Stahlke Adoption

A Letter Arrives

Our postman delivered a letter today from the SDA. Jonathan and I opened the envelope to a sea of Cyrillic. We pieced together some of the contents with our limited Ukrainian. Not knowing the exact meaning, we didn't want the children to translate it for us.

The letter, dated May 23 but postmarked in August, is addressed to both of us. There is no other date in the content of the letter. Mikola's full name and birthdate are mentioned, and the signature, a set of initials, appears next to the typed name and title of the SDA director.

We assume that this letter officially acknowledges the receipt of our dossier. To be sure, however, Jonathan immediately scheduled an appointment with the head librarian at Concordia, who is a Ukrainian women from Kharkiv. Because her home city lies in eastern Ukraine, she speaks Russian rather than Ukrainian, but she was still able to give us the gist of the letter. To be sure of the meaning, however, she took it home for her husband to translate tonight. She feels that his Ukrainian is better than hers. Jonathan will meet with her tomorrow morning, and together they will telephone Masha. While Jonathan is capable of reading the letter to Masha, the librarian will do a much better job as a native speaker.

This letter is our first official correspondence from the SDA. Receiving such a document, holding it in our own hands, and seeing the Ukrainian language, makes the whole thing seem more real. We wait to hear the exact message that the letter contains.

posted by Stahlkes @ 7:59 PM