a hug when it was time to go. Our coordinator told her in Russian that we would be coming back tomorrow afternoon. Our coordinator told us that she said she didn't want us to go yet - more progress yay!!! We promised we would return the next afternoon and would bring some little treats for her and Jacob. We are just waiting to go back in about an hour and a half. I should have much more to tell after that - or I will let Jeff do it this time! Thank you for your e-mails and comments! They have been so great to us, as we are very homesick!!!!!