Wow!

I tried to think of a catchier title but that's all we can do for now. I want to give you the end of the day because it's the most exciting but I'll start at the beginning. We got up after about 4 hours of sleep (talked to kids at their bedtime which was great for them and us and then just generally couldn't sleep: hard bed, hard pillow, light in the room, thought of fire while on the fifth floor with no escape [believe me I know because Kim and I discussed possible options out of our places and didn't come up with much]). We hit the road with Anna, our facilitator and Kostya, our driver who happens to be Anna's husband. Our 3 hour road trip was actually 5. No problems just driving through little villages all along the way, and had to slow down as little old women (picture Strega Nona books from Tomie de Paolo--tons of little ladies around the villages that looked just like her). I did get the exciting experience during the 5 hour road trip of using the bathroom in the roadside facility. There is a wall in front, a door that Anna says not to close, and a hole. No seat, just a hole in some concrete or wood (I can't remember which because I was kind of taken by the picture when I looked down--ick). Thanks to the bloggers in the past who have said to take toilet paper along with you. Thanks also to Laurel and others who said to make sure you have snacks in your backpack with you. Our meal until 7:30 tonight consisted of a Slim Fast bar and pack of crackers. Thankful for those! Okay, so the important part. We go to the Inspector's office to get go ahead to go to orphanage. Anna goes in for awhile, comes out to the car where we are waiting and says the Inspector wants to ask us questions. Okay?!?! So, we go in and answer her questions. She decides since she had another American family just there who hosted (Hello Cox's :)), she wanted to make sure there was no foul play. "Why would we want these kids?" "Are we selling them?" "Are we taking them to a farm and putting them on slave labor?" etc. etc.--that's what Anna said. She even asked us what kind of church we attend because I made the comment about praying. Anna said that she doesn't think many of the people understand when Americans come to adopt because of their Christian beliefs because they don't know God in such a personal way. (Sad, huh? Guess I've seen that in America too). So we are to wait in the car until 2:30 when the prosecutor and lady from the inspector's office (I think a social worker) come to the orphanage with us and question us in front of the orphanage director and see how we interact with the kids. Okay, at this point we are starting to get a little emotional. Not all of you know, but the Cox's are a family in CA who adopted recently and had problem after problem and this prosecutor really caused some trouble. We're thinking NO WAY can this be happening but we remind ourselves and each other that we can only be totally upfront and honest and share the Truth about the kids, the hosting and why we are adopting them. So, we wait and 2:30 comes and goes. Anna goes in and gets them moving (she's one tough cookie--we don't know what she says in Ukrainian but we can tell she is tough and she tell's us she can be very tough :)). They hop in a cab and we follow behind.
So, we get in the orphanage director's office and start to sit down (social worker, assistant prosecutor, orp. dir., anna, kostya) and David says, "Bathroom." We have had to go to the bathroom for like 4 hours at this point there is no bathroom around. You just don't run into public buildings and use the restroom like we can. Anyway, Anna translates that David has to go to the bathroom. Ha!! They say okay. David asks me if I have to go. I feel ridiculous saying yes with all these people staring and this important "questioning" about to be taking place. However, I have to use the bathroom, so I say yes. We go outside the office. David is in bathroom. I'm in hallway. I turn around and the orph. dir. went to get Makc and Alona. They are standing at the other end of the hallway. At once we both start running to each other and wouldn't you just know it (Esther Bible study girlfriends, "It just so happened that Xerxes...") we stopped right in front of the doorway for all those people to view. The kids grabbed me, Alona jumped in my arms and I think we might have done a semi-scream. Then Max jumped in my arms. All this right for the viewing of these "questioniteers." I mean you couldn't have made it work so good if you took time to stage it. No telling me that God wasn't smiling at that whole scene. So then I go ahead and go to the bathroom, David runs out and has his reunion. We go in the room, and the kids can't quit talking to us. Everyone laughed (even the prosecutor dude) because David said something Alona didn't understand and Makc quickly translated for her. The orp. dir. said we didn't need a translator in the room--Makc was our translator. After they watched us love on each other, talk to each other, look at pictures on D's phone (Kee yours was the only picture we had :)), everyone was speechless. Literally! David says he saw the social worker had tears in her eyes--she was blown away. David was in the floor with the kids, and I'm trying to maintain some composure for this questioning and looking at all of them, I'm the one that finally asks, "So are there some questions?". Orp. Dir. says, "well do we have any questions we want to ask?" We're thinking NO! The prosecutor is sitting there rubbing his forehead with his hand thinking what am I going to say. So finally the prosecutor dude comes up (and you can tell he literally had to think of some bogus questions to ask) and asks David what he does and how much he makes. He then says, "Well how do you think you can support 6 children on that?" I said, "I cut coupons!" Isn't that a hoot? The translator laughed. I'm not sure if she told them or not. They didn't have any questions after that. Did God give us peace or what!! David was so enthralled with the kids, I think he was mainly speechless although he did answer the two questions with his best Russian/Ukrainian accent (some of you had the privilege of hearing that all summer). So, we go outside and play, the people disappear. We stayed there until after 6:30. The orphanage director was working on getting her part of the paperwork finished. Laurel says that's a great thing to have this step almost done. YEAH God!!!! So tomorrow we're to pick up the papers from orp. dir. at 10am, go to Notary's office, then go to Inspector's office tomorrow afternoon. Please pray the Inspector goes ahead and gets her part to us. It's possible we could have it to Kiev Thursday (Anna and Kostya just keep saying, "we'll see". I've already started saying "we'll see" they've said it so much.) Anna did say she will try her hardest, which I totally believe she will. Just so you know, I am petting Anna lots, and it is helping! ha!
Please praise the Lord for all of His Work today. In the car I was reminded of the verse Proverbs 19:21 "Many plans are in a man's heart, but the LORD's decree will prevail."
Thank you for your prayers and your comments and care of the children at home. This is so long, but a few extra-neat points:
1. Right when we found out about the prosecutor coming along with us and we're waiting in the car, Kee texts us and the kids want to talk to us. It was so special to talk to them and ask them to pray for us right as we were getting ready to see the kids here.
2. Natasha: when she came in she was a little shy (which is probably a very good thing as she has never met us). After 5 or so minutes, she started playing with my bracelet, and soon after she was hugging us and running after us, "mother" "father". Very sweet! Reminds me very much of Alona.
3. Kim doesn't have the passport in her hand, but word is it's ready and she will get tomorrow and hopefully get out of here by the end of the week. Please keep praying. She's encouraged thanks to so many emails.
4. We have a most charming place to stay--sort of like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast. It is by this cobblestone street with all kinds of restaurants and hustle and bustle. We feel SO much more comfortable here. I can't begin to explain how much better we feel. It is much smaller than Kiev and really very charming. We passed all these farms with horses plowing, families in these fields, working fields without machinery. It really was quite beautiful.
5. Bad news: we were so caught in the moment, we got no reunion pictures. Then when we were outside and thought about it, we realized we didn't ask if we could and didn't want to take any chances. *Photos tomorrow we hope! Love, Jenny