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
