Day 12

After a long night, we are in Kramatorsk. The buildings are similar to that of Kiev but the language is more Russian. While the verbal dialects are not that different, the letters are. But I'm sure you are wondering why we are in Kramatorsk and not in the Kiev region, like we thought we'd be. At the last SDA appointment, God pointed out the girls to us: two sisters. They were presented before but we were told that the younger was in too poor of health for us to handle. But they were wrong. So, after checking into a nice hotel we got permission to visit the orphanages. First we went to the Kramatorsk orphanage, where we were presented with Angelina. She is almost 5, is beautiful, small, has brown eyes that match Jennifer’s, has light brown hair, and surprised us immensely. I didn't know what to expect, but when she came into the room, I crouched down to her level and she came right to me saying "Papa". If you need that translated, that's Russian for Daddy =). Then I realized that I had to share her with Jennifer. I set her on the chair, we gave her a stuffed Mickey Mouse, some “pi-chen-yeh” (peanut butter crackers – peanut butter is very rare), a drawing that Noah made, and showed her pictures. She said that she wants to live with us there in the house. She wants to sleep in her room. She loves her Papa and Mama. We spent some time with her and got to meet her "teacher". Every adult there is a nurse or doctor, so she is well taken care of. The doctor gave us the run down. She has a slight lazy eye but otherwise she is in good health. The orphanage loves their children and was happy to see us come and love on her. They had no problems approving us. The next orphanage director was not that easy.
Next we went to Slovansk. It’s about 20 kilometers north east of Kramatorsk. Upon meeting the director, we spoke for an hour. Our translator and facilitator did very well and we respectively answered her questions. Eventually she agreed that we could adopt but though we were told that Victoria was there, she was actually at camp, which was another 40 kilometers away. With her permission, and one of the staff, we ventured out to the camp. Sometime later, we met Victoria. Victoria is 7, has deep brown eyes, soft brown hair, is slender, has a nice brown skin tone, and very beautiful. She reminds me of the pictures of Jennifer when she was a young girl at her age. She was very excited and ran right to Jennifer and hugged her. She also couldn't understand why she couldn't leave right away. We gave her a stuffed Mickey Mouse, some peanut butter crackers, some pictures, and Nick's drawing. She took to the boys right away. She also couldn't understand why we didn't speak Russian but she wants to live with us, she wants to sleep in her bed in her room. We didn't have as long with her as she needed to get back to her schedule. But we exchanged a lot of hugs and kisses. When we left each girl, we all teared up. The boys love their sisters and try their hardest to play. Unfortunately, Victoria's director will not allow us to see her everyday while she is at camp. We appreciate that she is at camp though as she is much happier there and there is less stress from the director. I don't have pictures yet. We needed to wait until we formally submitted our request to adopt - but that tail is for tomorrow.