Sasha's smiles, Edna 's tears and Mark's determination to make it all work out

Sasha is very happy about being adopted. he likes to show the other kids the little photo book of our house and pets. He's enjoying the attention from us and from his peers. it's very sweet, in a 100% boy way of being sweet.

I have continued to have my ups and downs Sometimes I want to run away to 2008, but that is impossible and I have to build a new life. I know I drive Mark crazy sometimes, but the adoption has a way of highlighting the loss of Mary Evelyn for me and it can add to my grief. I am sure it will get better in time, and  because of the way this has unfolded, I believe that we are doing something good so I'm moving forward, hoping that my emotions will follow in time.

Saturday evening we'd just had another such moment of me crying and Mark being frustrated when we had to go to Vespers. The woman who hosted us for tea had invited us. It was a lovely service and when I thought the service was over, I went outside to wait for Mark on the church steps. The service, like Orthodox services have a way of doing, continued on longer than I expected and I was just considering if I should go back in when a young girl introduced herself to me. She spoke in nearly perfect English and was absolutely charming. Her father is the priest of that church; the woman we had tea with before, who is not the Matushka (which is the title for the priest's wife--btw, shows how charades can give you the wrong idea), had called them so we could meet. The girl, Sophie, introduced us to her sister and father. He kindly offered to take us for a ride to visit the other Orthodox churches in this town. We were delighted.

We drove around Kovel and stopped by one beautiful church after another. Most of them were brand new as the Communists had destroyed nearly every church in this town.  Most of them now have congregations of about 100 families. When we arrived at various churches on our tour, many were still having vespers so we could go inside briefly and sometimes we met the priest. There were about 12 churches including one that is a monastery. The monastery and its church were also destroyed by the Communists, and our priest/tour guide told us that the bodies of many monks were discovered on the site, those who were summarily martyred at the time the buildings were destroyed.  There is one new monk who is rebuilding; the new church will rise from the very spot of the original one,  where so many hallowed remains were discoveredI.  The location was especially lovely, just outside the town on a little island. It was very peaceful on the island and I wondered at the faith if this one monk who is working so hard by himself to re-establish the once thriving monastery.

here is a photo of one of the newest churches:

 

We felt comfortable with Sophie and her family and enjoyed our time together.  she is a wonderful translator, and it was interesting to get to talk to her parents about many things.  God gave us a  lovely blessing by providing such kind new friends here and it made me think about how that will be one of the simple wonders of heaven: I expect that we'll become friends with all kinds of people we never would've met on earth and we'll have plenty of time to get to know them.

When we came home to the hotel at the end of the evening, Mark said it could be inspiring to me to see how these people are rebuilding after loss.  Leave it to Mark to turn it into an object lesson. How do I live with this man!?

The next morning we went to church with the orphans. It was so hot and stuffy in church that one little girl fainted from the heat. Afterwards, thankful to be in the cool outside air, we walked back across the street to the school with the kids.

There is a little boy named Ruslan who caught our eye from our first visit to the orphanage.  He is Sasha's best friend, and despite an early life of extreme deprivation, he exhibits a poise, intelligence, sweetness and responsibility that have amazed us.  Mark had given him a little gift on Saturday, and when Mark saw him and Sasha playing with it on Sunday, Mark asked him if he liked it.  He gave a big smile and nod and them eagerly whispered something in Sasha's ear.  Sasha then turned to Mark and asked to call our translator, presumably to deliver Ruslan's message.  After trying unsuccessfully to reach Luda on the phone, Mark asked Ruslan to write down what he wanted to say to him. He wrote a short sentence and gave it to Mark with a nervous smile and a gesture that it was a secret.  As this was going on, another little boy was crying, the little girl who had fainted was still out of sorts, and the kids seemed more tired and somehow younger than usual and I couldn't help thinking how much they all need parents.

After we left the school, we tried to translate the sentence and only got the first part : I want nothing from you.  We were very curious about the second part which had a crucial word that we couldn't decipher. Later in the day we went on a picnic to a lake with Sophie and her family and she translated the whole message for us : "I want nothing from you,  I just want you to adopt me."

Oh my! The first answer is it's not possible right now as we've used up our SDA appointments. The second answer is we will go home, get adjusted and see. This tugs at our hearts as we are actually quite taken with this boy, too, but it's not simple. He is almost 13, has living parents who visit, several older siblings in their twenty's and one older sister who is almost 16. She seems to be a lovely girl and we would want to adopt them both if we adopted Ruslan. We have been considering it, but it is not wise to make promises you don't know for sure you can keep so we are handling this carefully. Our translator, Luda, will help us talk to them next week.
 
We had a quiet and pleasant visit with Sasha this morning. Like Mary Evelyn, he'd rather play than read or study, but we spend part of each visit working on developing English skills (he knows about 20 words) and reading things like Go Dog, Go! Sasha will have to do better with English than I have done with Ukrainian or we're in big trouble! Like me, he gets by with big smiles and gestures. Smiling and pointing is good for somethings, but not much. Oh well, the most important thing is he seems like a very emotionally healthy child and is certainly smart enough to pick up the language when he realizes he must.

The hotel is hosting a big, loud party right now. Wow. Maybe we should crash it?  
I think we'll just have coffee and desert in our room tonight. We took a long walk earlier and picked up a little cake! yum! I love life in Kovel. The people can walk to everything they need, even to a loud, wild hotel party on a Monday night!