Thursday, April 12, 2007

We started the day at the Zap Baby Orphanage. Molly and Jim are adopting a boy from there. He is adorable. We played with him for 2 hours then off to the notary. The one only took 2.25 hours. Good notary experience! We needed to get signatures for the passport. My using a notary, our lawyer can get these items on our behalf.

We were very hungry by 2pm and ate lunch at the the Rodeo restuarant. A western theme with Ukrainian food. It was fortunate that we were in the area since Jim and Molly had to update another document while we were eating lunch. There is always more paperwork and it is not predictable.

We called Sasha - our cab driver is on a first name basis with us - and he took us to Matvivka. Sasha is a common short name for Alexander as well as Alexandra.

The children were worried because we were late. As soon as they saw Tom's bag of goodies, they asked for Tom to go outside. We started playing outside and it started raining. While we were outside a young man came up and Matthew immediately ran up to him and gave him a hug. He came over and I introduced myself in Russian. He brought a bag of sporting goods and went off to play with the children. Max left me and followed along. I went inside and asked Asa to ask Maria about Sasha. He is from a local church and comes out to play with the children each Sunday. Later, when it started raining harder, I asked Matthew, through Asa, about Sasha. He said that he believes in God and he likes him. I am so thankful that Sasha is teaching the kids about God.

We went in and played cards and games. Then we received a call that Luba needed more signatures for the SDA. So we headed back to the hotel.

The SDA is looking at our paperwork in Kyiv. That is the good news. No definite court date yet. At least they are looking at our paperwork. I just want a court date, so we can start planning appointments.

Luba, our lawyer in the region, is very hard working. At the end of the day she looks tired. She is moving as fast as she can and juggles many people, offices and documents well. She is a wonder woman. Debbie, you are right. Luba has been offer a position as a judge in Kyiv and will most likely take it. She will be a great judge but will be missing in this process.

Tomorrow, we cannot go to the orphanange before 1pm. The SDA is inspecting the site. Larissa asked us to come late and not take the kids out of school.

Time for dinner, ciao!