Back in Cyberspace!

Whoo-hoo, we're back on the internet. After searching for days here in Boiarka (yes, I misspelled it earlier with a Y in it) we found an internet cafe! Our gracious Boiarka guardian angels, Becky and Nadya (not our Nadya), let us use their internet at home to post once or twice. Now we can walk just 15 minutes down the road to get on-line at the internet cafe. We will post daily if we have down time. When adoption work happens, we will of course be working that day and we will get back to ya.

We should find out soon when our court date will be. This whole week has been a blessing. We have a fabulous place to stay, American missionaries to talk to, a cooperative director, and 500 channels of TV! Every single middle eastern, African, Slavic, or Latin country is represented...several stations each! And yes, we are getting some good English stations too! The school we where we are staying has class during the day. Today, Heidi and I were guest speakers during a "middle school" English class. The children were adorable as they used their English skills on us, asking questions and answering our questions. Two nights ago, we were guest speakers during two different adult English classes. One was advanced and the other group was intermediate level. So, we are having fun, passing the time, enjoying good company and good food. We may move here! Just kidding!

Here's our present schedule. Most mornings, Heidi wakes up and starts breakfast for us while I snooze another hour or so. We then run errands or walk around the town looking for things. We have instituted the "Twyla Barrett" method of shopping when we don't have Becky. We open a door, peak in, and if it has what we need, we stay! Kudos to you, Twyla, we learned from the best! We have been to the bank, the open air market(s), the grocery stores. We usualy return around noon and we hang out until the kids get home from school, which is around 2:30-ish. Becky has been gracious, serving as taxi driver in her nifty Daewoo, for the past few days. But, we need to wean ourselves from doing that. We will start using the taxi today, but it has been nice finding out about the kids as Becky translates and has a way with kids...they open up to her and us and we have learned a lot. We have to pick up the kids from the orphanage at 3pm everyday. It's kinda like being at home with kids, except we give 'em back each night! We have the kids everyday from 3-6 pm at which time we reverse the process and drop them off. During family time we always have dinner together and then we do English work together and have a little play time. Heidi was exhausted last night so we watched "The Incredibles" in English with them and we got halfway through it before we headed back to the orphanage. Hey, American movies are English lessons right? All work and no play... A few minutes to 6pm we load up and drop off the kids and it is hugs and kisses all around. We have complete trust from the director and she agrees that we need this time to bond as a family. The kids go upstairs to do their homework and get ready for bed, we leave and usually head home where I watch a movie (we brought 20 or so). Heidi usually falls asleep during it which is why she always wakes up before me...or maybe it's because I'm being lazy! We get up the next day and repeat the process. Each day we get an update from Olga, our translator/facilitator, on where we are with the adoption. So far, so good!

For those of you have asked, the kids go to school outside of the orphanage during the day and return home to the orphanage every afternoon around 2:30. So it is an Dietski Dom (children's home), not an Internat (boarding school) like Rimma and Zina's school.

Monday, we had to come up with the names of the children for the court documents. They will be:

Nadia Isabella Roge'
Julia Grace Roge' (Yoo-lia sound at home, Julia in school)
Nikolai Daniel Roge' (Nickname Kolya at home, eventual shortening to Cole perhaps)

We don't know what the director will allow for the weekends yet, but I assume that it will be more of the same, just that we will have all day instead of three hours. We will "Metro" it into Kiev for church with Karen on Sundays before kid pick-up.

I had a post ready for this past weekend with Rimma and Zina ready to go. I used our laptop to compose it and put I put it on a thumb drive to upload. I was eager to tell you about it and since we hadn't found internet yet, I wrote it on MS Word. Well, for some reason, it won't open here. They have Word and these are new computers, but for some reason, I can't figure it out yet because the problem pop-up window is in Russian...hmmmnn. I knew that I should have saved it as a text file! I'll work it out and post it up for you along with a picture of them. Be warned though, grab you tissue! I can get mushy when talking about my girls!

All for now, we'll let ya know something as soon as we do. It is going well, though, so don't worry about us. I had hoped to drop a few lbs here but there is abundant good food on every corner. Pass the Chicken Kiev, bashalsta!

~ Felix ~

Boyarka Thus Far

Backtracking to Monday, we packed our bags and moved from Karen’s apartment. Sasha our NASCAR driver and Olga our translator picked us up at 9:00. It took us 75 minutes to get across town to the District office to drop off documents…another step in the process to obtain a court date. From the District office it only took about 20 minutes to get to Boyarka. Yep, the town we are staying in is called Boyarka. Sasha and Olga dropped us off at our new home. Karen arranged for us to stay in a private apartment above a Christian school. The school’s English teacher, Becky, is from Mississippi and she has a huge heart for orphans. Becky explained to us that the school’s founder is a local Ukrainian home builder. He created the Christian school as a tithe. Each year he donates 10% of his business earnings to the construction and operation of the school. Folks, it’s a really nice place, God is taking care of our needs!

After the kids got out of school, Becky drove us to the orphanage. She was excited to meet the director, Galina, so that she has more opportunities to serve and help those in need. Becky could tell right away, too, that this orphanage was not the norm. It is clean, well-kept, and filled with a caring spirit. As we were headed out with Nadia and Kolya, Galina told us not to hurry back. She added, “See you this evening!” Wow! More freedom with the children! So we made a quick plan to pick up Julia, take the children grocery shopping and head back to the apartment.

We asked the kids their opinion of whether they liked the plan, and none of them had a strong opinion. I asked if they would like me to cook them dinner, and if they liked eggs, but again, they didn’t have an opinion. The only thing they were firm on was “we don’t want to go back to the orphanage!” Becky asked Kolya specifically if he wanted to eat dinner at our home, and his answer was, “Whatever Nadia decides is fine for me.” He tends to defer to her on most things.

While the girls and I started grocery shopping, Felix experienced one of Kolya’s “firsts.” Felix and Kolya walked to a bank down the street to change dollars to grivna, and Becky translated for Kolya that that was the first time he had ever been in a bank!

Nadia was very helpful grocery shopping. I gave her my English grocery list, and she looked for each item. She could read the words milk, bread, fruit and sausage on her own! Nadia also helped me select the right brand of each item when I could not read the label myself. She is quite the little mother hen for the children, and she really enjoyed taking care of me, too, at the grocery store. One of our early challenges will be to wrestle the role of Mother from her as she has had to be their leader and Mom for their whole life.

Next stop…home! When we arrived back at the school, the building was empty. The children insisted on lugging the groceries upstairs for us. I cooked our first family dinner and Felix worked with the kids on a short English lesson. Julia kept drifting back into the kitchen, though, to sneak cheese and sausage and to try to help me. Nadia wanted to help, too, but I kept shooing them out of the kitchen. I told them, “Mama cooks!” over and over again. These children have had to fend for themselves for so long, so it is important that they learn to allow someone to take care of them.

We've been blessed to find these wonderful children!

Quick update

Just a quick update on our happenings. We are working on a long term solution for internet. So be patient with our posting. We should have it worked out tommorow. The reason for this is because we have moved to the town where the kids are located, just outside Kiev. It's like Broomfield/Superior is to Denver. We live at a super-clean, very nice third floor apartment with 4 bedrooms over a christian private school that is very near our kids..

We are fine, in fact, blessings continue to flow! Tonight, the director sent the kids home with us and we had family time and dinner together at our apartment before taking them home after a few hours. Did I tell ya the director is great! We have had the kids alone a few times before, but not at home! A mutual friend here has told that the director may be letting come home for weekends soon!

We went to see Rimma and Zina this past weekend. We had some very excited girlies! They ran at top speed to see Mama & Papa! I will blog seperately about this later. We need to leave our gracious host's home so they can go to bed and we can get home too.

I promise not to leave you hanging so long for the next post. We will also post some pictures soon to the photo link over there on the right side. Thanks everone, Dobre Noche (Good night).

~ Felix ~

A "sneak peek" at the Rogé 3

Da!!!

We went to see the kids again today with high hopes that they made a decision. We were given the library of the orphanage with blessings to keep the doors shut and be together in private. This is another blessing because usually when you show up at an orphanage, you get an audience. One by one the kids showed up and they drew some pictures for us to break the ice. We were getting good indications that they wanted us too, but our translator/facilitator had left to speak with the director and to give us time to be alone with them. When she returned we “popped” the question and we got a resounding, “Da!” Therefore, we have started the paperwork process and will start on the court date.

Hence, I feel confident enough to tell the kids names. Our oldest is Nadya (12), next comes Julia (11), and the caboose is Kolya (9). Each child opened up to us and showed their true personalities. We had each of them pegged except little Julia. She isn’t as quiet and shy as once thought, although she is the quietest of the bunch. In fact, she won the question competition with a total of 7 good questions for us. A couple of the questions were, “Are you still interested in adopting me and my brother and sister” and “Do you like me as a girl/daughter”? We of course said that we would be honored to be their parents.

I told them that I had three questions for them and each of them had to listen and give their answer. First, I asked them, “Do you promise to never use drugs?” Da! “Do you promise to never abuse alcohol?” Da! And finally, “Are your hearts open to having more brothers or sisters (Rimma & Zina) in the future?” Da! I watched them as they answered and I think it made them happy to know that drugs and alcohol would never break up their family again. Since the children have a church in their orphanage and regularly attend, I knew that they would be receptive to a Christian home, too.

Now for the kicker, we’ll call it another example of God’s work at hand. All of the kids know Spanish! Heidi knows enough Spanish to get by and I understand a little. The kids have spent some time on hosting trips to Spain and learned it there. It aids communication and since they know very little English and we know very little Russian, we speak in Spanish. How cool is that! Perhaps we will adopt some Russian speaking children from Mexico next time!

The children asked us to take them outside so we toured the grounds hand in hand. It was pitch black outside as we walked the grounds, but it didn’t matter. We had our kids and they had us. Each took turns snapping a few pictures before calling it a day. The director met us at the front door and asked us if we would like to take Julia back to the sanatorium ourselves. We walked over to the car and put Julia inside, but the director insisted that Nadya and Kolya accompany us as well. So off we go with three kids and no staff to who knows where. Did I mention that this director is great? She had all the documents ready to go for us to get the court date rolling, before the kids had agreed. She is very pro-adoption and family oriented, telling us that these kids need to be in a family rather than any orphanage. I can foresee her letting us take the kids on our own very soon. I let her know that I appreciate her trust and will not do anything to lose it. She likes us a lot. We will move to the town after we get back this weekend to be closer to the kids, although we are pretty close now. Karen found us a “deal” close to the orphanage.

We returned our angels to their temporary home and kissed them goodnight for the first time. They hugged us, confident that we would return the next day. We consider ourselves blessed to have had such a smooth process so far. Clearly ours and your prayers have been heard. Jesus is most certainly walking right next to us and these children.

I am considering a picture of them on the next post. Let me know your thoughts on that. I don’t think anything can halt God’s amazing work, so I have no fear of it now. The “Big Reveal” may come sooner than expected. God bless you all for staying with us and praying for us!

~ Felix ~

3 Angels - Revisited

So, it's 2 am here and I can't sleep! I thought I'd make myself sleepy by writing some more info about the kids. We didn't take the camera or video recorder on our first day, we wanted to make the situation as less stressful on the kids as possible.

Girl, 12, is the leader of the pack and playfully told us that the other two are the "naughty" ones. She has a quiet strength about her. She may be this way all the time or just during the meeting. If she says yes to us, the other two will be sure to follow suit. She is absolutely beautiful and smart too. She definately looks out after the others, as a big sister should. She became excited when we told her that we coach volleyball. She likes volleyball! Heidi has found her VB girl after all! She seems athletic and she is the size you would expect of a 12 year old.

Girl, 11, is darling too. She was the most quiet of the bunch and I heard her voice only once. She's a bit mousy and lets the others do any talking. However, in her defense, she was brought to us from the sanitorium because she felt a little under the weather. The director explained that the sanitorium is very close and is actually a hospital used by everyday citizens, but that the orphans go there free and have preference. If any of her children feel just the least bit sick, they go right away. The middle girl's hair had been cut shorter than her SDA pictures showed, but that's ok. I sat nearest her and occasionally I reached over and patted her on the knee, she smiled a little and responded correctly. When I wasn't looking at her, I could see her staring at me with my peripheral vision. We learned that she is an artist and has competed with her drawings and paintings, having won a recent international competition! (I already feel like a proud Dad, bragging on his kids). Lookout, we have an artist on our hands!

Boy, 9, is a favorite of the orphanage and staff. They say he has a comical side but is very obedient, calm, and smart. He excells academically and enjoys Math, he says. He too is an artist of sorts. He recently performed locally at a dance in Folk dance and some kind of "sport" dance thing. We weren't sure what that meant, but our translator said it was like a hip-hop routine. How cute...as is he, quite a cutie! He may perform for us tommorow, we will see. He smiled a lot and did the most talking, asking good questions. Bonus, he likes cats better than dogs, so our two Koshkas can stay.

The director told the kids that they should see us off, and they did. It was a good sign that The oldest girl and the boy stayed at the door while we drove away. (middle girl returned to the sanitorium). The girl waved to us as we left and kept doing so until we were out of sight. All in all, it was a great day!

So that's all for part deaux. Thank you for all of you encouraging comments. It is very important to receive those, so far from home. We are still staying with Karen. We will do so until the kids give us a yes at which point we will try and move closer to them. We promise to let you in on their names and post their pictures once we move through court. We will have the BIG REVEAL that day, so stay close!

P.S. We bought train tickets to travel down to see Rimma and Zina for Zina's birthday on Saturday. We will go on Friday night and come back Saturday night, spending only one day. We will return a couple of weeks later to go to the SB orphanage and deliver all the gifts from to the children of UOO's 2007 & 2008 camps.

~ Felix ~

Three timid Ukrainian Angels!

We met out kids today and we both teared up as we saw the face of Jesus in them. This is the awesome untalked about aspect of adoption and we experinced a feeling like never before, except when my bio children were born. We ran high on emotion during the whole visit and it was all we drempt of and more!

The day started with a visit to the regional director's office and they gave us permission to visit the orphanage. A social worker accompanied us as we made our way to the outskirts of Kiev. We were ushered into the director's office and interviewed by one the nicest lady I have ever met in Ukraine. She asked us lots of questions and was excited that Heidi was a professional "working mom" (she says doesn't meet many working moms). She occasionally held my hand and talked of her happiness that a couple would adopt three. She gave us a tour of the orphanage while our driver and a staff member went to pick up the kids from school (they go to school nearby, not at the orphanage). Folks, this is the nicest orphanage I think I have ever seen, and I've toured half-a-dozen or so! This lady spends every dime and nickel on the kids and in return, they have a pretty good life there! They even have a small stadium that was built by an Italian organization. Sorry, I digress. You want to hear about the kids! Here we go...

We first met the eldest girl (12) in the hallway and she is adorable! She was polite, a little reserved and of course quiet a bit nervous. A few minutes later, the youngest, a boy (9) was introduced to us. He was tthe same, quiet and shy, but engaging. After this, we were taken back into the directors office and there sat all three including the middle girl (11). We talked with them (well, we talked mostly) and they listened intently, looking us over and checking us out. It was a great experince. They shyly asked a few questions, then Heidi told them that they did not need to make a decision that day. She told them that we would return the next day and that there would be a "competition" . They should write down their questions for us and the child with the most questions would win a prize. They all grinned at each other and I knew that they would try and be the winner. (Actually, they will all get a prize, unknown to them). We ended the meeting with them after an hour and a half. I told them that we would always take care of them, always protect them, and always love them. Their eyes light up and they escorted us out to the car, waving as we drove out of sight. More next time...