Weekend at Staris Burivyka

Urgent prayer requests: 1) Pray for Maxim’s passport to be completed Monday, December 29th (see below). 2) Jim talked to Oksana tonight, and our papers weren’t completed at the SDA on Friday. Please pray that they are completed on Monday, December 29^th, so they can be put on the overnight train as our court date is on Tuesday. If the documents don’t make it by then, we may have to wait until after the holidays-January 12^th-to have our FIRST court date.

I want to say that we are trying to get better about getting the blog going again. We are still wondering when the boring part starts as we run all day long. Jim downloaded all of my emails today, and I just read all of your comments and emails tonight from the last week. Matt-I would NEVER black list your comments! We love hearing from all of you and are so grateful for your prayers, emails and comments. We read every one.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Today we slept in. At 10:30 Vitaly picked us up to go back to Staris Burivyka (SB). Oksana had family plans, so we are on our own today. We enjoy having her with us, but it is also fun to hang out with the kids without her. The director has been kind enough to say we can visit whenever we please. The holidays have played in our favor in this respect because the kids are now out of school and just hanging out all day. Usually they are watching TV. The majority of the kids at SB have gone home with family for the holidays, so now it is truly the orphans that are still there. We usually check in the large open area outside of the early elementary classrooms for kids first. They are all watching TV, and the caretaker yells at Sasha and Vasya. This is the first time Austin and Tatum have seen Vasya as he was in the hospital with what sounded like an ear infection. He comes running to us, and Austin swings him in the air. He jumps up and touches the top of Austin’s head indicating how tall Austin is now. He always has a big smile on and gives each of us a hug, as does Sasha. This is when we miss Oksana as we are not sure what Vasya knows yet. He is so incredibly sweet and thoughtful. Is anyone out there in blog land planning on adopting next winter? If you want more information on two sweet boys, please leave us a comment with your email address. At this point I can’t imagine us ever coming back, but we want to find a home for these two. We are forming relationships with more of the kids now. Today we enjoy spending more time with Andre, Sergey (who keeps talking to us in Russian), Sasha, another Natasha, Oksana and, of course, the 2008 UOO camp kids. We don’t know the 2007 UOO camp kids very well, but a few of them are familiar to us, and they pop in and out. We inquire about Tanya and Anton and find they have now gone with relatives for the holidays also. We brought some sliding Christmas puzzles and the Barrett’s punching balloons (which were a huge hit and don’t pop as easily as regular balloons). We ask about little Natasha and find out she is not feeling well, so we go to her room and visit her briefly. She is laying in bed but still smiling. We spend two hours playing with the kids and then head back to Kherson.

Tonight the McGowan family invited us over for a delicious spaghetti dinner. They are staying in the big house, and we are 10 steps away in the small house. We have only spoken a few times briefly with them prior to this. They are from New Jersey. Their SDA appointment was on November 19^th. They were hoping to adopt two brothers under 6, but God had other plans, and they are now adopting 4-year-old Maxim who is completely deaf. When we first met them Martita told us, “He is perfect.” They filled us in on how to get around town, let us use their washing machine and internet card and now are having us over for dinner. Their generosity overflows to us, and we are thankful for our new friends. Please pray that their son’s passport is complete on Monday so they can all fly home together. Their blog is www.mcgowanfam.blogspot.com

(Note: Since it isn’t her real name yet anyway, we are going to start using our daughter’s new name. It is Ashley. So temporarily there will be two Ashley Volfs in our family until our niece gets married in May. Ashley-we heard through the Volf grapevine that you are tickled that our daughter chose the same name as you. Thanks for graciously accepting another Ashley into the family!)

Sunday, December 28, 2008

We decided to go back to SB today because we told them yesterday we would come on Monday. But we rescheduled bowling with Ashley on Monday, and we aren’t going to let the kids down by coming later than we had promised. We are going to the Presbyterian church with the McGowans today, and it is at 1:00, so we decide to head to SB early as it gets dark here around 3:30. Vitaly picks us up at 9:00, and we take the hour car ride to SB. We received a dusting of snow last night, and the sun is actually peaking out this morning, and it is beautiful. The traffic is very light since it is Sunday. When we pull into SB, some kids run out from the dining room to see who it is. We see Oksana, who runs in and gets Sasha and Vasya. Word gets around quickly, and all of our favorites start showing up. Today we brought some games: Trouble, Connect 4 and Uno. There are some benches, and we use the windowsills as our tables. Some of the older kids show up for the card games, and it is nice to get to know them more. Sergey from the 2007 UOO camp hangs around us a lot today. We give the boys a digital camera, and they spend a lot of time “posing” for pictures pretending they are knocking each other out, break dancing, doing flips, etc. Each day we are getting to know a core group of kids better, and it will be hard to leave them. There is one couch in the room, and for awhile I sit on it and am immediately surrounded by kids. They sit right next to me or on my lap and physically put my arms around their shoulders, hold my hands and snuggle up. I say prayers for each of them and wish they had parents to love and hold them every day as they obviously crave it. We stay for two hours again, and as we hug them all goodbye they are all asking when we will be back.

I can’t remember if I blogged about this previously, but our facilitator says one of the reasons they have never had an international adoption at this orphanage is probably because it is a special school. The word “special” is actually in the name of it. We had a consultation with Dr. Yuri in Kiev, and that was one of the warnings he gave us. If it was a “special” school, then the kids have special needs he said. Since we had spent three weeks with the UOO kids this summer during the cultural exchange camp, we knew they were normal kids. Of course, they have typical orphanage delays and behavior, but they are awesome kids. Now that we have spent a couple weeks at this “special” orphanage, I can say that the majority of the kids we have seen are normal children. I hope that potential adopting families coming to Ukraine do not let the label of “special” deter them from visiting a certain child. Our facilitator also told us kids are usually sent to a “special” school because they are behind in school, as is our Sasha. He is behind because his family never sent him to school, it is through no fault of his own.

At 1:00 we meet the McGowans for church near the Bible House where we first stayed. It is a very small congregation, and quite a few people speak English. It sounded like they are all here as part of a Presbyterian mission group. I just can’t remember exactly what the name of it is. The whole service was in Russian, except for communion, which was in English and translated to Russian. It was great to worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ here in Ukraine and hear them sing praises to God in their language. After church we decided to walk to Café Morn again. It was freezing cold, so we fast walked there. We usually only eat two meals a day here, breakfast and then a late lunch/early dinner. We have been eating a lot better since Austin and Tatum arrived. It was easier to neglect ourselves, I guess, when it was just the two of us. I felt guilty walking by Ashley’s orphanage on the way there and knowing she was inside, and we were headed to a restaurant. I can’t wait until we are all home together in Colorado.