River of Thoughts

Christine Royse Niles — Changing the world one word at a time

We Talked To Masha!!!!

We had one of the biggest joys this morning….we talked with Masha on the phone!

Flash back to a few weeks ago when the orphanage director was here…she left us all with a phone number for the orphanage, and told us that we could call the kids one time per month until we could come to get them. Life at the orphanage is very structured, and it’s obviously a bit of a disruption to go take the kids away from whatever they are doing, so they do try to limit the phone calls. It’s quite a privilege to be allowed to call!

We thought that Ksenya, the woman who translated when she came to the US with the director, would be available to translate, but she was not there. We were more than a little challenged with language–every Russian word that I know left my head when I heard her little voice. But I think we got across to her that we were coming to Ukraine in the middle of May, one month from now!!

Other than communicating the travel schedule, we pretty much just kept repeating, both in English and Russian, “I love you!!” Saying goodbye was really really hard, and it was kind of funny…neither of us would hang up the phone. We just kept saying “goodbye” back and forth.

I hope that she liked hearing our voices as much as we liked hearing hers, and that she doesn’t think that we’re weird! We just miss her so much.

The countdown has begun!!!!!

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About Christine

I am a writer, a project manager, and a corporate refugee with a heart for orphans around the world. My two daughters were adopted from Ukraine at ages 12 and 14. I post about writing, chasing dreams, and making a difference in the world, and sometimes I share fun snippets of fiction in-progress.

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