Thank you for your prayers and please continue to lift us up. We will go to the medical center and the US Embassy for Rebecca’s exam on Monday.
When I originally wrote this blog, there were a number of email updates we sent to our family and friends that were not included on the blog for privacy and safety reasons. The post above is actually what we sent via email on Christmas Eve as we left Donetsk. The post that follows gives the full story beginning with our Christmas Eve court visit and continues through our travel back to Kiev and Christmas Day.
Ukraine update – Merry Christmas!
This has indeed been a very unique Christmas. For those of you that are enjoying all our details, I will start with yesterday. Be forewarned – this is going to be a very, very long email. (Short version – we’re in an apartment in Kiev with Rebecca.)
Dan and I started our day with the traditional Hotel Krystaal breakfast and then prayed together in our room before Sasha picked us up at 8:30 for the 9AM court hearing. In his car with him already were Victor, Rebecca and the representative from the orphanage. Sasha told Dan he should sit up front since he is the biggest which meant Victor sat in back with the orphanage representative, Rebecca and me. (Sasha’s car is about the size of a Honda Civic.) Luckily, the court house was only about 15 minutes away. Dan, Rebecca the rep and I went inside to wait while Victor and Sasha continued on to pick up the representative from the town inspector’s office. While we waited, in the almost totally dark hallway since the power was out, a man who looked like I thought a judge should look came out of an office and spoke briefly with the orphanage representative. The only words I understood were “nine” and “Victor,” so I guessed he was our judge. (I know, I know. After all my years working with attorneys, judges and mediators I shouldn’t have a stereotype of what a judge should look like, but I do… and he did! He was roughly 60 years old, 5’10” tall, had a rim of graying hair, and was dressed in a suit that was MUCH nicer than anything anyone else in the courthouse was wearing.) Victor arrived with the woman from the inspector’s office just before 9:00 and we were called to enter the courtroom around 9:10. They started by reading from our official paperwork (our names, her name, etc.) and then asked Dan to approach the podium. He confirmed his name, that we were aware of Rebecca’s history and that we wanted to adopt her. Next was my turn… same questions plus “have we maintained a relationship with the child?” The judge asked the two jurors and the woman from the inspector’s office if they had any questions and no one made a peep. That was my cue to step in with the big request. “Your honor, if it pleases the court and you are pleased with our petition, we respectfully request the immediate execution of the order. We would like to take Valya (her Ukrainian nickname to show we really did know the kid and have a good relationship with her) to the United States as soon as possible to begin her schooling and medical treatment.” The female juror nodded like any good mom would and the judge spoke briefly. That’s when Victor leaned over to us and said, “Your petitions have been granted.” We carefully resisted the urge to squeal, cheer and jump up and down, but did give Rebecca huge hugs and kisses. God is amazing! Court was over by 9:20.
Sasha drove the three of us back to wait at our hotel while Victor obtained the official court decree and made copies. So what do you do in a hotel room with a 10 year old you can only moderately communicate with? Play Uno! We left the deck we’d been playing with at the orphanage for the children, but brought a spare for ourselves thinking we might have some blocks of extra time. Victor called about an hour later and asked us to be ready in 5 minutes. That was the beginning of our paperwork marathon. We have been staying in a little town called Enakieva, but Rebecca was actually born in Gorlovka. It’s about a 30 minute drive and a big enough town that you can probably find it on a map. There was even a page written about Gorlovka in the Ukraine travel book we brought along with us from home. We needed the vital records office to issue a new birth certificate that changed her name and listed us as parents. Oddly to us, the people at the vital records office are in the office on Thursday’s, but do not have any dealings with the public. This is the part where all Victor’s legwork and previous work in this region came in very handy. He had called ahead and asked a friend to do a favor for us. She unlocked the door of the building for us and gave Victor a form to fill out. He quickly did that and we waited. I should describe the vital records office to you so you can get a better idea of our 90 minutes there. The building appears to have been built in the 1950’s and has a very large entrance/reception area (we estimate 45’ x 80’) with age-appropriate tile floors and floor to ceiling windows on three sides. It had a unique little area in the center that looked like maybe it was supposed to be a fountain (sunken kiddie pool) but now had potted plants in it. We were supposed to stay near the back of the room where a wide staircase led to the actual office so passersby wouldn’t notice we were inside and, lest you get comfy in this picture, there was no heat in the building. There was a thermometer on a bench that read 3C… yup, 37F INSIDE the building. We would have preferred to wait in Sasha’s car, but needed to stand watch and look desperate (I was told to be ready to cry at any point during the day) to encourage them to make the certificate. Other than getting really cold, we all did pretty well waiting and were on to the next leg of our journey. Victor said our time was running tight to make the two hour drive to Donetsk and, as you can imagine, there was not room in Sasha’s car for all five of us and our luggage, so it was time to divide and conquer. Sasha called his friend Sergey who met us along the road and Dan switched cars. The plan was for him to go back to the hotel with Sergey, pick up the luggage and go to the train station in Donetsk to buy tickets for the overnight train. They did exactly that and arrived at the train station around 3:30 to find no 2nd class tickets. (Victor considers 3rd class unsafe for tourists and 1st class too expensive. At about $100 per ticket I agree.) Victor spoke (via Dan’s phone) to the ticket agent and instructed Dan to leave some money with her. At 5:30 they release the cancelled tickets and leaving our money with her would make us first in line. Since you know we made the train, you know the woman found us tickets all together – important because there are 4 beds in each compartment. Rebecca and I did not have as simple an afternoon, but it was wonderfully productive. Actually, now that I reflect on it, all she and I did was sit in the car… sometimes it was moving and sometimes we were waiting with Sasha for Victor, but all we had to do until we got to the train station was sit. I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version without all the waiting. Our first stop upon arriving in Donetsk (big city… made me think of Boston) was at a notary’s office for certified copies. We left there at 2:15 and didn’t arrive at the passport office until 3:30. I’m really not sure how far we traveled between the two, but am quite certain I have seen traffic in Manhattan move faster. We passed countless typical buildings and a few car dealerships as well as the new Donbass Arena. Apparently Donetsk has a world renowned soccer team and they have a shiny new arena. I really felt like we’d been driving all day when we got to the passport office, but will admit time was probably magnified by the length of time since I’d last seen a meal… or a bathroom. Rebecca was incredibly patient the whole ride and while we waited. She spent a while taking pictures out the car window and then asked for Dan’s iphone. She played not only Uno like he had showed her but also found 4 or 5 of his other games. She asked me for help and I had to tell her I didn’t know how to play most of them. As he does for every place we go, Victor had called ahead to the passport office and made sure they would be open when we arrived. He was inside for a while, close to an hour I think, and we waited in the car. (Neither Dan nor I had to go inside because we’d previously filled out paperwork with a Ukrainian notary that authorized Victor to request it on our behalf.) Rebecca was happily snoring in the backseat next to me by this point using my backpack for a pillow and sweet Sasha went to a nearby stand and bought some peanuts that he shared with me. He offered to get me a drink, too, but I didn’t dare drink anything. (In case you’re wondering, even though there wasn’t time for lunch, Rebecca and I did snack some along the way.) Once Victor emerged from the office with the coveted passport I quickly confirmed that Rebecca’s birth date and new name were correct and we were back out in traffic. (Poor Dan. He was at the train station with Sergey by this point and really had nothing to do. Thankfully, we have two Ukrainian cell phones and I could text him with updates, but he was painfully bored. They went to a restaurant together but realize that Sergey speaks no English and Dan knows only enough Russian to play Uno and say “thank you.” Even though I wasn’t really doing anything, I understood how helpless he felt.) Okay, back to me... and Rebecca. ;0) Victor went to one more government office (I really don’t know what it was for) and then we found the wonderful, blessed golden arches. I have never been so happy to see a McDonald’s in my entire life… not only do they serve food that I recognize, but they have complimentary bathrooms with toilets I recognize. Ahhh, McNuggets. You have to pay for BBQ sauce and ketchup, but I did not care. Sasha, Victor, Rebecca and I sat down to enjoy our meals and we took cheeseburgers to Dan at the train station. We waited for just a few minutes at the train station and boarded our train around 6:30 for a 7:20 departure. After all our “Groundhog Days” it was a very, very long day, but God blessed us more than we could have ever imagined. We have heard so many accounts of horrible delays for countless reasons and were more than ready to sing the Hallelujah Chorus multiple times throughout the day. There are so many people with seemingly small parts in this process and any one of them can bring it to a screeching halt. God is good… all the time!
Christmas Day – we awoke today not to a Christmas tree, but to the gentle motion of the train. We all slept some, but were awake well before 6:30AM. Our train arrived right on time in Kiev and we were off on our next day’s journey. Our apartment is only about a half mile from the train station, so we saved a few grivna, skipped the taxis and walked. What’s better than walking through the streets of Kiev at dawn with your luggage? Walking through the still icy, but starting to melt slushy streets! It really wasn’t that bad… just couldn’t resist the descriptors. You can visualize the four of us trudging carefully along trying not to slip on ice, towing suitcases, and avoiding little streams of runoff as we crossed each street. We are on the second floor again, but have a different apartment than when we arrived. This one is a bit more per night, but has a functional kitchen, washing machine and fold out sofa for Rebecca to sleep on. (We thought she’d like that.) We stayed at the apartment just long enough to drop off our luggage, inventory the accommodations and Dan was able to take a shower. (No time for girls to shower, we’re too slow.) Victor called a taxi and we were at the medical center before their scheduled 9:00 opening. Hmmm, there’s no one else waiting. Victor finds that odd. He poked around a bit and found a doctor who told him they are closed today and could not do Rebecca’s medical exam. (I’m putting that in my “I don’t get it” category. If the office is closed, why are they there?!) The doctor was nice enough to review her paperwork, though, and told us we should have no problem if we come back on Monday morning. That’s our plan now. Monday morning will be the medical exam followed by the US Embassy. Typically, the Embassy will issue a visa the next day (Tuesday) and we will be able to all fly home together on Wednesday. We’ll have three flights instead of the two that were originally scheduled, but we were supposed to fly on Tuesday. Two problems with that: 1- we’re not likely to have her visa and 2 – there were no more seats on Tuesday’s flights. It will mean a full 24 hours traveling, but we’ll just keep praying and continue trusting God to go before us each and every step.
Okay, so now what? What do you do on Christmas Day in a foreign country that doesn’t celebrate for two more weeks when it’s just barely above freezing? You go to the circus. Nope, never imagined I’d be writing that. After we left the medical center we wandered a bit and considered a mall, but it wasn’t open yet. Victor was pointing out significant buildings and we came upon the circus around 9:20. They had a performance at 10 and it was warm and dry, so for just over $10 each we went to the circus. It was a circus like you see in old movies complete with clowns, acrobats and a dancing bear – entertaining, but probably not PETA approved. Don’t worry, they didn’t do anything overtly cruel, some of the animals just didn’t look… happy. The dogs and the bear did, though. There were 3 big white dogs who took turns riding in a cart behind the bear’s motorcycle. Yes, after he danced, the bear drove a motorcycle! Rebecca has never been to a circus, or a city like Kiev for that matter, so she’s enjoyed the day quite a lot. 
After the circus, on our way to lunch, we stopped at a big park and saw Santa Claus (or maybe it was Papa Frost? He was wearing blue instead of red.) in a little log cabin. There were 10 or so other children and I think there must be a corporate sponsor because all the kids got to talk to him and have a photo taken for free. They also received a small cat shaped cake (dusted with sugar… tasted a little like gingerbread) in a box like a Happy Meal would have. I think our lunch today was Dan’s highlight meal of the trip – even better than the first time at the hotel’s restaurant. We ate at TGIFriday’s. The menu isn’t quite as extensive as ours, but they had all the basics including cheeseburgers and potato skins as well as an English menu and English-speaking server. All four of us were stuffed and happy when we left! On the way back to the apartment we stopped at two grocery stores and got to experience one of the much talked about, packed like sardines, Kiev buses. Victor will act as tour guide for us tomorrow and we’ll do a bit of sightseeing, but we’ll be on our own Sunday. He will need to translate all Rebecca’s paperwork and medical records both for the US Embassy and so we have copies we can understand to take home with us. I’m sure we’ll get out some, but just like at home it is often easier and almost always less expensive to eat at home.
After the circus, on our way to lunch, we stopped at a big park and saw Santa Claus (or maybe it was Papa Frost? He was wearing blue instead of red.) in a little log cabin. There were 10 or so other children and I think there must be a corporate sponsor because all the kids got to talk to him and have a photo taken for free. They also received a small cat shaped cake (dusted with sugar… tasted a little like gingerbread) in a box like a Happy Meal would have. I think our lunch today was Dan’s highlight meal of the trip – even better than the first time at the hotel’s restaurant. We ate at TGIFriday’s. The menu isn’t quite as extensive as ours, but they had all the basics including cheeseburgers and potato skins as well as an English menu and English-speaking server. All four of us were stuffed and happy when we left! On the way back to the apartment we stopped at two grocery stores and got to experience one of the much talked about, packed like sardines, Kiev buses. Victor will act as tour guide for us tomorrow and we’ll do a bit of sightseeing, but we’ll be on our own Sunday. He will need to translate all Rebecca’s paperwork and medical records both for the US Embassy and so we have copies we can understand to take home with us. I’m sure we’ll get out some, but just like at home it is often easier and almost always less expensive to eat at home. 
Wow, I’ve written a lot today, but I’ve stopped more than a few times to make snacks for dinner, help Rebecca take a shower, etc. (I didn’t really help, just made sure she knew where/what everything was. She seems very independent.) Tim is still excited to have a sister and even more so now that there is some sort of timetable to her arrival. He and Carey both heard and greeted me on the phone today. Ahhh, there’s no place like home and I can’t wait to get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment