Stahlke Adoption

A Day of Rest

It was so important today to have a breather from the emotional experiences of the last two weeks. The time off will help us as we continue our work tomorrow.

Andrei picked us up at the hotel around 10:00 and took us to Volodymyr's Cathedral for the second half of their two-hour worship service. This church is especially known in Kyiv for their music. We joined the service at the time of the prayers. Most of the words of the service were sung by the choir, which was polychoral (i.e. two groups) and included "Russian" basses (the really low ones). We stood for the service, as there are no pews. Even though we didn't understand the language, the service followed the order of the mass, so we knew when the congregation was praying, or the choir was singing the Sanctus, or the congregation was listening to the Lord's Prayer or singing the Agnus Dei. The service was very beautiful and provided us an opportunity to pray and think about everything that has been happening.

The church is named after Volodymyr (Vladimir in Russian), who was a ruler of Kievan-Rus (Ukraine's name in the old days) in the late 900s. When Volodymyr decided to become Christian, he also decreed that the whole country should also convert, and a mass baptism was held in the Dnieper River in Kyiv. Volodymyr also made the decision as to the type of Christianity that Kievan-Rus should have. After sending representatives to several different countries to view their worship services, he decided that the Greek Orthodox services were the closest thing to heaven on earth. That is why Ukraine (and later Russia) has such a strong Orthodox church, and also why the alphabet in Ukraine and Russia is Cyrillic, like the Greeks.

We spent time after church looking at some of the markets and looking at tourist books in English with information on Ukraine.

Then we headed back across the river to our hotel. The Adria Tourist Hotel has been a very good place for us this past week. Many people on the staff speak English, and the Internet center is in the hotel itself. We've also been glad to have air conditioning, which is pretty rare in Kyiv. The weather is quite mild, but we've enjoyed having the room cool to help us at night, since jet lag and nerves have made it harder than normal to sleep. The hotel also has a wonderful breakfast buffet, geared to tourists from around the world. There is breakfast food for Americans, Europeans, and Asians--I personally haven't tried the fish in the morning, but it does look good. There is no such thing as a breakfast restaurant here, so we're lucky the hotel has such good food for us. (I guess we could go to McDonalds, but that's against my principles when traveling.) We may try to start shopping soon for breakfast, but up until now that was more than we could tackle.

We check out of the hotel tomorrow at 7:00 and drive to the orphanage town to meet the inspector. Masha, however, doesn't have a lot of hope that we will find him there. She tried to telephone him at home today "at least 100 times." But, everything works better in person, so we're making the move and will set up house-keeping there. The change will help our budget, for the Kyiv hotel is $90 per night, with an additional $35 for breakfast. The hotel in the village where the orphanage is located costs $13 a night. While there's no English or air-conditioning, the building is newly renovated and very clean. We will also experience sharing a bathroom down the hall with other guests. Should be interesting. But the main thing is that it will be more convenient for the work we have to do.

Lastly, I hope to start posting photos on this website before too long. We don't have photos yet of the children, and even when we do, we don't feel comfortable putting them on a public website. But I'll work on getting other photos posted. We have a wonderful new camera that was given to us, and I'm still learning how to use it. As we get more comfortable and have a little more time in the evenings, I'll definitely give you some visuals of what's happening here.

Bye for now. I'm not sure where the next posting will come from, but we'll look for the Internet cafe in our next location.

posted by Stahlkes @ 1:38 PM 0 comments

The Appointment Continues Tomorrow

We arrived at the NAC building promptly at 2:30 and walked to the third floor. We were ushered to the end of a long hallway and met Valentina, who is Masha's colleague. She was there with Natalia, who served as our translator for the appointment.

After waiting about thirty minutes, we entered a room with three tables. We sat at the first one, with a woman whom they referred to as our "psychologist." She asked us to introduce ourselves formally (name, where we live, our occupations) and then wanted to know the nature of our request. She then brought out four very large red notebooks with pages of information on available children (about one page per child) who were part of sibling groups. Each page included a photo and basic information about the child, all enclosed in plastic sleeves. Paperwork on each sibling group was linked together with paper clips.

For about an hour, we leafed through all four notebooks to pull out groups of pages for sibling groups of four or more children. Sometimes the paper clips had become detached, and we had to consult Natalia to read the pages and group the children again by family name. One time, I even found a child whose information was about twenty pages removed from the rest of his siblings. The majority of sibling groups were two or three children, as we had been told. But the groups that were four or more numbered about twenty-five.

We decided to look only at groups of five or six, and during that deliberation Natalia eventually asked us which group was our first choice. By then it was 5:15 and the NAC was closing soon. There were some items of information that the paperwork did not include and when the psychologist tried to telephone the orphanage, their offices had also closed. So they told us they would telephone the orphanage in the morning, and that we should arrive tomorrow at 9:30 to continue our appointment.

Assuming that we make a decision by tomorrow on a referral, the NAC will complete paperwork (mostly a letter of introduction) that gives us permission to meet the specific group we have chosen. That letter will be ready about 3:00 pm tomorrow. We will then travel on Friday morning (possibly on Thursday evening, depending on the location of the children).

Thank you for your support, as indicated by your interest in reading about what we are doing. We also appreciate your prayers as we go through this tremendous experience.

posted by Stahlkes @ 3:06 PM 0 comments

NAC Appointment Today

I could write a book about our experiences so far, from leaving Chicago to this morning. But there will be time for that later. Let me give you the schedule for today, especially about our appointment.

It's 11:07 in the morning now (I believe it's eight hours different from Chicago).

11:00 Meet Masha (our facilitator and translator) to ask questions about the appointment.

11:30 She takes us on a ride around Kiev; we hope to see St. Sophia, the oldest church. The sight-seeing, I believe, is her way to calm us down.

1:00 A light lunch

2:30 Our appointment

This is one of the biggest days in our lives. God is with us, watching over us and our children. I pray for trust in him. Psalm 23 was a comfort this morning, as was prayer.

Mary

posted by Stahlkes @ 3:03 AM 1 comments

We're On Our Way!

Yesterday, Jonathan and I were painting the children's bedrooms with the direction (and education) of our neighbor and friend Cindy Waldron. This project had been going on a few days, also with help from our friend David Rogner. I heard the message machine, but didn't run to get it because I was working on the painting. But as I heard the message end, I decided to listen to it right away. It was Darlene from LSS-New England, telling us that our appointment is on July 13. Yes, JULY 13! Only eleven days from now! That means that we need to fly on July 11, to arrive a day early before the appointment. Yes, we are in orbit!

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:49 AM 0 comments