November 28,2007

I guess that I will start today with the weather. It is mostly unchanging even from night to day: Sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, but always about the same temperature, 40 degrees. We have only had 1-2 days of rain, but the streets become very muddy with just a little rain.. The women here are beautiful and if she is less than 50 years old, she dresses for style, not for warmth. I do not know how they wear those pencil-thin heels all day!!! Even capris are popular worn with thigh-high boots.
Yesterday, we had permission to take the 2 kids from the orphanage and they decided to go ice skating. It surprised me that they have never been. SV was a natural, K’s little legs were everywhere and she spent most of the time holding on to the side. We all had so much fun. It costs about $5.00 for children and $6.00 for adults. Bobby and I are fortunate to get off the ice with no broken bones!! When I was putting on my skates, I told K and SV that I had not ice skated in so long that I would probably break my leg. My wise daughter replied, “Maybe you should not go out there then”. I didn’t know that I was going to break my back instead by holding her up the entire hour.
We then went to the store to try to find a pair of pants and shoes for each child. We had one episode of pouting for each child when SV wanted a sword and K. wanted a pair of jean capris. It was over quickly but we were unable to find clothes for either child in this particular store, so we will try another store tomorrow. We did buy SV a remote-controlled jeep and K. a baby doll. When we got back to the apartment, K gave the baby a bath, along with the entire bathroom and den. The baby will be leaking water for weeks!!! We made the kids take a shower. SV stated that he had just had one on Sunday, but quickly got his clothes together when we told him that his feet stink. He then said that they would get a bath tonight and the “Americans” can bathe in the morning. He doesn’t realize that in just a few short days, he will also be one of us.
We are so fortunate to have Denis living with us as he is able to translate for us and is also teaching English to the kids along the way. He is also teaching them how to ask for things politely. The kids are very polite most of the time and want to learn, which is very encouraging for us.
Tomorrow is the big day: Court at 10am. We know that you are keeping us in your prayers and appreciate every one of them!!!

November 26, 2007

Today the weather finally changed from gray skies with a low of 28 to a high of around 35, to about 40 and raining with gray skies. At least it was a change. Other than that the day started much like all the others. We went to the orphanage around 13:00 but today we took the bus, it is much cheaper and turned out not to be too bad. We had to take one bus in town that took us to the place where the bus for Matvivka left from. The bus actually dropped us off and picked us up at the front gate of the orphanage. The only bad part was the ride back home. I was around 16:00 and the bus was very crowded. Other than that it was a good experience and I think we will do this again.

When we got to the orphanage we found the day not to be as good as it had started. The kids were upset about some things and our normal interpreter Denis was not with us so we could not find out exactly what the problem was so we left after a couple of hours not feeling very good. Hopefully it is just some anxiety on the kid’s part and we can work it out tomorrow. I can’t imagine having a couple you don’t know coming to see you and telling you that after a few weeks they are going to take you thousands of miles from your life and you will not even be able to communicate very well. It would scare me to death. The thought of taking two children home with me that I know very little about scares me to dearh, but I know that it is God’s plan for my life. I have been studying Ephesians while I have been here and I realize that I must walk close to God and discover how he can be glorified before I can hear his instructions on what I should do.

As a lot of you know this trip has not gone at all how I had planed. The biggest lesion I have learned through this journey is that this is not mine but his. I came her to adopt 4 children, 2 of whom I had never meet and take them home to raise up in God’s teaching. As it turns out I will adopt only 2 of the children and it will not be the 2 I had not meet before. Of all the scenarios I had played out in my head before we left this was not one I even thought of. Even with all these differences in the way things are going I am very comfortable in the way I fell and that is only possible because I turned everything over to God to handle. I am just along for the ride (and to pay the grivnas) to fulfill His plan. The excitement I fell of knowing that I don’t have to worry about the details is an experience I can not describe, but I recommend to everyone. Actually if you would like to experience this feeling there are a lot of kids here who would love to give you the chance to feel God’s love through them. I guess I have rambled on enough but I just felt it was time for me to writhe some things on how I feel. Kim and I thank you for your continued prayers and we can’t wait to get home and share these wonderful kids with you all.

Bobby

P.S. early this mornig we got our court date. it is Friday November 30, 2007 at 10:00. Please pray that everything will go smoothly.

Just Killing Time

The last couple of days have been pretty uneventful. We did take the kids to the bowling alley (complete with 6 lanes and all the smoke you could ever want to inhale)!!! SV and Y loved it, the other 2 kids + Denis just tolerated it. We rode back to the apartment on a public bus (usually, we have had a driver or we have walked). The bus was more like a van and was already full before the 7 of us pushed our way onto it. Of course there was standing room only and at every stop, more people would pile on. If you were at the back of the bus and needed to get off, you would crawl over or under everyone to get your place closest to the door. It was an experience, but not one for the claustrophobic!!!
Yesterday I was a little under the weather (a cold thanks to Denis), so we stayed in all day. It was wonderful to relax.
Sunday seems to be the best day to visit all children at the orphanage since it is the only day with no school. We will head there in a little while. We had brought quite a few games with us that we take to the orphanage, but slowly they are dwindling as one child decides he/she likes it much more than everyone else!!!
We miss all of you, especially in church and in our small group and can't wait to see you all soon!
Roll Tide, despite the outcome of the game. Bobby says War Eagle!!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM UKRAINE

The Kemp’s and the Hartsock’s wish you a very happy thanksgiving!!!
Bobby and I are so thankful for the Lord’s saving grace, mercy, and love, for each other, for family and friends both here and at home, both new and old, for all of you and your continued prayers, and for being here. We are so blessed!!!
The preparation for the thanksgiving meal was a little stressful. Wednesday, Denis took us shopping for a turkey and all the fixins’. I think we looked all over Ukraine for a turkey. The only turkey that we found was chopped up into pieces at a grocery store. We asked to buy the whole turkey, but since no one has ever asked for a whole turkey, they did not know how to price it. Besides, the whole turkey weighed a whopping 40 pounds (this is not a typo). This thing would not have fit in our oven!!! We ended up buying a thigh weighing about 5 pounds, itself, and several breast fillets. Other grocery challenges:
Shortening (or lard)-can’t buy it in the store but in the open air market and try explaining what that is!!
Cloves-don’t know what those are
Half and half-why would you have ½ milk and ½ cream?
Pecans-no such things here;
Pie crust-what is a pie?
But, we adapted and had a wonderful meal. The pecan pie became a walnut pastry (made with a ready-made dough something like puff pastry) that I will definitely make at home. We did find sweet potatoes and they were worth every cent of the $9.00 that we paid for 4 of them. We even found spices for the apple cider, making us all feel like we were at home. Our 4 kids in addition to the Hartsock’s 3 kids, plus Nina, Marina, and Yana all had a great time. It was truly home away from home. We are including a picture of all of us at the end of the day, including some of the leftovers. It is a day that will always be with us in our hearts and memories.

After the meal, the kids bathed. I know you are wondering why we would add this in there, but they seem to love to come to the apartment to bathe and put on pajamas (the boys love their boxers!!) I guess they are much more comfortable after wearing those bikinis. After settling in, we all watched the English version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas DVD that we had brought with us. The movie is pretty action-packed so it didn’t matter that they did not understand most of the words. The kids are behaving very well, and are getting more used to us. They smile a lot and are enjoying learning some English. Denis has been very good to try to teach them English before we come home. SV and K love to wrestle with each other. SV is so much larger than K but he is gentle and patient with her. At this point, we see no developmental deficits that are so apparent in a lot of orphanage children. We have continued to spend a lot of time with all 4 kids, but know that it will be very difficult for them to separate when that time comes. We are praying for a court date one day next week.

As I am writing this, it is 12:00 midnight, CST. If I were at home, I would be organizing sale papers and getting my battle plan together to wage war on the mall and to beat other shoppers for the best deal. We have heard that there are no sales in Ukraine. There is also no SEC football. If anyone has any idea how we can get the Alabama/Auburn game here please let us know. With the time difference, it will play at 2:45 am on Sunday morning.

November 20,2007

Today has brought some closure to our situation. Nina has found out the there was a mistake about Y’s father and it will be corrected. The lawyer for the Orphanage will go to court in a few weeks and hopefully have the error corrected. Then the Y’s paperwork can be redone and she can get registered. Once registered there is a 12 month waiting period. This means we will only be bringing home two of the four with us, and God has given us a peace about it. I do ask that you pray for Y & S in that while they seem to understand what is going on they don’t understand why it happened and why it can’t be fixed now. We know that God has brought us here now for a reason and I just hope we fulfill his wishes.

We are now falling into a routine that we do everyday and it is hard to stay upbeat with all the waiting here. Time does not matter as much here as it does back home. When someone says one hour it means 3 or 4. We normally wake up around 8:00 and Kim has coffee and I try to read or something to occupy my time. Once we get a shower and get ready (today our hot water heater did not work so we had to take a cold PTA bath) we go to the Intourist Hotel where we have internet access and we check emails, post new blog entries and try to do what little work I can but it is not much. The kids are in school until 13:00, that’s 1:00 pm for you Americans, so we don’t go to see them until after that. Our translator Denis is usually running around getting the necessary documents we need to go to court but as I mentioned before it can take all day to get one paper signed and copied. Once we get to the Orphanage all seems well because the excitement of seeing the kids and seeing there excitement to see us makes you for get about all the down time for a while. We normally stay until about 18:00 or 19:00 and then we go back to the apartment, eat something and settle in for the night. Then it’s off to bed and start all over.

November 19, 2007

Before I begin to update you all on this weekend’s activities, I would like to say thank you for your prayers, love, support, phone calls and comments on the blog. As much as many of you look forward to reading the updates, we also look forward to hearing from you either by phone or by blog. After being away from home for 10 days, we are feeling very homesick. Everything that you need to do here seems so much more difficult than at home, i.e. washing/drying clothes, going from one place to another, cooking. Thankfully, the Wests showed us how to dry clothes using a heater and a clothes rack and they will dry within a couple of hours (much more quickly than in the 30-40 degrees of the outside). Not many individuals own cars here. Transportation is in the form of a hired driver/car, bus, or trolley. The bus is cheaper, by far, but you must walk to the bus stop (very good exercise when weather is good-not fun in the rain). My heart goes out to those who must live here. But, I guess that they do not know about all of our conveniences of life. We are so spoiled and are not used to being without all of our comforts. Here, many of their needs are not even met, or must be postponed until enough money is saved up.
This weekend we were able to spend a lot of time with all 4 children and enjoyed it immensely. Denis was able to translate for us most of the time, which is very helpful. We are able to communicate only the most basic things without a translator. Bobby and I have been laughed at so much by coming out with the wrong item when they asked for something. Our new son (SV) is so easy-going and was very reserved, rarely smiling. That is changing and he loves just to be around us. He is very respectful, is motivated to learn English and wants to please us. If we are in another room, he will seek us out. Our new daughter, (K) is a very head-strong little girl. We have already had a battle of the wills on a couple of occasions, complete with pouting and stomping of feet!!! However, she is able to get out of these spells quickly and is all smiles again. K is a very picky eater but SV eats until everything from the table is gone. He loves ketchup (an understatement since he likes his food swimming in it). He is a very strong, muscular boy and is definitely going to take after his papa in many respects!!! Even Larissa has made remarks about it and I think that SV is in awe of his papa. We wonder what these children think/say about us. Will they change their minds about being adopted? We don’t think so as the kids are beginning to loosen up as they are around us more and get to know us. We can tell that K is not sure about Bobby. When he tries to touch her or talk to her she backs away. However, that is slowly improving and yesterday she offered him some of her snack and took her picture with him.
Our friends, the Hartsock’s, arrived yesterday and it was so good to see someone from home again. We all, together with their 2 boys, our 4 kids, Nina, Marina, Yana (English teacher), and Yana (their facilitator) ate pizza and had a great time visiting. The boys got into arm wrestling matches (guess who won those?).
We have many great pictures but do not want to put these on the blog until after our court date. We hope this will occur by the end of next week.
We should find out more about Y’s adoption status today but we are not overly worried as we have a peace about the situation and know that it is all in God’s timing and according to God’s purposes.
We love you all and miss you!!!

Matthew 6:25-34

November 15, 2007

After an uneventful train ride, we arrived in Zap at 6:30 am. Before we left the train, we heard a female voice on the train yelling, “Kim, Kim”. I am always so glad to hear my name when we are going somewhere without a translator!!! It was Nina and Yana to meet us and take us to our apartment. It was wonderful to see these 2 friends. Fortunately, they had been warned by Sasha that we brought everything including the kitchen sink, so they had 2 cars to take us to the apartment. We were able to unpack and shower. Our apartment is very spacious with very large rooms: 2 bedrooms, den, bathroom, and kitchen. Our translator, Denis will be living with us while we are here. Our biggest challenge in the apartment so far is how to shower without getting water all over the bathroom (there is no shower curtain).
Denis arrived and off we were to the orphanage with driver, Vlad. He is one of the few large Ukrainians that I have seen and is almost Bobby’s size. He does not speak English, but gestured to me about Bobby’s size and muscles. He seemed impressed.
We made a couple of stops on our way to the orphanage, including picking up the inspector. Her job seems much like a DHR social worker, removing children from unsafe situations and making decisions with regard to their welfare. We were told that she would go with us today to take part in our conversation with Katya and Sergey and determine if these 2 children want us to adopt them. I had never thought about the possibility that they might not want to be adopted or might not want us to be their parents. I had not seen them in a year, and Bobby had never met them before today.
We arrived at the orphanage, a large stone building, where it was like a home-coming. We saw kids at most windows, waving at us. In the hallway, kids were running to see us, even kids I did not know. Do you think they know what visitors; couples in particular, are here for? Without a doubt!!! Very soon, we were greeted by kids that we knew from summer hosting programs and those that I had met last October. Also were 3 of our children: Katya, Sergey, and Sasha. This all seems unreal. Word travels fast at the orphanage and soon Yulia came to see us. After many hugs, kisses, and greetings, we were invited into the cafeteria for lunch with the orphanage director, Larissa. She is a wonderful hostess and always takes the time to feed everyone that arrives. Denis translated for us our conversations with the kids and with Larissa. Larissa did not stay to eat with us, but left for other business. Yulia’s adoption status is unclear and we are hoping that there has been a mistake and that she can be adopted at some point. Denis, the inspector, Nina and Larissa will work on this for us. We told Yulia about the problems with her documents and that we will be unable to take her and Sasha with us this visit. We knew that this would be the most difficult time of our visit. How do you tell a 14 year old that you can not take her or her brother? How do you tell her that you will take 2 other children? It was extremely difficult and very emotional. With this being done, we now had to talk to Sergey and Katya, who we had already seen in the hallway. Bobby and I, Denis, and the inspector were shown to Larissa’s office where she talked to the kids for a long time about what life would be like in America. They were then asked if they would like for us to adopt them. Sergey is very calm and reserved and said, “Da” (yes, in Russian). Katya said, “Da” but was so excited she was trembling. We all finished our conversation, took a few pictures and left Larissa’s office. As you can imagine, Yulia and Sasha were still very upset and we tried to comfort them as best we could. Katya and Sergey also joined in on comforting Sasha and Yulia and for several hours the 6 of us spent time together taking pictures, laughing, talking, and enjoying being together. These children all want to be together and part of the same family. They are bonded to each other already. We even spent time in prayer with Denis and all of our children to pray for our situation, for Yulia’s documentation, and for peace and comfort with this difficult time. Hopefully we will know more by Monday about Yulia. The day ended so well, but was an overwhelming day, to say the least. There are so many beautiful kids in this orphanage (about 350) and they all want and need some love and attention. If only we can touch each one of them in some way while we are here.

November 14, 2007

Following our appointment with the SDA yesterday, we were told by Sasha that he would try to find out about Y. Would she be adoptable? Could her documents be corrected? Could she be adopted now? In March? In a year? So we waited. We were still with the Wests, staying at Orphanage 21. Although we did not know them well previously, we grew to know and love them very much. They continue to have problems with their passport issue (stolen last week and to this point unable to get new ones), but I feel that God kept them here just to comfort us. Their newly adopted kids are wonderful and it has been wonderful to get to know them all. We were tired of the apartment after a while and decided to walk several miles away to the out-door market where you can buy all sorts of things: hats, gloves, shoes, makeup, wedding dresses, each being sold at separate vendors. The kids needed new boots, since there was still snow on the ground and their tennis shoes were soaked after a short time playing outside.
We received a call from Sasha at 4pm confirming that, after many conversations with others, Y. is not adoptable, probably because she has a guardian. Bobby and I had already discussed every scenario and new that with this information, we would be going to Zap… to get our other 2 children (K. and S.).. We had one hour to get back from the outdoor market, pack our things and be ready for Sasha to pick us up at 5pm. We made it back just as Sasha arrived. We threw things in our suitcases, hoping that we had gotten everything important. We managed to leave one very important item: our jar of peanut butter (Cecilla, we’;ll swap you one green mesh bag that we inadvertently took, for one jar of peanut butter).
We said our good-byes to the Wests and to Bogdan, the assistant director of the orphanage. He is a wonderful, Christian man, truly working at the orphanage as his ministry and helping the older children further their education and become skilled at different trades. If only every orphanage had a Bogdan to provide the motivation that these kids need….
After several stops (Sasha is the most efficient businessman and combines unrelated business transactions en route to others), we arrived at the train station to take the overnight train to Zap. We had so much luggage that we needed to ride 2nd class (the tiny room with 4 bunks), so that we would have 2 bunks just to hold it all. Hopefully, we will get a good night’s sleep because we need it after the stress of the last 24 hours. When we awaken, we should be in Zap.

November 13, 2007

It is about 9:30 pm here and we are sitting in our room enjoying the West’s daughter Danay as she plays with here baby doll. It is something I need after the rough day we had. Today was our appointment at the SDA, the first step in going to the orphanage to get our children. At the appointment we were informed that according to there records one of the children we want to adopt is not registered or available for adoption, one would not be available until March and that we could go now and get the other two. We had thought that all four of our children were registered and available for adoption but you never know until you go for your appointment. As I fought back my tears the lady at the SDA asked us what we wanted to do. She was just doing here job but she was asking us to make this decision that would change many lives in about five minutes. We asked if we could think about it over night and they graciously gave us until tomorrow to decide. We know that God brought us here for a reason. We just need him to make it clear to us what to do to ensure that his will be done, and we need it by tomorrow. Do we go and get two and possibly come back and get the others or do we wait until they all are available, (which could be never)? Because they are all in the same orphanage it would mean that we go there and have to tell two of the children we can’t take them. I am sorry I am going around in circles but that is what is going on in my head. Please pray that God will show us the way. We will update everyone tomorrow.

Kim and Bobby.

11-11-07

Day 1

After a full 24 hours+ of traveling/waiting/praying, we are here. Our final itinerary looked nothing like our original one with the exception that we started out in B’ham and ended in Ukraine. The most miraculous thing is that every piece of our luggage made it with us!!! We were so happy to see our facilitator at the airport since we had no way to reach him to inform him of our change in time/change in airlines, etc. (even our changed itinerary had changed). We were also so happy and blessed to arrive at our apartment where our friends met us. We have the benefit of observing the interactions of this couple with their newly-adopted 3 russian speaking siblings and only have a small inkling of an idea of the challenges that we will face in the near future.
We must have been extremely tired because we slept until 12:00noon local time (that is only 4am B’ham time for those of you that do not know the time conversion). We are hoping to adjust to the time change soon. When we awoke,, we looked out the window to a huge surprise-about 4 inches of snow and still falling!!! It was the kind of snow that I remember as a child, before the weathermen and other began to sensationalize the weather. We would just wake up to snow and it would always be a wonderful surprise. Now we hear about a possible snow 5-7 days in advance, schools shut down, you can’t find a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk in all of Alabama, and then we get rain!!!
It has now been snowing all day, there is probably 6 inches and it is beautiful everywhere except the streets which are full of dirty slush. I am so happy that we packed snow boots the day before we left. We are actually staying in an orphanage and one of the orphan boys told Bobby that he looked like a cowboy with his felt hat and camouflage muck boots on. He is definitely in his element and loves this cold, wet weather. If only he had a gun and could see a flock of geese flying overhead!!!
Our plan at this point is our appointment on Tuesday, receive our referral on Wednesday and ride the train Wednesday night to Zap in southern Ukraine. Our facilitator had planned on driving us to Zap, but the snow will limit his auto speed to 60mph or less, so he tells us that the train will be much safer (after riding with him driving, aka hovering the ground with the wheels touching only occasionally, I agree that the train will be safer). However we get there, we are ready to see our kids.
Those friends that are arriving in the next couple of days/weeks, pack warm/water-proof clothes for outside and shorts/t-shirts for inside.
Last night we walked several blocks, rode the bus several miles then boarded the metro for several miles to eat at the Phat House with other friends. It was so much fun, but I am not sure if we will ever find our way back there without a tour guide. Well it is almost supper time now so we will sign off for the day. God bless all of you there and please remember to pray for those here and those yet to come.


Kim & Bobby.

Our cell phone (toll free for us) is 011380674572202. Please remember, this call may cost you international calling fees.

Almost ready to leave

I'm not sure how the minutes/days have gone so quickly!! Two weeks ago, we said, "We have 2 weeks to get ready and packed" (feeling that it was forever). Now, after numerous trips to wal-mart and other stores and packing more than we need for a year, we are almost ready to go. Not only are we ready physically, but also spiritually and mentally. The trip over will probably be a very long one because we are so ready to be there. We have not seen these children in over a year. I can only imagine how ready they are to leave the orphanage and begin a new life with a family!!!
We will not actually see them until next Wednesday or Thursday as we will be in Kiev until then. We know 2 families that are currently in Kiev adopting and are looking forward to spending time with them while we are there. I am sure that we will have much to talk about and Bobby and I have many notes to take about the Ukrainian side of this process.
Our thanks to all of you: family, friends, fellow adoptees, co-workers and neighbors are so inadequate compared to the blessings that you have given us through this journey for the past 2 years. We love you all and thank you so much for the prayers and support that you have given us!!!
Please pray specifically for bonding with our children, a speedy and safe trip (of course we would love to be back in 3-4 weeks), and that we will not miss out on a single blessing that God has for us or that He wants us to be for someone else. Also, pray for our ears and eyes to be open and in tune with God's voice/guidance.
Isaiah 30:21