Fun At the Orphanage

We have traveled to the orphanage in the afternoons for the last couple of days. The children are in classes until lunch around 2:00 pm and the director asked that we keep them in school. We usually stay until around 5:15 until it starts getting dark. We come back to the hotel and order our dinner early as it seems to help the café to have it all prepared at once. We are getting to know the staff here and the cook comes out for the occasional check to see if we like her dishes. She said we had to try her banana and honey cake and she was right, it was the best we’ve ever had.
On Monday we were able to take Erin up to Victoria’s room to hang out with her and some of her friends. We were able to talk to Olga (friends of ours are adopting her) and we are going to ask permission to take her shopping over the weekend. We played UNO and then danced to a little portable radio that Victoria had. They especially loved Mama and Papa dancing together. (We wish we could remember those steps from our dance lessons) Gary has also entertained the children with his various talents. He juggled and made coins disappear and talked in Donald Duck in Russian to them. He has become quite popular with the children.

Yesterday we were happy that Erin was released from the infirmary and able to go back to her own room. She still has an occasional cough but was well enough to play outdoors with us. The weather was beautiful-sunny and 60+. We brought a kick ball from the states that our daughter Abby wanted to give the orphanage so we found someone to pump it up and the girls gathered a couple of teams together. Beverly explained the game is popular in schoolyards all over the US and gave Victor the run down on how to play. Victor then explained it to the children. We made bases on a large cement volleyball court out of a piece of concrete used for chalk. As the game proceeded more and more children came out to watch and eventually we were able to coax them into the game but they first insisted to sit and observe until they understood the rules. Gary is feeling the exercise today from the long hours of play. We have no doubt that this game will continue long after we are gone but we are curious to see if the rules are adapted to become “Ukrainian kickball”!

We have had both girls bring us a friend and ask if we could find a family for them. We talked with them and told them we would write to them and maybe we could find other families to communicate with them. It just about breaks your heart to hear these requests.
One girl is 11 and has been in the orphanage for 7 years. One is 13 and had both her parents die.

Today we should hear if our project manager in Kiev- Yulia, was able to successfully get our papers for court tomorrow from the SDA. (it is suppose to take 5 business days from when they were turned in) If she did then they should arrive by train tomorrow am in time for court. We ask for continued prayer as we trust that we’ll go to court tomorrow. (The girls were pretending yesterday and Victoria was the judge.) We know that the Lord still is in charge and we trust Him in this next step.