February 23

In German it sounds more like how I felt:

   Heute ich war krank.

Pam braved the bone-chilling wind and went with Anya, rummaging through second-hand stores, buying clothes by the kilo.  That Pam's pen name is Mary Hunt, author of many cheap books, really impressed the Ukrainian women, who could not believe that Americans shopped at such stores.

Later Anya and Pam observed "Defender of the Fatherland Day" by watching the young men of Internat #1 honor servicemen with their own feats of coordination, athleticism, and 'this-one's-for-you-Grandpa' stamina. Testonerone time.  Milana asked for the camera, and wandered throughout the exhibition like a photojournalist, taking over 15,000 shots.  And we will show you them all.

J.K.

Stas was a leader of his group, and it was clear that the other boys looked up to him.

Later Anya led an English class to 6.7 of the youth. 

Milana seemed distracted, so doesn't get a full point.  After 8 years in an orphanage, I wonder why.  In the middle of lessons about whether to use "have" or "has", she would interject, "When I get to America will I have a cell phone?" or "When I get to America will I be able to be in drama?" 

Answers: "Not right away" and "After yesterday's flawlessly executed hooky ruse, do you really think you need more practice?"

Stas did very good, nairily making no faux paxes and asking alot of questions probing of Pam.  We really think he should be adopted.  Ask us if you want more details.



Anya is a favorite every time she shows up.  They rush
up and and hug her.



Because it was "Men's Day," getting a taxi was all but impossible.  They called every number anyone knew; they walked to the main boulevard to try to flag one, they took the bus downtown to try to find any just sitting, ... nothing was working.  Pam was so cold, she was ready to give up and spend the night at Anya's.  At last one came.  Arriving at home, my recommendation to buy Gore-tex Insulated Comfort Wolverine Big Horn boots with 600g of pure Victoria's Secret heat was met with scorn.  It took a long time to get her to smile again. 

The process of getting the subpoena has changed, and we are the first test case.  So it will only take 3 days for the computerized system to deliver an application from one side of the street to the other, in comparison to the old system, which took 15 minutes.

February 22

Today we were hoodwinked into hooky. 

Anya:   I am just the messenger.  Milana wants you to come to three of her classes.

Andy:   Really?  Did she get permission?

Anya:   That's what I asked her.

Without a clear understanding, we went.  She and Yulia met us.  We went upstairs, thinking we were going to class.  Instead, Milana had checked out a key to a visiting room.  They wanted to chit chat!

Andy:   Shall we go to class?

Girls:    Oh, no!  The teacher is terrible.

Andy:   I get it now.

So we worked some more on Photostory, and then Pam said: Done! played Blink.  Pam is merciless.  She is too fast!  Oops, I misplaced her favorite word in this paragraph. 

Masha had the signed documents (letters from us, the Internat director, and the regional social worker) sent to Kyiv via special courier yesterday, and Nina received them and submitted them to SDA today. SDA must first bless the process, and second say they'd rather not show up at court date.  In order for the second to happen Masha must subpoena them.  She waited half a day Monday and all day Tuesday to try to do this.  Blech.

This entry is on the short side.  Hooray, you say.  HOWEVER—you must read the February 19 entry of Clayton and Selene Peck's adoption blog. They are also adopting an older teen girl, and ran into a MAJOR snag.  See http://claypeck.com/adoption-journey/

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…

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Our hearts were overwhelmed by their story.  Now, you must know that Anya has befriended a young boy Stas who will turn 16 in May.  He would love to be adopted. 

After reading Clayton's blog, Anya wrote, "Wow!  I am so excited that Stas still has hope. He called me today and shared he saw you in their school.  His date of birth is May 5th, 1995.  Stas is a very nice boy. ALWAYS smiling!  Loving God!  He visited America a couple of years ago as a part of a drama team from his orphanage.  He loved it!  He loved that people were so nice and SMILING!!  He wants to be in a family, but is losing his hope because of him turning 16 in May."

Please pray and share this note.  Prayer is powerful.  And do the math.  Remember, the new interpretation of the I-600 law potentially gives you until November 2011, but one would need to get right on the paperwork to make sure the application is in before May 5.  If we can help, please let us know.  We know this process backwards and backwards.

February 21

Fair warning.  There is nothing of interest to read today.

We were pulled over by the police.  Twice.  The second time we waited 20 minutes while the poor taxi driver was waiting for his irregularity problem to be taken care of, then ended up bailing for a different taxi.

Milana did not try to use my doctor's note.  She toughed out a day of school.  When we saw her at 3:00 she was a little more under the Donetskian weather.  We showed her how to make Photostory albums with the fun pics we've taken so far.  Adrienne, she recognized your Alexander Rybak music that I carted with me.  I suppose I should have known that he won the Eurovision contest in 2009.  She chose to have his Fairytale album be the music track for her photos.

On the way home we drove by the new Donbass Arena, a soccer stadium built by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.  If I wasn't here, I'd be going to a Facilities Planning Committee meeting at St. John about now.  So I emailed my input to the architect.  I think our new Family Life Center should look like this.

Masha called after we had returned to DCU.  She needed to have the new name tonight for court documents she was preparing.  We were all set on Milana Hope, but still wondered if she might want to have four names to have some connection with her past, such as Milana Valentina Hope Langewisch.  So we called Anya, and she called Milana, and we had a 3-way conversation.  This girl knows what she wants.  Milana Hope.  That's it.  At least she didn't want to be Milana HopeToBeA Bieber.

February 20

After our run on the nylon supply at the indoor mall, we thought we'd try the outdoor markets.  These markets cover several blocks of city, so there is much to see, but shopping in the single digits/Siberian, sub-zero wind chill was not fun, even for girls.  Pam called it quits lest she only have a single digit remaining.  Of course the girls weren't wearing 22 pairs of wool socks, silk long johns, and a Goretex nose warmer like I was.   I was having so much fun I could have shopped for at least 2 more minutes.

We just showed up at Anya's a bit early.  There were three other orphan teens there, who wanted to hang with her and then tag along to church.  

Valya & Anya made eggs and tea for us, and then the 7 of us took a marshrutka (a mini-bus) to church.  Old joke but still funny every time we experience it:  How many people can you fit on a marshrutka?

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One more.

We met Gerald King of Ohio, who had been a courier of a couple of letters to Valya after email to the Internat director stopped working and we had not yet learned of Anya.  He helped found this church, but his work is almost done, as now there is a wonderful, humble Ukrainian shepherd and several other leaders here.

The teens showed a combination of great respect for the service—singing along and listening carefully, a little boredom—excuse us, we have to go to the bathroom all together / we were there 3 hours, and later Serhei, one of the orphans, shared his addiction troubles with a leader for prayer (he recently started smoking).  An adult male tearfully asked for prayer for his struggle with suicide.  It was either that or trying to kill three other people; we were not sure.

Anyway, we do see the Holy Spirit working in these teens' lives.  Anya had invited Valya and Yulia over to her place recently on a Saturday.  They said, "We'd really like to, but our group is going to church.  Can we come tomorrow?"  Some of their class goes to a Baptist church regularly for services and youth group.

After church Anya asked, "What now?  It is only 5:00."  The church's radiators had not been working, so we were all feeling like chilled cookie dough.  I asked if we might go to an indoor mall and have some hot chocolate.  [The other 3 teens hugged us and went "home" (if you can call it that).]  We arrived at Donetsk Citi—a superb indoor mall, then proceeded to plumb the depths of teen emotion as one item after another would not quite fit.  

On Friday and Saturday Valya had borrowed Yulia's nice coat to go out with us.  Yulia had traded several items for it.  I have no idea what else Valya uses for a coat, but it must be embarrassing.  Today Yulia's group was going to a drama and her teacher would not release her, so she needed her own coat.  Thus Valya was wearing Adrienne's coat from sixth grade, which did not help.  Moreover, when she returned the rest of her friends would surely ask her how shopping went and what she got.

Shoe size: 5.  Pants: 0.  Top:  XS.  Child's fashions: NYET.  Women's fashions: TOO BIG.  After some tears when we again weren't finding anything, I asked Anya to tell her we understand it must be frustrating. We were surprised to learn Valya was worried we were unhappy with HER because she wasn't choosing anything. 

Should we go home?  Should we keep trying?  We were headed for the exit when Anya said let's try this store—she knows teens buy from there. Valya was already out of sorts and unable to really look at anything.  But you should have seen her face light up when we showed her a zip up hooded sweatshirt that, how do you say it, "looked really cute."  And then we found a coat on sale that, how do you say it, "also looked really cute."  Suddenly she had energy to even put it on hold and agree to look at several other stores to confirm that this was the best.

How do you say it, "Phewww!"  Major crisis averted. 

As it was now past seven, we offered to go out to eat.  Anya said, "Maybe McDonald's or a Ukrainian cafeteria."   I said, "In America we have 14,000 McDonald's restaurants.  We don't have any Ukrainian cafeterias."  Valya said, "Whoaaa!"  So no more "Хеппі Міл" photos for now.  (You get 2 points if you read "Happy Meal."  You get one point if you said "Super-barf me."  You get no points if you didn't try.)

In an October letter Valya had asked if she could change her name to Milana, a name she has had in her heart for about two years.  That's a pretty, yet uncommon Russian name that means "grace."  It is pronounded Mee-lah-na.  As Adrienne and Kjersten point out, all the girls in our family have uncommon names.  We became more and more convinced we needed to change it because we heard other Americans mispronouce Valya even worse than our own mispronunciations. 

So then the discussion turned to middle names.  On Saturday Pam shared her own wish, that Valya's middle name (or one of several middle names) be Hope.  Kjersten Noel, Adrienne Joy, Milana Hope.  Valya (at that time), asked "Why 'Hope'?"  Because, Pam said with tears in her eyes, Valentina showed hope that it was not too late to be adopted, and we never lost hope that she would want to be adopted.  Valya parked that thought and we went on to talk about other middle names like Valentina, Valya, Tina, Broomhilda, Spamalot, Blogodon, etc.

So now it is Sunday dinner and we thought we'd revisit the topic.  Valya heard the English word "name" and cut short the discussion.  "Milana Hope."

Milana has been coughing off and on, so I teased her that I would write a note saying she should not have to go to school tomorrow.  She said, "How is that possible?  We have a doctor at the Internat."  I said, "I am a professor/doctor.  Let's just try it and see J."  She laughed.

On the way home I wrote the note:

Доворы учител,

Мілана не школа сегодня.  Она не здоровя.

Доктор Андреі Лангевіч

Maybe da?

 

February 19

Teenagers are said to be between childhood and adulthood, right?  You be the judge—our  daughter had a leftover cheeseburger and fries for breakfast.  Superbarf me. 

This is where we wait to meet.

Today we met Anya!  We will go to an apartment she shares with two other Ukrainian young women working for Campus Crusade for Christ.  First we must shop for ingredients.
 

The fish clerk heard us speaking English and took it upon himself to help us find our items.  He was very gracious but we didn't buy any of his fish or any of their entrails—I've been super-b'd already once today.

We had only planned a recipe for dessert.  (Fourth grade teacher humor:  Justin, why do you always eat your dessert first?  Because, Mrs. Langewisch, we might have a fire alarm!  J)  Lacking a better idea, we made spaghetti, a first for three of the ladies.

I am outnumbered.

I think I saw this kitchen layout at IKEA once.

And it was very good.

Another first … cutout cookies.

Because we cannot pronounce her name correctly, and just because, Valya is contemplating all the possible names she might have.  On Valentina's Day, the day she will soon relinquish as her personal holiday (I would think it would be a good excuse to skip school), she performed for the Internat, all dressed up in 1890s finery.  Anya said she was the star of the program!  We'll add some pictures later, but here she's giving a reprise for us: 

L to r: Paulina, Anya, Olga, Valya & their first Americansky cookies.

Finished, yummy products!

We had asked to go out from 11:00 – 6:00, and Dad had her home only 15 minutes late.  We had a GREAT time JJJ!!!

February 18

While we were ???, Masha and Andrei maneuvered past the potholes from Kramatorsk to Donetsk, 100 km but 2 full hours away.  She has only had her cast off for two days now, so her brother holds her arm while they walk ever so carefully over the icy sidewalks, streets, and steps.  

This part of the process is going WAY faster than in 2009.  There we were working in three cities, each several hours apart, and the legal process had to be coordinated.  Ukrainian law insists that siblings stay together if at all possible.  All hinged on Valya, and obviously, she declined.  So in 2009 we had our first SDA appointment Feb 23^rd and finally were in a position to request to adopt just two children on March 11^th.  In 2011 we had our SDA appointment Feb 15^th and by Feb 18^th are about as far along.

Masha was able to get Valya's letter saying she wanted to be adopted (smaller children do not do this), medical records and various evaluations, and the Internat director's letter supporting the adoption.  Now it is Friday afternoon, and she hopes that Monday the regional social worker's office paperwork will be done.  They translate all the medical records, and in general are responsible for a lot of paperwork ensuring that the process follows the careful guidelines of the law.

After classes, we may take Valya out with us; we only need to let the lady at the front know where we are going and for how long.   She was excited to go out, and borrowed her friend Yulia's coat.

First stop – McDonald's.  There were no tables available at 3:30 pm (you must know that McDonald's is like a big dating destination here), so we wandered around and took pictures of the glitz at The Golden Ring shopping center across the street. 

Then we went back for some golden fries.  We gave Valya the camera.  Listen to her voice :)

Valya seemed like she had been here once, but wasn't at all familiar with what the various stores sold, what her size was, or which stores might have her sizes.  The orphanage clothes belong to the orphanage, so we do have to have some successes.  Most of the store items were too big for her.  We only bagged one item.  A pair of nylons.  Woo hoo.  They must have been a good deal, because it is too cold to wear dresses, at least in my opinion. Combine the lack of success with heels that were hard on her feet, she was definitely tired by 5:30.

As we waited for our taxi from the Internat back to DCU, we watched 40 or more 12-year-olds come in (from an excursion? from outdoor play time?). They all seemed very healthy and happy.  I just kept thinking: adoptable, adoptable, adoptable.

We, of course, will always cherish the little things that parents want to know about their children.  The way she didn't want me to take the tray back at McDonald's, but offered to do it for us, how she showed concern about the bandaid on my finger (her medical history is short: once she had the chicken pox), how she showed such confidence and respect in asking questions of and working with store personnel, how she called us Andy and Pam but once mixed that up, … how she called us her mama and papa.

February 16 - 17

Please put yesterday's blog behind you.  Today we got on the right track and got out of town. 

With three sets of guests, Irina stayed in the kitchen.   I could tell you stories of amazing pancakes, with wild blueberries hand-picked by our hostess from the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, but I've eaten the evidence.   It never happened.

Did you know why most apartments in Ukraine do not have dryers?  Because they are so hard to vent properly.  The walls are typically 2 feet thick.  This must have been the preferred building style since the time of the ice age, which is now.  The Timchenkos have a dryer.  That's cool—it goes with my dryer sense of humor.

At 3:15 we hiked up the hills of Kyiv, which are too cold to be alive, to the SDA office.  Twenty minutes early, we established ourselves as first in line.  Soon we were joined by a couple from France.  To Pam's great horror (who took like huit années de cours privés de langue française de Molière lui-même), and their infinite credit, they understood "Mercy buckets. I should know that word" and we had a fine conversation.  From a village on the Meditteranean near Marseilles, they found Kyiv extremely cold.  Pam began her commercial for air-activated, exothermic oxidating hand warmers, but in French it sounded like something you could get arrested for.

The whole appointment took about 3 minutes, and would have gone faster had the ink in the official's pen not frozen.   This part is true.

That was the highlight.  If you are in a hurry, you should stop reading about today and skip to Thursday.

If we had not so much luggage (mostly presents, mind you), we could have walked to the train station about as fast as we drove.  You heard of the 100-km-long, 8-plus-day Chinese traffic jam?  Ours wasn't that bad.  But we did have to like, run after the train, slinging the gifts into the arms of encouraging Ukrainians.   Or maybe we were sitting relaxed at the computer, making up stories, as the B & O #9 pulled out (not to be confused with Love Potion #9).  I can't remember.  We bought all four berths in our cabin so the remaining gifts could sleep better.

Thursday.  The day we meet Valentina again!  Rather than sleep, I rehearsed dozens of conversations with Valya in my mind, using my best Russglish.   Post script.  I didn't use any of them.

The 212-hour train ride finished at 7:10 am.  Masha and her brother Andrei had arisen early to drive from Kramatorsk to meet us.  We're staying at least a couple of nights in the dormitories at Donetsk Christian University in Makeevka, a couple of steppes east of Donetsk.  We stayed here in '09 (a very good year).  It's a little farther from Valentina's Internat than we would like, but the price is a fraction of what hotels cost, and includes a kitchen, wi-fi, and outrageous stories by Jim & Margaret.

We stopped at a regional social worker's office.  One of the staff here must accompany and observe our first interactions with Valentina.  Their office has to approve us, but Masha says there should be no problem.  They are genuinely happy to see families stay together.  Finally to the Internat!



"Children Need Families" 2008 -- National Year of Adoption

 We were SO overjoyed to see Valya and give her the hugs that have been in our prayers for two years.  But then Pam immediately felt awful (is this a Lutheran problem?).  For wearing honkin' heels.  Dawne, move over.  Whatever.  She is a lovely girl. 

She gave us several extra hugs while the short official meeting took place.  Some questions:

Director:  Do you really, really, really want to be adopted? 

Valya:        Da, da, da.

Director:   You know, you could stay here with us.

Valya:        Ha, ha, ha.

Director:   If you go, can we keep your snappy Snapfish book?

Pam:          You know, Snapfish delivers internationally.  We'll see.  Would you like some hand warmers with that?

We had to get some legal papers prepared and notarized, saying we are not crazy and we really want to do this.   Not every lawyer will agree to that.

With the afternoon slipping away, Masha suggested MickeyD's.  I asked if she had seen "Supersize Me."  Yes, of course, along with the "Miss Fat and Beautiful American Beauty Contest," which is a real hoot here in Ukraine, where all the men are strong, the women are good looking, and the child is above average.

If you can read this, you are too close.  Use secret decoder.

We went back to the Internat to visit.  Valentina enjoyed her St. Valya's Day presents.  The ones the Ukrainian train passengers threw back at us.  Like peanut butter.  Pam insisted that before anything else, I show her how to use Google Sketchup.  Valya wanted to know what grade she would be in at Lincoln Lutheran.  She is currently in the 9^th grade, studying Ukrainian, English, geometry, chemistry, geography, computer, and home economics/family science/sewing and stuff, or whatever it's called now.  We remarked how Adrienne is also in a sewing class, making a "senior quilt" out of 30 of her 65 T-shirts.  That was a bone-headed thing to say.  We'll be shopping soon.

We made a list of what she'd like to do.  Without hesitation, Valya's number one wish was to eat at McDonald's.  At least they're lovin' it.