Visiting with Viktor and Sasha

January 16: Valery was at the court as soon as they opened to get the corrections made to the Decree. I decided to call Lillia at the US Embassy in Kiev to ask for her help concerning Viktor’s passport process. We met Valery in the cafe for breakfast and then rode with him to get the new copies from the court. Afterwards, the taxi dropped us off at the orphanage to visit with Galina and the boys while Valery returned to Zaporozhe. Galina was very glad to see us and greeted Tamara with an embrace. We had been given a package by another American adoptive family, The Spanglers, to give to Galina so we presented it to her. She was overjoyed to see the letters and pictures. Since Valery wasn’t with us, we were all happy to see Viktor and Sasha enter the office because this meant that we would have some help communicating with each other. Sasha and Tamara roughly translated the Spangler’s letter for Galina before we went with the boys to the library to spend some time with them.

We had a good time talking with each other and were amazed at how well they understood us. Viktor had obviously learned a new phrase since we had been gone because he told us “one moment” when he wanted us to wait for him. We were impressed. Sasha was still ahead of him in speaking and understanding but Viktor had obviously progressed a lot over the past couple of weeks. Tamara decided to teach the boys something crucial to survival in the Deep South. She explained to them about the definition of “ya’ll” and how to pronounce it. This can be confusing to people who have never heard it, and in Alabama it’s a word that is sprinkled into every day conversation liberally, but you won’t find it on Rosetta Stone. Tamara also felt that we needed to explain the details of the long trip home and tell them how many planes they would be taking. She wanted to prepare them for travel on an airplane, and we gave some descriptions of what that is like. When we adopted Brooke, she threw up on every plane, so we felt a little preparation wouldn’t hurt. We also discussed the possibility of Viktor’s delay. Viktor was disappointed to learn that he would probably have to wait a few more weeks but he agreed that it would be best for his brothers to go on before him and get started in school. After over three hours of visiting with each other, it was time for us to take a taxi back to the hotel and then to Takmak to meet Valery and obtain the new birth certificates.

Lillia called me back with what initially seemed like good news about Viktor but after she talked with Valery, we learned that the delay is caused because he is registered with the military and needs to be taken off the draft list since he will be immigrating to America. We continued to pray that God would make this process as short as possible. After about 1 ½ hours, we arrived in Takmak and began searching for the birth certificate office. Finally, we were able to meet Valery’s taxi and he joined us. He told us that we had an hour before the certificates would be ready so we decided to get something to eat. After eating a delicious and overdue meal, we drove through a maze of small roads on a hospital complex to the office. The two ladies were very cordial to us even though they both had to work overtime to complete the certificates. Valery had told them about these three boys giving us a total of seven children adopted from Ukraine so they told us that we should have some kind of monument erected in our honor. We told them that God had blessed us by what he had led us to do and they wished us His continued blessings. This was the only point so far that gave Tamara tears in her eyes, when they handed us the boys’ birth certificates. After driving back to Berdyansk, I checked email and updated our expenses on my laptop before going to bed.