OK, I am sorry it has taken this long to finally send out an update but things have been a little crazy. I will try and recreate our journey thus far. I have been journaling so I will try to include everything. We left Denver April 24th and arrived at Dulles Intl Airport where we saw this:
Space Shuttle Enterprise. Our plane taxied right past it and luckily it was on our window side. Ok, goodbye America.
Arrive in Frankfurt Germany airport at some point, short layover and then 2.5 hour flight to Kiev. All that is still blurry but whatever...
Arrive in Kiev, through customs, green line red line, hmmmm....we were told to declare but they direct us into the line with everyone else so ok....Ukraine security wants to look in one of our suitcases...ok...they picked the one that was full of shoes, jumpropes, etc for the children at the orphanage. She quickly closed it and waved us on =). Ahhh....Ukraine....we were picked up at the airport by Alex (part of Nastyas team). He is super nice and has a great sense of humor. I don't think he expected us to have as much luggage but we were able to squeeze it all into his Passat and off we go. Traffic was horrible. It took us a couple of hours to make it from the airport to our apartment in downtown Kiev. I had fun and took lots of pics. Kiev is very beautiful but it is very busy like any other large city.
The next day we had our SDA appt and everything went well. It was pretty informal so we were a little surprised. The day after that we went back to get our official referral so that we have permission to meet with Vera. OK good, back to the apartment, pack up and we catch a train at 11pm that will take us to Zaporyzhe (Zap from now on). The train station is huge but luckily we now have Zhenia (pronounced Jennia) as our guide, he also is part of Nastya's team and will be our regional guide/translator etc. He likes to talk but it is fine and he is really nice. He gets us to the right set of tracks and we wait for the train. Boom, on the train, the room is stifling hot and the windows dont go down! There are four bunks and not enough room to turn around in. Thankfully Nastya was able to get us all into one room so we weren't sharing with strangers.
Thank you Ambien...I slept pretty good and we arrived in Zap at 11 am the following day (Saturday).
Zap is very large, about the size of Denver and is very industrialized. We don't really have time to take it in because we immediately get off the train and into a little van that is awaiting our arrival. We drive straight to Vil'nyanska (Vil from now on) to see Vera!!!
Vil is about 25 minutes out of Zap and is a small town. The orphanage appears pretty old. As soon as we pull in children are running next to the van and a couple have darted into one of the buildings.
We climb out walk into the school. From nowhere Vera is charging at us yelling mom, dad!! The reunion is wonderful and tearfilled. Vera is clinging to Bon then throws herself in my arms.
Next we all meet with the deputy director, attorney and inspector. They ask Vera if she knows us, duh, she is sitting on my lap and if she wants us to adopt her, "dah!!". I guess they have to go through the motions. After a couple of questions that is over and we are free to visit Vera. We are also introduced to Lydia who is cute as a button. If we thought Vera was small, Lydia is tiny. She is shorter than Vera, maybe 4'5" and maybe 65-70 lbs. She is nervous at first but quickly warms up to us.
A couple of days later we are back at the orphanage doing lots of paperwork, running back and forth to the notary etc but the biggest deal is that Vera wrote her official letter telling the courts she was us to adopt her:
We played with some kids at the orphanage and had a good time. It is so sad to see so many kids that need families. However, we tried to entertain them for awhile:
Jonathon and Lydia, notice her vertical challenge lol.
OK, thats about all for now, we are now officially in waiting mode for our next SDA appointment for Lydia. I will try and update the blog more often. Keep praying for us, we have had some hurdles that we did not anticipate and a very large one yet to overcome in the form of changing Veras birth certificate as she was born in Russia.
Arrive in Frankfurt Germany airport at some point, short layover and then 2.5 hour flight to Kiev. All that is still blurry but whatever...
Arrive in Kiev, through customs, green line red line, hmmmm....we were told to declare but they direct us into the line with everyone else so ok....Ukraine security wants to look in one of our suitcases...ok...they picked the one that was full of shoes, jumpropes, etc for the children at the orphanage. She quickly closed it and waved us on =). Ahhh....Ukraine....we were picked up at the airport by Alex (part of Nastyas team). He is super nice and has a great sense of humor. I don't think he expected us to have as much luggage but we were able to squeeze it all into his Passat and off we go. Traffic was horrible. It took us a couple of hours to make it from the airport to our apartment in downtown Kiev. I had fun and took lots of pics. Kiev is very beautiful but it is very busy like any other large city.
The next day we had our SDA appt and everything went well. It was pretty informal so we were a little surprised. The day after that we went back to get our official referral so that we have permission to meet with Vera. OK good, back to the apartment, pack up and we catch a train at 11pm that will take us to Zaporyzhe (Zap from now on). The train station is huge but luckily we now have Zhenia (pronounced Jennia) as our guide, he also is part of Nastya's team and will be our regional guide/translator etc. He likes to talk but it is fine and he is really nice. He gets us to the right set of tracks and we wait for the train. Boom, on the train, the room is stifling hot and the windows dont go down! There are four bunks and not enough room to turn around in. Thankfully Nastya was able to get us all into one room so we weren't sharing with strangers.
Zap is very large, about the size of Denver and is very industrialized. We don't really have time to take it in because we immediately get off the train and into a little van that is awaiting our arrival. We drive straight to Vil'nyanska (Vil from now on) to see Vera!!!
Vil is about 25 minutes out of Zap and is a small town. The orphanage appears pretty old. As soon as we pull in children are running next to the van and a couple have darted into one of the buildings.
We climb out walk into the school. From nowhere Vera is charging at us yelling mom, dad!! The reunion is wonderful and tearfilled. Vera is clinging to Bon then throws herself in my arms.
Next we all meet with the deputy director, attorney and inspector. They ask Vera if she knows us, duh, she is sitting on my lap and if she wants us to adopt her, "dah!!". I guess they have to go through the motions. After a couple of questions that is over and we are free to visit Vera. We are also introduced to Lydia who is cute as a button. If we thought Vera was small, Lydia is tiny. She is shorter than Vera, maybe 4'5" and maybe 65-70 lbs. She is nervous at first but quickly warms up to us.
A couple of days later we are back at the orphanage doing lots of paperwork, running back and forth to the notary etc but the biggest deal is that Vera wrote her official letter telling the courts she was us to adopt her:
Jonathon and Lydia, notice her vertical challenge lol.
OK, thats about all for now, we are now officially in waiting mode for our next SDA appointment for Lydia. I will try and update the blog more often. Keep praying for us, we have had some hurdles that we did not anticipate and a very large one yet to overcome in the form of changing Veras birth certificate as she was born in Russia.
Finally, a blog post! Jim and I have been wondering how it was going. Love the synopsis and the photos! Sounds like you are in for the long haul between the birth certificate and waiting for another appt. Glad you are enjoying it. How is Bonnie's dad doing?
ReplyDeleteSerious lover of your blog, a considerable number of your blog posts have really helped me out. Looking towards updates!
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