Shoppin', Signin', and a little Whinin'

Jim:

2 good days in a row. I just want to really thank everyone who’s been praying for us. One of my prayers is that I don’t get in the way of all of yours!

Josh woke up around 7, and I heard him playing with the telephone in our room. I didn’t think much about it since he was playing with it last night, and I checked it, and it wasn’t working. I hear him dialing several numbers – here they still use pulse dialing, so I could hear the ‘chk-chk-chk-chk’ pulse as he dialed. Then I hear someone answer and Josh say, “Alyo”. Then I hear the guy hang up before I got over to him. I told him that he can’t play with the phone and I set it up, and went to the restroom. When I came out, he was under his covers, and the phone was gone again. I took it away again, with a little sterner, “Nyet”. Later I had Oksana ask him who’s he’s trying to call, and he said his teacher. So we are going to try to help him call her tomorrow.
Josh and I had breakfast at Café Mohr. He picked at his omelet before saying he was done, then he started putting pepper on it – a lot of pepper, and then he finished it off. I kept taking the pepper away thinking he was just playing, but apparently he wasn’t.

We caught the #8 bus to downtown where we met Oksana for clothes shopping. We went to the same market where we took Ashley, and we got him a couple new pairs of everything, and a new coat, hat and gloves, and shoes. The pants took awhile because they kept bringing out these funky looking jeans and they kept hearing me say, “no”. We finally found a nice pair, though. Every new piece of clothes that could replace an old one was worn out of the store. Soon Oksana declared, “He looks like a whole new boy!”, and he really did. He was downright giddy in the dressing room trying on his new pants.

We got another passport photo taken, and then had lunch while we waited for it to get developed. We were back at the same pizza place as yesterday. Josh had the same salad, and a bowl of borsch.

We decided to meet Oksana at Ashley’s orphanage at 3:30 to finish the paperwork there (the official transfer papers). During our hour and a half back in our room, I showed Josh our alphabet flashcards. He doesn’t know many of our letters, so we got through “H” today. I told him tomorrow we’ll get through the next batch. While we were on his bed, I saw something under his pillow. I tried to move his pillow but Josh tried to keep something hidden. It was a sandwich of meat and cheese. I told him that he NEVER needs to hide food from me. If he's hungry he just needs to tell me and I'll take care of it. I didn't get the impression that he was hoarding it for fear of not getting another meal anytime soon. I felt it was more that he was just sneaking it behind my back. All I know for sure is that boy can eat.

As Josh and I walked in the side gate of Ashley’s orphanage, Ashley and her friends were coming out of her dorm with brooms – it was time to clean up their section of the grounds. So we walked together to the main admin building. On the walk over Ashley’s friends swung around behind us and asked Josh a couple of questions. The first was, “What’s your name?”, but I couldn’t catch the rest. I told her I was going in to meet Oksana and Nicholae, the director (Same first name as the director at SB). She looked a little surprised when I said, “Bye – see ya later.” Oksana was already with the lawyer, and I soon signed 4 copies of the transfer doc. We had to leave the date blank since I don’t know when I’m actually pulling her out yet. Then Ashley joined us. The lawyer had her sign a document – I asked what it was, and they said it was the consent form. I thought she already signed that, I said, and she had, but they needed her to sign one more for some reason. I proudly watched her sign it.

On the walk over, I encouraged Josh to talk to his sister, and to at least say, “Privyet”. He did even better. He offered her gum and pistachios. She turned him down both times, but I was proud of him. I pulled out my laptop and showed Ashley and Josh about 50-60 pictures. A few were of other families in our area that have adopted, including one with Anya, and I have already showed her a picture of Nadia, things around our house, a nice video of Wyatt playing with Max, a few pictures of our cats, of us hiking, some of Josh and Vanya during the UOO camp, and finished with some of Ashley with us and with her friends. I think it went over good. It got everyone talking a little. There was a picture of Josh on Austin’s electronic drums. Ashley said, “Drums are different here.” So I explained how they work. I showed her where her room is, a picture of Tatum painting it, one of us celebrating Christmas early this year, a couple of our family Christmas party.

The lawyer said that Nicholae had arrived, so we could go see him. Ashley didn’t want to, but when the lawyer said it was time to go in, she followed. Nicholae was very friendly and spoke at length to Ashley about how much better off she is going to be with us. He said that with the new foster care program, he has placed several kids, but in 70% of the cases, he would not want the kids to be adopted by these families. This is because they live in very small, poor villages where your only future is working on a small farm and drinking. It made me glad that Ashley turned down 4 foster care families. I thanked him for taking care of Ashley for the past 3 years, and I complimented him on the school they have here. Then I gave him our donation, which he was very thankful for.

We went back to our meeting room, Ashley grabbed the bag of fruit I brought for her and her roommates, and we started walking her back to her room. On the way we met her teacher, Rimma. We talked for about 15 minutes about Ashley’s personality, and specifically the struggle she is having with leaving. Rimma knows that Ashely has talked to her bio mother twice since we arrived, and that “her mother is the burden she carries.” She also said that some of her friends are jealous of her, and feel they deserve to be adopted more than she does, so they are making it hard on Ashley, and are giving her bad advice. At the sanitorium Ashley said that all her friends told her she should come with us, but apparently that’s not the case now. I’ve noticed that most of her friends are pretty cold towards me. Her friend Natasha has been very friendly, and Olga has talked to me a little, but everyone else just gives me blank stares then turn away when I look at them. I figured I just needed to be more outgoing, and maybe I still do. Anyway, back to Rimma – she said Ashley is a very social girl with lots of friends. She is a good student but needs “motivation” sometimes to get her work done. I asked, “What kind of motivation works?” and they said that sometimes you just need to make her do her work. Rimma did say that Ashley’s really been working hard on her English lessons since we arrived. I was very happy to hear that. It was obvious that Rimma had a lot of in depth knowledge about Ashley and her current situation. Soon Ashley returned on her way back to prepare her lessons for tomorrow. She said goodbye- gave Josh a hug, then me, then Oksana. Then off she went to study. I was very happy to see her hug Josh.

I bought her one more phone card, then Josh and I downloaded some pictures to leave with Ashley’s friends. Josh said he wasn’t hungry yet, so I was going to catch the bus home, but it was actually pretty nice out, so we walked back to the Bible House. I made some Chicken Noodle soup from a packet. There were no microwave directions, but I made do, and it was actually really good. We both had two bowls, and bread and butter, and juice. We also had a lesson in not slurping our soup. Part of this was seeing who could slurp the loudest. Then Josh had some meat, cheese and bread for dessert. About 20 minutes later, he had another meat and cheese sandwich. He asked if he should take a shower, and I said yes. It was about 8 when he came out of the bathroom with his hair freshly gelled up. He gelled it just before we went to Ashley’s as well. Tonight he’s just running around in his PJ top and new underwear – he doesn’t want the pants. I think he’s so used to SB being so cold that this room must feel like a sauna, even though it’s not that warm. I let him watch a DVD I bought him today, Kung Fu Panda, in Russian. Thankfully it works on the Houghton’s DVD player, so now I know I can buy some more. Ashley asked for some the other day, too. It was 10:00 when the movie ended, later than I plan on letting him normally stay up (I put him to bed about 9:15 last night). He started whining a little, and pulled his blanket over himself. He was watching the movie on my bed, and brought his blanket with him. My first thought was he won’t be watching any more DVD’s past 9 if this is how he’s going to act, and I’ll make sure I get that point across to him tomorrow morning. Then he didn’t want to brush his teeth, but he did. He shut the door so he could go to the bathroom, then I heard him brush for MAYBE 10 seconds before he rinsed off his brush. I joined him in the bathroom, put more toothpaste on his brush, took off my watch and made it clear that he needed to keep brushing until the second hand went all the way around, and to brush all of his teeth. I know you’re supposed to brush 2 minutes, and I’ll get him there before I get home, but I figured a baby step was in order tonight. I asked him last night if any of his teeth hurt, and he pointed to both of his lower molars. Both look like they have cavities. He’s going to need a lot of work on his teeth.

I talked to Kari and we’ve decided that I should take Josh and Ashley to Kiev Sunday night. I’ll take them to church with me on Sunday with Sergey, then take Ashley back to pick up her things. We have a place to stay with an American couple in Kiev who speak enough Russian to get by, so that will be really nice.

Hoping to be home by next Friday. Thursday would be even better.

Gotta go get some sleep. Austin emailed me and said he’s calling us between 6 and 7 tomorrow AM. Hopefully it’s closer to 7.

Thanks again for all of your support!