Waiting and more family........

We have really gotten used to waiting. Sergei had to stay an extra day in Odessa to help the other family so did not arrive back until Thursday morning. We have been blessed with an excellent facilitator though. He is always on top of everything! Tuesday would have been the first day papers could have arrived in Kobelyaki. This was the paper from the inspector in Poltava to make a formal request to the inspector in Kobelyaki, to make a formal request to the orphanage to allow the sisters to be seperated. They requested that the request be sent by mail only - so we've had to wait. As expected it did not arrive on Tuesday. We spoke with Sergei on Wednesday and he said they told him they did not have it. He felt that they probably did, but one person maybe hasn't told the next person who hasn't told the person he was talking to it was there. So, we would take care of it when he gets back. Things happen a lot faster in Ukraine when you are actually present - not over the phone.


He arrived back on Thursday, and immediately got to calling Kobelyaki to insist someone look for the letter more. Sure enough they had it! So now, we've had a few days resting and spending time with Svetlana, and now it's back to paperwork. So, yesterday morning, he called the orphanage and there was going to be the graduation ceremony for the older kids. We found out that the 'Kindergarten' then Svetlana was in is really more like pre-school. They don't consider it 'school'. So we went to the ceremony for the older kids and then went to see Svetlana for a little while. While there, Sergei and Irina (social worker from the orphanage) went ahead and got the letters typed up that are needed and we signed them - this was the court petition to adopt Svetlana. So we signed those, and then we all headed down to Kobelyaki (hour drive). We went to the inspector (with 'gifts' again) and she had gotten the paper ready, and had to get the Mayor to sign it but he was out. He was probably at one of the school's ceremonies (May 31 is the official last day of school everywhere). He arrived back shortly thereafter, signed the paper and then we drove over to the Kobelyaki orphanage with Luda from the inspectors office to present the request letter to them. They had already prepared it, so she went in to deliver the formal request, picked up the formal response, then we drove back to her office. Now she had to do the conclusion letter (?) and then take it to the Mayor to sign, but he was out again. Now, this may seem like a lot, but remember it goes both ways. If you need something done that is not the 'normal' way of having things done, it can work in your favor. All of this is suppose to be done by mail, going back to Poltava. Sergei had suggested that perhaps someone in the post office would stamp the letter for us and we could deliver it ourselves back to Poltava. So, he had called and someone said they would do this for us. So, while we were waiting for the Mayor to come back, we went to the post office with more 'gifts' for the woman who was helping us to make sure someone would be there later after we got the Mayor to sign. That was good. So we went back and waited some more, and the Mayor finally arrived back. He signed the paper, we went to the post office, they officially stamped the letter, and now we could head back to Poltava.

We will have to have the letter 'officially' stamped at the Poltava post office tomorrow and then we can deliver it to the inspector in Poltava. This way, it appears that all protocals were followed and that it had 'officially' been mailed. Of we had to wait for the mail, it may have taken another couple of weeks - this is what we mean by things working in your favor with a system that is not quite there yet.

After we got back into Poltava, there is one more major thing we had to take care of. Svetlana has another sister, Neelya, who is being taken care of in a home. This is a very good thing, that she is not in an orphanage. Ukraine only recently has had things begin to change into more of 'foster care' than orphanages. So this was a Ukrainian family who could afford to take one girl in. We had to go and get a paper signed that gave us permission to adopt her sister. So we went and met Neelya and her caretakers. This ws very difficult for us. Neelya looks a lot like Svetlana and she is a very smart 8 year old who is completely aware that she would not be able to visit her sister anymore. Apparantly they take her to visit Svetlana once a month. We were very much 'drilled' by her caretakers - which we would too if in the same position - to find out what our intentions with Svetlana were and where she would live, what type of school would she go to etc. Over all, everything went extremely wel but was very emotionall. We made new friends and now have permanent ties with a family in Ukraine and her sister. It was very difficult when her 'father' looked at us and said - 'promise me one thing - that you will never hurt her'. Now what we didn't realize - was that her sister - Neelya - was the one who had to write the letter to give us permission to adopt her sister. We are almost in tears as we are typing this. Imagine having to do this with someone in your family. She completely understood what she was doing, and we will have to plan to come back and visit them - we could not keep them apart from each other. We have their address and they have ours, so they will be able to keep in touch with each other. Afterwards, they served us food and juice, fruit and dessert - very much Ukrainian hospitality to go above and beyond what is expected. We will be getting with them to go out for dinner once Svetlana is in our care and we can share those last moments with each other.

Well, it has been a tiring day - both physically and emotionally - but it was a good day. We hope to have our court hearing by the end of next week now. Please keep us in prayer as we continue to get to know Svetlana and bond with her, and try to help her start learning some English now which will help her make the transition easier to America.