Diddles in Ukraine :: October 11th

[] Diddles in Ukraine Thursday | October 12, 2006 October 11th October 11 th, Wednesday. Every day there are little battles. Some you win and some you lose. We took a van into downtown Sumy today to the center market place. There we took a flashcard with 38 digital photos in to be printed. The photos are photos we have received from hosted families or photos we have taken during our visit to the orphanage to include pictures of teachers and students in competition. The price to print digital photos was .90 grinya’s per picture or about 19 cents (US) a photo. The photos took 1 hour to print. The price is comparative to the states. We arrived at the boarding school around 1400L and distributed the photos. There was a concert today at 1500L. It was great seeing all the children perform. Several of them performed in their traditional clothes. Performances involved dancing and singing. Zhenya did well. The winners of the day I believe was Dasha, Tolia and Stan. The final statement from the judges was that all the children were worthy to compete in the region and the country of Ukraine. They were all winners. The concert was put together by the same couple that performs religious services during the week for the children. The family is sponsored by a missionary effort. The couple provided a nice electrical piano, microphones, speakers and such. I am grateful to whatever organization that is sponsoring them to provide the children with hope and happiness. There were a lot of happy faces and laughter going on during the entertainment. During the competition, Natalie was able to assist a couple of hosting families to talk to their children. A couple of French families have returned to take their children home. It appears a lot of Frenchmen come to the school. A lot of the children speak some French, such as Ruslan and Zhenya. One couple is adopting a girl and another family is adopting 3 children. They live only two hours away by flight. The third family did not come to contest Ruslan’s adoption. Through their translator, they advised us that the family that hosted Ruslan was in tears and very distressed and devastated. She said we have caused a lot of pain. They tried to play a guilt trip on us. It worked and had Nadine in tears. However, we will continue on with the adoption. We will love Ruslan as much as any of our children. If we cancel the adoption of Ruslan, we will lose Zhenya. It would be very painful to lose Zhenya. The SDA did not know that a hosted family wanted Ruslan and neither did the boarding school. Ruslan did not know the intent of the French family. If we had known along they way that a family was planning on adopting Ruslan, we may have made a different decision. But I still stand by, the fact that after prayer and consideration, the thought that came to me was, It matters not if you adoption 1 or a 100. What matters is how you raise them. I will raise them with Love and provide the best I can. It is good to see that there are several good families in the world striving to help the children if they are able. Others help by supporting those that are. I think if the hosted family had communicated their desires to Ruslan, and maybe sent a letter to the boarding school; the distress of this lady would have been naught. The lesson I see here, is that hosted families need to strive to stay in the mind of the children, with it is with letters or phone calls or some other means of connection. I feel that our trip has been positive in providing hope to the other children that has been hosted by our group. At 1700L, we prepared to leave the school with the boys. We even had the boys not go to their supper meal, because they were eating with us. However, the director was out. The vice director mentioned that she could go to jail if she let us take the children home. The law is that the school is still responsible for the children According to her, until the courts give us the documents on the 20th, the children must remain at the orphanage. A battle lost. We took the kids to a small store, bought them a sandwich, ice cream and a soda. (The kids almost won!). We left the boarding school at 1745L When we arrived at the apartment, we picked up the gift to give to Valentina and meet with Lidya to go see Valentina who is at a technical boarding school. The school holds 160 students (80 boys and 80 girls) starting at age 14-15. The children are in the technical school for 3-4 years as they learn a marketable skill. Some of the skills taught are computer operations, remodeling, painting, and administrative services. Valentina was out at an activity and did not arrive at the school until 2000. We meet with her and presented her the gift. It was a tearful reunion. She expressed how much she love the family that hosted her. She and her brothers have a tight bond. We left at 2130. Back to the apartment for a quick dinner of Bulgarian omelets and off to sleepy land. We do miss our children at home. We miss not having the boys in this empty apartment. Tomorrow should be "Hump" day. We hope for a more cheerful day. We have enquired about Elizabeth’s niece, but have not gotten any information. We are told they are researching the information for us. Posted by at 10:30 in | Link | Comments (0) Comments Write a comment Name: Email: Url: Comment: Remember info? Search My Advertisement Categories Archives October - 2006 September - 2006 Syndication RSS Atom Albums Kiev Sumy Ukraine Part 2 Sumy, Ukraine Random Blog