Thursday Mar 31st
We found out today that the court made a mistake when counting our 10 days of our 10-day waiting period. Today was to be the last day of the waiting period. But it turns out that tomorrow is the actual last day (due to a holiday that was forgotten). This would seem like no big deal…what’s one day, right? But, there are only certain days during the week to sign off certain documents, so this will actually push us back at least 3 days. So much for our perfect schedule!! Oh, well…So, today we did some paperwork that we were going to save for another day, hoping to cut off some lead time. With a few miracles, we could still leave for Kiev in the middle of next week. There we spend two days doing medicals and visas, and then we head for home.
Friday June 1st
A Day at the Park…AQUA PARK THAT IS!!
Today was supposed to have been spent on travel between several cities, completing changes to birth certificates (the girls‘ names need to be recorded), and making preparations for visas. But, because of the error in calculating our 10 days, today ended up being a free day. So, we went to a new water park that was just finished a week ago. I had each of the kids invite their best friends, and we invited a couple of other older kids whom we have gotten to know (Valik and Tanya). And since we went on a Friday, it wasn’t crowded at all. The kids could literally go up and down the slides as much as they wanted without
a wait. We also got in a little water soccer. Basically, it was a big oversized slip and slide with goals on each end. No matter how you went about kicking the soccer ball, you were going to go down. Luckily the bottom was well padded, kind of like the moonwalks that kids get in and jump around at the amusement park. So, no one got hurt. The day was nothing but Fun in the Sun.
We stayed there until about mid-afternoon, then we changed clothes and went to the CBN Training Center. This is one of the charities that Janet and I help sponsor. It is there to help kids as they are graduating from the orphanage and give them some extra training in computer and English, and offers some Christian counseling as well as a place to stay, if needed.
(Kids graduate from the orphanage at 16, so they are not necessarily ready for the rea
l world. The statistics show that about 60% of the kids will turn to crime or prostitution to get by.)
We had great timing, because our friend Nataliya Khomyak (a former Ukranian resident) from CBN in Virginia was there, and they were throwing an end-of-the-year pizza party for the kids who had been coming to the Center. The building was built out nicely, and had a dozen computers for the kids to work on. While they were showing pictures on an overhead, we were very proud to see our Sveta in most of the pictures helping with the buildout. We had not known about this, and it turns out that she had
spent quite a bit of time and energy in its development. As I said, we were very proud to find this out. She thinks highly of the center, and let us know that it was really a big contribution to the kids in the community, especially the orphanage. She was proud that her new parents had helped fund it. There is still work being done there, but it was very functional and it was obvious that the kids who use the facility love it. Misha (Nataliya’s cousin) and his wife, Luda, are doing a great job running the place. Our money is well spent there.
This weekend is going to be pretty low key. Will probably do some shopping for things that the kids need for the trip home. Like, we noticed that the sandals that Olya and Layna have been wearing now that it is warmer are quite old and falling apart (as most of their shoes are). So, we were going to get them new ones for the trip home.
We found out today that the court made a mistake when counting our 10 days of our 10-day waiting period. Today was to be the last day of the waiting period. But it turns out that tomorrow is the actual last day (due to a holiday that was forgotten). This would seem like no big deal…what’s one day, right? But, there are only certain days during the week to sign off certain documents, so this will actually push us back at least 3 days. So much for our perfect schedule!! Oh, well…So, today we did some paperwork that we were going to save for another day, hoping to cut off some lead time. With a few miracles, we could still leave for Kiev in the middle of next week. There we spend two days doing medicals and visas, and then we head for home.
Friday June 1st
A Day at the Park…AQUA PARK THAT IS!!
Today was supposed to have been spent on travel between several cities, completing changes to birth certificates (the girls‘ names need to be recorded), and making preparations for visas. But, because of the error in calculating our 10 days, today ended up being a free day. So, we went to a new water park that was just finished a week ago. I had each of the kids invite their best friends, and we invited a couple of other older kids whom we have gotten to know (Valik and Tanya). And since we went on a Friday, it wasn’t crowded at all. The kids could literally go up and down the slides as much as they wanted without
a wait. We also got in a little water soccer. Basically, it was a big oversized slip and slide with goals on each end. No matter how you went about kicking the soccer ball, you were going to go down. Luckily the bottom was well padded, kind of like the moonwalks that kids get in and jump around at the amusement park. So, no one got hurt. The day was nothing but Fun in the Sun.We stayed there until about mid-afternoon, then we changed clothes and went to the CBN Training Center. This is one of the charities that Janet and I help sponsor. It is there to help kids as they are graduating from the orphanage and give them some extra training in computer and English, and offers some Christian counseling as well as a place to stay, if needed.
(Kids graduate from the orphanage at 16, so they are not necessarily ready for the rea
l world. The statistics show that about 60% of the kids will turn to crime or prostitution to get by.)We had great timing, because our friend Nataliya Khomyak (a former Ukranian resident) from CBN in Virginia was there, and they were throwing an end-of-the-year pizza party for the kids who had been coming to the Center. The building was built out nicely, and had a dozen computers for the kids to work on. While they were showing pictures on an overhead, we were very proud to see our Sveta in most of the pictures helping with the buildout. We had not known about this, and it turns out that she had
spent quite a bit of time and energy in its development. As I said, we were very proud to find this out. She thinks highly of the center, and let us know that it was really a big contribution to the kids in the community, especially the orphanage. She was proud that her new parents had helped fund it. There is still work being done there, but it was very functional and it was obvious that the kids who use the facility love it. Misha (Nataliya’s cousin) and his wife, Luda, are doing a great job running the place. Our money is well spent there.This weekend is going to be pretty low key. Will probably do some shopping for things that the kids need for the trip home. Like, we noticed that the sandals that Olya and Layna have been wearing now that it is warmer are quite old and falling apart (as most of their shoes are). So, we were going to get them new ones for the trip home.
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