Friday, 1 June Since we arrived in Ukraine, there’s been much ado about the upcoming “1 June Celebration.” Finally, the day has arrived! The kids, workers, and sponsors have all been working very hard to make sure everything is perfect, and when we arrived at the orphanage a few minutes before 10:00 this morning, we saw that their work had paid off. Streamers and helium balloons hung everywhere, the courtyard had been transformed into a marketplace for crafts the kids had made, and people filled the area. Kids dashed around in their costumes, greeting visitors and tending to last minute […]

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Thursday, 31 May 2007 Last night, as we were hanging around the house, Mark asked me if I smelled something funny. Now, this town always smells kind of funny, so I said “Well, no.” End of story. (and you’re all thinking, Hmm, that’s really not worthy of my time to read…just wait, dear friends). This morning, we woke up, had a cup of tea, chatted on the phone for a few minutes, and then noticed that the battery was close to dead. So we put the phone on the charger. Again, really exciting, huh? A couple hours later, Mark asks […]

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Wednesday, 30 May Air conditioning is a blessing from God. Each day here has been hotter than the last, and we are very fortunate to be staying in an apartment that is air conditioned. We got up early this morning so I could catch up on some writing. We headed into town at about 11, did some shopping and exploring around town, and even found a bank where they spoke English to exchange money! We met up with our driver at 1:00 and drove to the orphanage; Fred and Lisa arrived a couple of minutes behind us. While we waited, […]

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Tuesday, 29 May So….we’ve been doing a lot of hanging out with the kids, and many of you are probably thinking “why aren’t they doing anything that’s actually related to adopting Masha and getting back home?” Yeah, we’re thinking that, too. In the Ukrainian system, once we “meet” the child, there are some documents to prepare, and then a court date is requested, and the hearing is usually held about a week later. Because we got to the region on a Friday, and we weren’t able to do anything over the weekend, our documents weren’t ready until Tuesday of last […]

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Monday 28 May After our first trip back to the apartment about a week ago, Sveta had told us that we were encouraged to spend more time outside, and that we needed to wait a little while before scheduling another “at home” day. A few days ago, she told us that it would be OK again. So today, we had planned to spend some Niles Family Time together at our apartment making lunch, working on English, playing some games and generally hanging out. We started the day at Amstor and got a cartload of groceries, as well as the second […]

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